The no-list matters more than the plant list
Around a pool, what you exclude does the heavy lifting. No trees that shed constantly or drop fruit over the water, no aggressive roots like willow or poplar within reach of the shell and plumbing, nothing spiny at the deck edge where bare feet pass, and put the bee magnets you love at the far side of the beds, not against the coping. Evergreens, grasses, and big clean foliage carry pool plantings for a reason: they look lush and drop almost nothing.
Year five of the sample plan — everything is lush, and not one leaf of it can reach the water.
Privacy is the whole project
You are in a swimsuit; sight lines matter more here than anywhere else on the property. Stand at the pool steps and at the loungers, find the exact windows and angles that overlook you, and screen those lines specifically, an evergreen backbone with tall grasses in front does it in layers. The growth timelapse answers the question every pool owner actually has: which summer does the screen finally close?
Resort is a style you can copy
The look that reads as resort is simple: clean bed lines, evergreen structure, grasses that move when the water does, one bold bloom repeated, and real shade near the water, a pergola or a well-placed small tree. Boulders at a corner settle the pool into the yard like it was built around them. Restraint photographs better than variety here; three plants repeated beat fifteen plants collected.
The pool already spent the money.
Nobody lands here with a budget left. The pool, the deck and the fence took it, which is exactly why this planting gets phased over years instead of quoted in one number — and why phasing works fine: the screen is the only part with a clock on it, so it goes in the first season while the trees are cheap whips, and everything else can wait. The pergola is next because built shade beats a grown tree you should not plant anyway. Hydrangeas, boulders and the finish work go in whenever. A year-by-year plan with a plant list, ready to hand a nursery, is exactly what the printable Painted Acre report gives you.
The pool plan · Zone 6a Ohio
Year 1
The screen and the deck line
Green Giant Arborvitae × 9whips · 6 ft apart · 15 ft off the shell
Maiden Grass × 5in front of the screen · 6 ft by August
Boxwood × 12the deck-line row · one straight run
To do this year
Plant the screen 15 ft off the shell — distance beats root barriers
Keep mulch 3 ft back from the coping; wet feet move it into the water
Water weekly the first summer — none of it has roots yet
Year 2
The comforts
Pergola on the deck corner — shade in one afternoon
Hydrangeas at both bed ends, the one bloom repeated
Grasses at the path landing where the walk meets the deck
Year 5
Whenever the budget returns
Set the boulder group at the far end of the pool
Screen the equipment pad — leave 3 ft to service it
By year 10: the evergreen wall closes and the job is done
From the sample plan's printable report — the screen in year one, the shade in year two, the finish work when the pool stops costing money.
The poolside palette, painted
Nothing here sheds into the water, sends roots at the shell, or stabs bare feet. Every plant is painted at every age, and your ZIP filters the palette to what survives your winters.
Green Giant Arborvitae
The privacy backbone: dense, evergreen, and it drops nothing in the water.
Zones 5–840 ft
Maiden Grass
Six feet of motion behind the loungers, screening at seated eye level by year two.
Zones 5–96 ft
Boxwood
Clean clipped structure along the deck line, tidy every month of the year.
Zones 5–94 ft
Hydrangea
The one bold bloom, repeated; big clean leaves and no litter mess.
Zones 3–86 ft
Boulder
A grouped outcrop at the pool corner grounds the whole scene.
Zones 1–132 ft
Pergola
Real shade by the water without waiting a decade for a tree.
Zones 1–139 ft
What to expect, honestly: Year 1: the hardscape looks finished, the arborvitae are chest high, and the grasses already screen by late summer. Year 4: the evergreen screen closes and the pool becomes a room. Year 8: the trees have height, the boulders have settled in, and the yard reads resort from every lounger.
Questions people ask
▸Can I design pool landscaping on a photo of my own pool?
Yes. Upload a photo taken from the deck or the house, plant the surround, draw the screen line and place the hardscape, then drag the years forward. You can try it on a sample yard first, and no account is needed.
▸Can I see how close the trees really are once they are full size?
This is the question the plan view exists for. It draws your design from directly above to scale, with every plant at its full mature spread, so you can see which tree eventually reaches over the water before you plant it three feet from the coping.
▸Will it show the privacy screen closing in year by year?
The year slider repaints the same design at each age on its real growth curve, so you see the honest gap in year two and the year the screen finally does its job. Nothing matures early to make the plan look better.
▸Does it know which plants suit my zone?
Enter your ZIP and the palette filters to your USDA hardiness zone, so every plant you set around the deck is one that survives your winters.
▸What do I get at the end?
A watercolor of the designed pool surround, the growth view from year one to year twenty, and a printable report with a to-scale plan view from above, a year-by-year plan and a shopping list with price estimates.
