Landscape How To’s for First-Time DIYers

Buyers often take careful consideration of the location, price, and curb appeal when making a decision to purchase property. Therefore, the smart home seller knows that investing in the home’s landscape is a smart move with lucrative payback. But how much is enough? And is it a job that can be left to a DIYer’s hands? This article is for people who would like to learn about how to plan and execute a landscape design to boost their home’s value. May these tips help you decide how much investment is required and whether or not your DIY skills are sufficient for the job (TIP: it’s not that easy!):

Step 1: Design a Master Landscape Plan

What you want to see in the landscape may be suitable for your taste, but not to your home buyer. Should you install a vegetable garden? A pond? Perhaps an outdoor kitchen? It’s easy to change your mind (and add to your costs) while getting the job done in your effort to please a potential buyer, but the smart thing to do is to work from a master landscape plan designed long before you start your yard work.

Having a master landscape plan will have the entire site designed at one time. This includes the softscape (flowers, plants, shrubs, and trees), hardscape (walkways, terraces, and walls), and amenities such as a deck, pond, water fountain, etc. The plan will consider the yard size, topography, climate, water resources, community landscaping guidelines, maintenance requirements, and budget, among others.

Step 2: Make a wish list

Since a master landscape plan may not include all a homeowner may want in the design due to budget limitations, it may be ideal to prepare a wish list of amenities to include in the master plan for the coming years. This also works well for homes with potential buyers since they get to see the vision you have as the current homeowner on how to make the views prettier than they currently are.

Step 3: Work on the garden patiently

It may be very tempting to work on everything in the landscape all at once, but experts advise working on portions at a time, while letting small plants grow naturally. As plants grow, they may turn out differently planted as planned, and revisions need to take place in the master plan. Also, its more practical to let the greenery crawl and grow rather than buy seedlings to cover a desired area immediately.

Step 4: Hire a professional

This may come as bad news to DIYers, but experts simply recommend hiring a professional to get the landscaping job done. Since the project involves taking care of the slope, working on plumbing, and other tasks that require professional knowledge, it may be a good idea to work with a landscape professional with regards to the design and putting your handyman skills to work on the smaller tasks such as laying the pathways, planting the trees, etc.

Step 5: Think “Water”

With the unexpected drought in California and the overwhelming news about how climate change is affecting everything as we know it, it’s wise to consider water when designing a landscape, especially when it comes to choosing plants that will be used for the design. Low maintenance plants, plants which require minimal water, and perennial plants, may be better choices than plants that require careful upkeep and regular splashes of water.

Step 6: Stick to a Budget

As you see your landscape turn into a thing of beauty, it is very easy to get tempted to spend more and make everything look prettier. However, experts recommend sticking to the master plan and completing all the things planned out there before getting back to the drawing board and designing a revision or upgrade. In this way, the careful planning for the landscape may be continued from the original plan to the new plan.