Add Outdoor Appeal with Minimal Cost

Whether you are trying to sell your home or just continue enjoying it, a beautiful, comfortable outdoor area will add value to the property. We offer a few tips to jazz up your landscape, easily and cheaply.

The landscaping of your home, in the front or back, gives visitors, guests and potential buyers an impression of your home, good or bad. One study has shown that a well-landscaped outside area can add as much as 11% to the market price of a home! Early spring is the perfect time to assess what needs to be done to your property, before the “bare bones” of your landscape is obscured by foliage and greenery.

A recent Parade article offers several questions to ask yourself to assess what your yard needs.

1. Do you see things you would rather not see, such as a neighbor’s untidy yard, air conditioning units or a street? Is it possible to screen them year-round?

2. Do you have structural points of interest, such as stone walls, trellises or evergreens that draw the eye outward from the home’s sight lines?

3. Are the features of your home reflected in your property, such as materials and styles of walkways, fences and walls?

4. Do you need to repair or replace anything, like decks, sidewalks or fences?

5. Do you have plants in your yard with plants that are attractive year-round, such as evergreens, winter-blooming plants (like witch hazel or hellebores), clumping grasses or shrubs or trees with interesting bark?

Now that you have looked at your yard with an objective eye, Parade provides several low-cost tips to improving the look of your property.

Bring house and garden together. Soften the lines of your house by adding a trellis, climbing vines and container plantings to a side of your home. You only need a lattice to cut and shape (or just a simple trellis), paint, plants and your time. If you do it yourself, it should cost around $200, while hiring a pro would cost about $1500. You can group large containers around a side or rear doorway, and plant small evergreen shrubs or flowering annuals. This immediately makes the entryway more inviting without the trouble and money required by carpentry or masonry. Designer Kenneth Brown of HGTV’s show “reDesign,” has used this technique to dress up homeowners’ cement or brick walls that they can’t afford to replace. He suggests that you group containers in odd numbers to please the eye the most.

Create an outdoor “room.” Add space and value to your home by giving yourself and your family another area in which to play, relax or entertain. First, look at your yard and decide which areas you want to continue using for other purposes, such as entertaining, playing or gardening, and figure out what is left. As Brown says, “sometimes it’s as easy as investing in outdoor furniture and grouping it in that space” to convert the unused space into a “room.” You can also define an outdoor room by using a lattice “room divider” or overhead pergolas. With a trellis, just install standard 4x4 corner posts and put the lattice between them. You can then plant rapid-climbing annual vines, such as morning glory or sweet pea or blooming perennials, such as wisteria or honeysuckle. This serves to screen a patio from neighbors, as well as separate entertaining, gardening and play areas. Another option is to install low-growing hedges or a line of small shrubs. This creates a living “green” wall that defines your outdoor room. “For one project at the back of a yard, we put in some boxwood hedges with fast-growing ficus behind them, then added some benches, a birdbath—all in a part of the yard they used to mow and not use,” Brown says.

Don’t play it straight—try curvy. Gently curved walks of brick, cement or stone pavers can add instant appeal to your home. A curve is also a bit more appealing to the eye. By the same token, you can install plant beds that have undulating edges instead of straight lines. Experiment with lines by laying down a garden hose before you install a wall or start planting.

Camouflage your eyesores. Maybe you have a clunky air conditioning unit, or a rundown garden shed. For the latter, Brown describes a project he oversaw: “We created a wall of greenery to camouflage one side—again with lattice and foliage. We painted it the same color scheme as the house, planted little cypress trees on either side of the doors and gave it some curb appeal.

Eradicate clutter. Clutter can immediately take away from the aesthetic value of your yard. Try adding outdoor toy and tool boxes to help tame the clutter. Also, be smart about lawn ornaments and vary them seasonally. As Brown suggests, “Don’t just plop the cherub or bunny. Find a nice bush or vine to pair with, or combine it with a grouping. Have fun with the statuary and knickknacks. Just don’t do it all at once.”

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