As spring gets into full swing, now’s the perfect time to make the most of the outdoor space around your home, from front door to the street and from the back patio to your property line.
Whether your intention is to spruce up your landscape to help sell your home or simply enjoy it all the more here are some time-tested tips to make your garden gorgeous:
- Pruning: Just like spring cleaning is a must inside your home, clipping back overgrown trees and shrubs and removing dead branches can quickly transform your landscape.
- Mulching: Often overlooked, applying a fresh layer of mulch to your garden is easy and inexpensive and does a wonderful job of brightening things up. Plus it helps you water and weed less.
- Washing: We tend to associate landscapes with natural elements, but paved surfaces like walkways and wood patios, as well as fencing and brick siding, are integral. Power-washing these facades will make dreary look new again.
- Color up: Absolutely nothing brings a landscape to life quite like flowers. Choose a floral focal point to add a dramatic splash of color as well as accent points across your garden. Consider the color of your house in deciding what hues to choose for your flowers a house with blue trim or red brick requires different olor combinations.
- Your house: Whether you like it or not, the most dominant element within your landscape isn’t the garden, it’s your house. Dress it up with flower boxes and trees that complement it and show off its best features. Take note of proportions a couple of flowers next to a three-story wall or long walkway are sure to get lost. Instead, create dramatic groupings of flowers and plants.
Looking for more landscaping ideas? Here and here are great places to start. And as always please share your own landscaping successes in the Shop Talk Blog community forum!
Did you know: There’s nothing like a plan
Plants, flowers, design proper landscaping isn’t easy. A landscape architect can provide a realistic and esthetically pleasing plan you can implement yourself for a reasonable price. (Source)
I love landscapeing it makes your house and yard looks beautiful especially much I love red much it’s s pretty color snd ot makes ypur flowers and bushes and trees look Beautiful and gravel walkway I love the most I love my landscape
I live in a 116 year old cottage style house. The backyard is open with flowers, especially bachelor buttons and plenty of iris, marigolds for butterflys and bees. These pollinators also like to bachelor buttons to gather the nectar from for honey and there is also some clover. I have iris planted in and around the backyard and the front yard for species iris. The front yards are a wonderful display of larkspur and does not require any mowing. The pollinators love these flower as a source of nectar. These two flowers are self sewing flowers and are so beautiful to the landscape. I also have a huge poppy plant that gets bigger every year and an invasive mallow that was sown in one place but has invaded places that makes it a weed. I have a parsley patch for monarchs and for yellow tail and black tails. The yellow tails show up early in spring as flying gems on the wing. Also have plantings of day lilies in many different places. All in all the plantings suit the style of the extremely lovely house.
First of all I wouldn’t have big bush’s or trees right up on the windows. The hedges would be fine for me. Plus a plan might be nice, but the best plan I’ve ever seen is the one that Mother Nature does. NO ryme or reason & her fields are always beautiful. Thats how my yard was done & I’ve always gotten lots of compliments. Nature planted the greatest trees iin the world & they are beautiful (Redwoods).Just my thoughts. I don’t even rake my dead leaves in the summer time. I Always wondered who did them in the forests so now I mulch mine up for food for the next generation of plants/grass.
Looks very nice, wish we had that kind of land, 1/4th acre side of a small hill, 1/5th is unuseable with a small stream through it.
I am a landscaper and I agree with the comments in the article. I live in Florida and we can garden all year long.
When you mulch put at least 2 to 3 inches AFTER you weed, this will help keep the weeds from coming back and if they do it will be easier to week the next time. If you take a quick look once a week and pull them right away it should only take you 5 to 10 minutes a week to weed.
My garden is all about native species and food production. I don’t do “prettification” or lawns or any other useless things. If it isn’t providing food for me or native critters, it has no place in my garden.
Would like some expert advice on how to reseed bald grass areas that get little sun. I have got high shade Pennington seed but prepping with top soil mixed with high-clay content base soil is a question mark for me.
Thank you!
Consider not having a lawn. It’s not environmentally sound. It takes too much water, fertilizer, pesticides, etc. Instead, use more trees, shrubs, other ground covers, etc.
I want to turn a dull garden spot into a flower garden but don’t quite know how. I do not have a lot of money and maybe I can buy a few at a time
This is very informative thank you
What is the name of the flowered hedge in front of this house?
I usually enjoy home gardening and inside floral display aka { arrangements}, I have been very much under the Weather for a couple of weeks. I am hoping to get back on my feet, soon. I have enjoyed this survey, very much. Thank you!
It sounds pretty interesting. I am anxious to participate in your survey.
Beautiful landscape
Now this was funny to fill out and things I might have missed a time or two beforehand. Hope I covered everything this time.
Great helpful information for making my home awesome.
As a Re -Tired Builder, App. Four Thousand Homes / The New Home on this Page has Curb “Appeal”. The Landscape is “Beyond Beautiful”.
I shopped at the Norton Shopko last week and found some neat buys on plants and bushes. I don’t live in Norton, but it is a treat to go there on occasion to see my family so I always stop at Shopko to see what their specials are.
Some of your garden stuff was on sale for a very competitive price. I left with $150 worth! And of course I also a magazine. The magazine department is always one of my stops!!
want and try other flowers mixed with the roses but I really don’t know what kind. I have 3 climbers and some are just rose bushes. Do any of you know of an idea I can use.?
I need to have help with my lawn and a new pump for my lawn watering system.
I also will need to Refrigerator and stove/oven in kitchen.
Unfortunately, I am on a very limited income and have taken care of my mother for past 5 years. This has made it impossible to get a job. I am retired, but it isn’t enough to do anything extra with.