Curb appeal is a big deal to home sellers and homebuyers, but the thrill of a great landscape isn’t exclusive to folks on the move. If you’re comfortably settled and like your location, landscape renovations give you the opportunity to reinvent the look and feel of your home without buying a new house.
When you’ve lived in your home for a few seasons, you’ve had time to realize what works well and what doesn’t in your landscape. You’ve seen the places in the yard that are problematic. Do any of these sound familiar?
- Lawn and driveway spots that fill with puddles
- Sun beating down (or wind roaring through) bare spots in the yard
- No outdoor seating or inviting recreation areas
- Overgrown shrubs and trees that bend or break under the weight of winter weather
- Sickly or moss-invaded lawn
- No privacy
- Boring views
A landscape renovation is doubly gratifying when you’re solving irritating problems and adding beauty and function to the home you love. Here are three approaches to getting a refreshing new house feel without packing a single box.
Out With the Old
Are existing plants or shrubs sick or overcrowded? Are they unattractive? Maybe they’re simply too high maintenance for your busy schedule. Getting rid of overgrown plantings creates a clean look, encourages healthy growth of what’s left, and helps control pest problems.
Update and Upgrade
Decks and Patios
Has a weatherbeaten deck or concrete patio caused drainage issues for way too long? Exchange it for a paver patio. New eco-friendly materials are available in more colors and shapes than ever before. They’re great for controlling runoff and can enhance the overall look and feel of your home by complementing its style.
To take full advantage of all pavers can offer, choose a product specifically designed to allow gaps and drainage. Mutual Materials offers a variety of Eco-Priora® and Eco-Stone® options that can be laid in attractive patterns for patios, driveways, and pathways.
Lawn and Plantings
When garden beds are new, it’s easy for excited homeowners to overplant. However, what started as a pretty riot of color can become a tangled, stunted mess as plants compete for the space they need in maturity. Updating your plants by thinning and pruning significantly improves their performance and health over time.
Consider exchanging labor intensive exotic plants for native specimens. They’re naturally adapted to the climate and require little assistance to grow and thrive. Adding pollinator-friendly native plant material is another way to offer an environmentally positive benefit to your local ecosystem.
Instead of replacing your lawn, redo it. Green spaces play an important part in maintaining high air quality and a temperate climate. Foot for foot, a healthy lawn will outperform even an eco-friendly paver patio with superior drainage and clean water benefits.
Shrubs and Trees
If your shrubs and trees have been left unattended for their first few seasons, it’s not too late to retrain them for better function and safety. With timely intervention and consistent maintenance, retraining reduces the risk of failure around your home. After all, a well-kept hedgerow is much less likely to buckle and break during the winter time than an overgrown one.
Example: Leyland Cypress
The mighty Cupressus × leylandii has the unfortunate distinction of being the #1 evergreen that Frontier Tree Service sees split apart due to winter failure. While the problem is based in the tree’s genetics, young Leyland Cypress trees do well when retrained as hedges. Hardier than arborvitae, they make excellent screens as they grow to maturity.
Irrigation
Irrigation technology has come a long way. Nowadays, remote timers and high-efficiency systems offer the most cost-effective and environmentally conscious solution for watering your property. Replace an old ‘spray and pay’ sprinkler system with efficient drip irrigation and a rain sensor to shut off sprinklers when it’s raining to save water. Click to learn more about Frontier Landscaping irrigation services.
Beautiful Additions
While the first years in a new home can be preoccupied with settling in, as time goes on it’s natural to want to more fully express your style on the exterior as well as within. Basic landscapes don’t usually include the richly textured details that take a landscape from ordinary to breathtaking. If you’re ready to really enjoy your views from indoors and out, consider adding structure and depth with one or more of the following pieces:
- Trees and shrubs with eye-catching seasonal color or edibles
- Accent rockery/boulders (see a great example: Parade of Homes landscape)
- Rain garden
- Dry creek bed
- Hardscaping
- Outdoor lighting
- Fire pit
- Flagstones and Pavers
- Path & Patio
- Retaining wall
- Water feature
Are you ready to update your landscape’s look? Frontier Landscaping Inc was established in 1988 for the purpose of providing customers with a full-service landscape experience. We specialize in high-end residential landscapes, but we’re available for projects of any scope and size. Contact us today to talk about transforming your landscape with an attractive, inviting look and feel.
Fan the flames of inspiration by visiting our photo-filled Ideabooks on Houzz – the #1 site in the world for home and landscape renovation ideas: