There’s kind of a dilemma when you’re planning to sell your house, and we’re not talking about how to hide that spot where your dog ate half the windowsill.
You know landscaping and home value are connected, but you don’t want to invest a ton of money in a house you’re leaving. At the same time, you know your home will sell faster and for a better price if it has impressive curb appeal.
When you’re landscaping for curb appeal, what projects are your best bets?
Let’s take a look:
First, Landscaping and Home Value: It Matters
Landscaping for curb appeal is absolutely worth it, experts say. It improves a property’s appearance almost immediately, and that boosts home value.
Here’s what the pros say:
- Virginia Tech research says a well-landscaped home has a 5.5% to 12.7% price advantage over a home with no landscaping.
- Did you know there’s actually such a thing as landscape economists? There are. And landscape economists say good landscaping can add up to 28% to a home’s overall value.
- The American Society of Landscape Architects claims professional landscaping can increase a home’s price tag 15% to 20% more at the time of resale.
- Without proper plant care, Trees.com reports that property values can decrease by up to 30% due to poor landscaping.
- And the National Association of Realtors says 78% of real estate professionals blame poor landscaping for diminished home values.
Landscaping for Curb Appeal Works: Now What?
Now, you get to work. What kind of landscaping projects will help sell your house?
1. New Sod Installation
Nothing improves curb appeal like a thick green carpet of lush and healthy lawn.
A healthy, thriving lawn gives potential home buyers the sense that the entire place is in great shape.
Why invest in new sod as you look at landscaping for curb appeal?
It fixes bare spots. Bare spots are ugly, and a sign that your lawn is unhealthy, attacked by insects or disease, or overtaken by weeds. Home buyers don’t like them. Speaking of weeds…
Weeds are the worst. When they’ve taken over, it’s hard to get your lawn looking great again. It takes time and patience and lots of swearing. If you’re in a hurry, new sod to the rescue.
2. Impressive Plants for Curb Appeal
Have you taken a good hard look at the front of your house lately? Look at it through the eyes of a potential buyer. What do you see? What don’t you see?
When it comes to plants for curb appeal, what’s your best bet? Foundation plantings.
Foundation plants are a big deal. They’re the plants that connect your home to the surrounding landscape.
They should offer great curb appeal, enhance your home’s best features and soften its hard edges.
Are yours pulling their weight out there?
Look to layers. Landscaping for curb appeal means going beyond a basic, boring row of plants.
Aim for three layers — largest plants in back, medium in the middle and shorter plants or ground covers in front.
Think variety — a mix of plants with different shapes and textures: podocarpus; boxwoods; dwarf Walter's viburnum; Asiatic jasmine; and maybe some smaller grasses like mondo grass for a ground cover.
Start with the big plants first, find a good location for them, then work around them with the layers and ground covers.
Think foliage, not just flowers. Check out foliage superstars Gold Mound Duranta and Chinese Fringe Flower — both great plants for curb appeal.
3. Landscaping for Curb Appeal: Mulch Matters
Rich, fresh mulch is a curb appeal superstar, offering that final finishing touch to make your landscaping shine.
While it’s out there impressing the heck out of potential home buyers, mulch is also working hard, helping your soil retain moisture, preventing weeds and keeping rainwater from washing away your garden soil.
But don’t pile it too close to your house. That’s an invitation to termites. Keep mulch six inches away from your foundation. It’ll be kind of hard to sell your house if it’s infested with termites.
4. Landscaping for Selling Your House: Look to Lighting
Potential home buyers will tour your house during the day, but if they know your home has impressive landscaping lighting, that’s a huge plus.
You always remember homes with landscape lighting. They offer a welcoming glow, the trees look amazing and high end lit from below, and there’s a sense of safety about the whole place that home buyers love.
Landscaping for curb appeal? Focus on lighting a few key areas:
- Highlight unique parts of your Central Florida home’s architecture, like columns, archways, and bricks. If it creates interesting texture you can appreciate from the street, light it.
- Tree uplighting makes a huge difference in your landscaping for curb appeal. It directs light up at the trunk or canopy of your trees. Even ordinary trees look cool when you splash them with light, really enhancing your curb appeal.
- Have an impressive paver driveway? Highlighting it with a wash of light adds great curb appeal. It’s a great example of how an everyday feature of your home can increase curb appeal if you add strategic lighting.
- Landscaping for selling a house means making things welcoming. Does your front entrance need some love? Update lighting fixtures that are old, out of style, or too small. Go bigger — it makes an impressive design statement.
5. Landscaping and Home Value: Clean It Up
If you do nothing else, at least do this. Yard mess is a huge turn-off to home buyers. If your landscaping is a mess, why shouldn’t they assume the inside is a wreck, too?
A messy yard brings down the look of your whole home, and makes it look like you don’t care.
If you’re landscaping for curb appeal, invest in a professional yard cleanup. Skilled crews will swoop in to remove old leaves and old mulch; pull weeds; trim overgrown plants and shrubs; remove dead plants.
Professional landscape cleanup pairs perfectly with other maintenance services to boost your landscaping curb appeal, like mulch, aeration and topdressing.
Once your yard is clear and tidy, add another layer of attention to really boost its health and appearance.
Aeration uses a cool machine to pull out tiny cores of soil from your lawn, allowing water and oxygen to get to the roots. Once your lawn is clear of debris, aeration breaks up compacted soil and gives new life to struggling lawns.
Topdressing is food for your soil, adding a nutrient-rich layer of soil blended with compost and other organics.
Boosting your lawn’s health and appearance is a perfect strategy when you’re considering landscaping to sell your home.
Need Landscaping for Curb Appeal? Trust Ground Source
So you have a bit of a list now: maybe new sod, or at least a professional lawn cleanup. Some impressive new foundation plants. Landscape lighting for safety and a high-end update. Fresh mulch all around.
We’re happy to help get that “SOLD” sign out there.
We’re landscape experts, and our teams will be there with you every step of the way as you plan your perfect outdoor space — whether it’s for you to enjoy, or to spruce things up to put your house on the market.
Sod, irrigation, landscape design: let us transform your yard to create an impressive escape.
Are you ready to enjoy the vibrant, impressive yard you've always wanted? Request a quote today! We’ll help you review your options and then transform your property.
