Your front and back yard is the key to curb appeal and becoming the envy of your block. The power of first impressions doesn’t stop at homes, and a home with tidy and well-designed landscaping will turn heads. But you don’t need to spend a fortune to achieve this level of curb appeal – even basic lawncare and maintenance can go a long way in improving the visual appeal of your home and boosting your property value.
In this article, we’re sharing a few landscaping tips to improve the curb appeal of your home:
Plan First
Landscaping efforts and maintenance can easily slip out of control without proper planning and preparation. It all starts in the Fall and Winter, when many plants are dormant, and your yard is in a least impressive state. This is the best time to meet with your landscaper to devise a plan for your yard. Are you happy about the sizes, colours, and locations of various vegetation and plants around your property? Are you considering a fence, pathways, or other hardscaping element? Now is the time to plan.
Once you’re got a landscaping plan in the works, creating a spring maintenance schedule will ensure your plants are well cared for and your stress levels remain under control. Each plant will have different needs, and it can be difficult to stay on top of everything without a schedule. You need to consider weeding, pruning, trimming, sweeping, fertilizing, mulching, and more.
Regular Lawncare
One of the foundational strategies for keeping a clean, tidy yard is regular lawncare. By failing to keep the grass cut, your lawn and entire yard will quickly begin to look uncared for and messy. This is particularly true if you have weeds growing or extra long grass growing in the ditches near your property line.
If landscaping is the key to curb appeal, your lawn is the best place to start. Regular grass cutting is one piece of the puzzle, but if you’re grass is dead, then it won’t look like much. Regular watering combined with regular grass cutting will take your lawn to the next level.
As a bonus, regular lawncare is the best way to mitigate more costly maintenance down the road. Pests, weeds, and diseases will have a difficult time thriving in a lawn that’s maintained regularly.
Plant Some Trees
A yard with no trees feels a bit naked. Adding trees will help to give your property a more complete look, while providing quite a few other benefits. Keep in mind trees look good in the winter too, at a time when almost everything else will be dead or dormant.
Trees are the best natural source of shade. Giving your driveway, house, and garage a little shelter from the sun will help keep things cooler in the hotter months, and also protect some of your more sensitive plants.
If you have neighbours in close proximity to your home, a few trees will go along way in providing your family with some much-needed privacy. Trees and shrubs can replace the need for a fence entirely if done right, and different heights can block windows and views into your yard.
Finally, trees are magnificent givers of life. Trees provide plenty of oxygen for keeping your outdoor air quality nice and fresh, plus they’ll attract small, harmless wildlife like birds and squirrels.
Consider Hardscaping Elements
Hardscaping elements are the ‘hard’ parts of your yard that are built, not grown. These elements provide organization, texture, and depth while also making your yard look more aesthetically pleasing and well-designed. Plus, they’re dead easy to maintain. Without these hardscape features, your yard will tend to look a little flat, disorganized, and overgrown.
Some of the more common hardscaping features include:
- Walkways. Walkways are great for any home because they make the property look more accessible and welcoming. You can build them from a range of good-looking materials too, like brick, stone, gravel or paving.
- Fire pit area. Ideal for the backyard, a stone fire pit area with some outdoor furniture is the ultimate summertime hangout spot.
- Tiered gardens. Tiered gardens will literally and figuratively elevate the appearance of your yard. This is also a great strategy if you’re dealing with a steep slope in your yard and can help with drainage.
- Water features. Add a splash of elegance and sophistication with a small fountain in your front yard. Also consider a small pool or pond in the back!
- Lighting. Illuminate your yard with tasteful garden lighting and avoid the horror movie look. Besides helping you see when it’s dark out and preventing injuries, outdoor lighting will extend your curb appeal after dark.
Don’t Stop the Weeding
One of your biggest landscaping maintenance tasks as a homeowner will be weeding. Weeds grow naturally in gardens and lawns, and can wreak havoc in your yard by spawning problematic insects, spreading harmful diseases, and destroying the other plants. Weeds are certainly bad and should be dealt with regularly. Not sure what common BC weeds look like? Check out the province’s handy Guide to Weeds in BC.
Weeding is a good idea at least a couple times a month, and once a week for extra ambitious gardeners with lots of at-risk plants. During the planting season and early growing season there won’t be much to tackle, but once the season goes on, weeding will keep you busy.
Trim and Manicure
If you’re committed to maintaining a beautiful looking property and yard, trimming, pruning and manicuring will be a steady job. Shrubs, trees and bushes tend to grow out of control, so a little trimming will keep things looking tidy and cared for. Dead flowers can be dead-headed and removed, and certain plants will need to be pruned back regularly, so be sure to do your research!
Here are a couple yard trimming tips:
- Keep the shrubs at similar heights. This will help give your yard an organized and manicured look.
- Trim more at the top. To look more natural, a hedge or bush should be wider at the bottom than the top.
- Use a guide. A level rope or string tied across the top of your trimmed shrubbery will help you cut in a straight line.
- Don’t forget the inside. The inside of bushes, trees and shrubs need to room to breath, grow, and absorb sunshine.
Ready to boost the curb appeal of your property and take your landscaping to the next level? O’Callaghan Exteriors has a specialized landscaping team to handle all of your landscaping, trimming, planting, grass cutting, and hardscaping needs. Contact us today for a landscaping quote!