Badly designed or maintained landscaping not only looks awful, but can also destroy your home’s curb appeal and ultimately end up devaluing your property. Add to this the fact that poor landscaping is a downer, which affects the way you see and enjoy your home.
This is why you should try to avoid bad landscaping at all costs. The obvious way to do this is to hire a professional landscaping company to transform your outdoor space. But if you’ve taken the decision to go it alone and make some improvements yourself, be sure not to make these common landscaping mistakes:
1. Always plan before planting
Some planting options will last a season. Others, like a line of trees, can last a lifetime. That’s why it’s really important to plan what you’re going to plant ahead of time. If there’s any chance you might consider building an outdoor structure sometime in the future, don’t plant any trees there. We know it sounds simple, but you’d be amazed how many people go ahead and plant whatever they want without any prior planning.
2. Avoid overcrowding
It can be tempting to plant everything in tight clusters, but you need to understand how what you are planting will grow and inevitably look like. There’s a real risk of ending up with a garden that looks severely overcrowded and choked. Not only does it look messy, but the overcrowding causes the plants to compete with one another for nutrients and water.
3. Mix things up
We’ve all got our favourite plants and flowers, and there’s often an urge to plants lots of them – after all, they’re our favourites, right!?! The problem, however, is that they will all bloom at the same time, which is great when they do, but can leave your garden looking extremely drab for the rest of the year. Wherever possible, try and achieve four-season colour.
4. Keep your weeds in check
Weeds can occupy cracks in mortar, which can shorten the life of your stone. They also compete with your plants and flowers for water and nutrients, which can stifle their growth and result in poor blooms. Get rid of weeds as soon as they appear and definitely before they flower.
5. Remove debris
No matter how careful and attentive you are, some plants die. And there’s nothing worse for impacting your home’s curb appeal than rows of dead flowers and trees, so remove any debris as it appears. Plants and flowers that lived healthy, natural lives are good candidates for composting. Others that died of disease or infestation, on the other hand, aren’t.
Comments are closed.