Timely Trends
Are you tired of looking out at your lackluster yard? Do you want to transform your outdoor space into something more welcoming and inviting? If so, we’ve got you covered! When working with clients that want to add more curb appeal to their home, one of the people that we refer them to is local landscape architect and contractor Lydia Krause with Sundial Landscaping. That’s why we went to her to get some easy, low-cost landscape design ideas for taking a space from boring to beautiful that we could pass on to you.
Bring Focus to the Front Door
If you are standing and looking at a house and your eye goes immediately to the front door, it makes a property seem more welcoming. In addition, bringing focus to the front door lets people know where to go when they get out of the car.
Lydia says that you can achieve both of these goals by adding pathways and walkways and by making sure that even if the front porch or stoop is fairly small, all big shrubs on either side of it have been removed so there is a clear line of sight to the front door.
Adding plants that have color either in flower or foliage or adding things that have some type of architectural form to the front door area is another suggestion. This could include a cone-shaped plant or a big pot that’s colorful with annuals.
Create Crisp Edge Around Beds
Creating crisp edges around beds is another easy landscape design idea to make your yard pop and look cared for. Lydia advises that even if you have natural areas, you don’t want them to bleed into the lawn area. One option is to create a physical barrier such as metal, plastic, or stone edges. If you prefer a more natural look, Lydia says that digging a little trench around the bed that you can put mulch into will give it a nice clean line.
Keep Shrubs and Trees Pruned Off the House
Since as Lydia puts it, we don’t want our homes to “look spooky,” keeping dead tree branches and overgrown shrubs away from the house is a must. While Lydia prefers a natural shape for shrubs, whatever your shape of choice, they should be below the window, so they are in proportion with the house. It’s also important not to assume that the shrubs that came with your house are the right ones for it. Lydia cautions that many builders put in three-gallon shrubs because they usually look better with any home initially. In four to five years though, it becomes clear they aren’t a good fit because they have to be pruned three times a year to keep them in proportion with the house. If you’re having to do that, you may want to consider different shrubs that are a better fit for the size and style of your home.
Have Interesting and Colorful Plantings in Front of House
Having colorful and interesting plantings in front of the house helps to add interest and appeal to your entire property. It also helps to bridge the outdoors with the indoors and gives people an idea of the feel they can expect the inside of your home to have.
Lydia loves native plants because they bring birds, wildlife, and color to a yard and can stay beautiful for years. They also need fewer, if any, chemicals and less water, so a much lower level of maintenance is needed.
Address Any Standing Water
Addressing standing water in your yard is not only important aesthetically, but it helps to keep moisture away from the foundation of your home, prevents erosion on your property, and helps to keep mosquitoes away. Lydia says that many people just resign themselves to having “a swampy yard” when in reality, it can be fixed. This is one suggestion that may require outside expertise because the cause of the standing water has to be identified before possible solutions can be implemented.
Bottom Line on Landscape Design Ideas for Your Home
The bottom line on all of these landscape design ideas is that it doesn’t take a lot of money or too much work to get your yard looking welcoming and inviting. If you decide that you don’t want to do it yourself, getting a professional to give you ideas may not be as expensive as you think. In Lydia’s case, she charges an hourly rate for design but then credits up to half of that back if the homeowner decides to hire her team for installation. Whether you decide to call in a professional or do it yourself, adding even a few landscaping elements is an effective way to add quick curb appeal and personal enjoyment of your space.
How to Ask Us About a Trend
If you have a question about a residential real estate trend that you’ve been seeing, we’d love to hear from you! Simply email marketing@westandwoodall.com, and we’ll get to your topic as soon as we can.