Home Improvement: Landscaping to Sell

Your home's landscaping is one of the first things that home buyers will see when they come to look at your property.

If you're planning to sell your home this spring, one of the best ways to attract positive attention to your property is by dressing up your landscaping. Colorful flowers, tidy gardens and convenient pathways can all "wow" buyers at showings.

Make Your Yard Colorful

Colorful flowers will draw attention to your property, making your home seem more inviting and attractive to buyers. Standard annuals like impatiens, marigolds, begonias, petunias and zinnias tend to produce lots of blooms very quickly, requiring little or no fertilizing. Best of all, annuals are available in massive quantities in garden centers at the start of the spring, so you'll have no trouble loading up your lawn with gorgeous plants.

Add Pathways in the Yard

Pathways make it easy for buyers to explore your property, and they also prevent buyers from wearing down your grass, so it's a win-win for everyone. To add a pathway, dig out your grass and cover it with decorative mulch, gravel or flat stones. Try to put in pathways in places where buyers will naturally want to walk. For example, use pathways to link your front door to your front sidewalk, or your back door to your picnic area, and so on. Line the perimeter of your pathway with flowers to add a touch of beauty.

Keep the Landscaping Simple

Once you become involved in the home selling process, you won't have very much time to maintain your landscaping. Keep your gardens low maintenance to ensure that your gardens won't need a lot of effort from you to look their best.

• Plant native flowers and shrubs: Native plants will be naturally suited to your climate and soil conditions, which means they'll need less watering and fertilizing throughout the season.
• Fill space with a rock garden: Fill up any empty garden beds with decorative rocks. They're beautiful and require no weeding or flowering.
• Use mulch to kill weeds and keep the soil moist: Spread mulch in flower beds between plants. Mulch shades the ground and prevents moisture from evaporating into the air, which cuts back on your watering schedule. As a bonus, mulch can prevent weeds from growing in your garden, so you'll spend less time digging.

Ensure Your Yard is Tidy

Keep your lawn clear of all organic debris throughout the home buying process. To do this, cut your grass regularly. Keep your shrubs trim and throw away the debris when you're finished. When the blooms on the annuals start to die, pull off the dead blossoms (a process known as "deadheading"). This will encourage your annuals to produce more flowers.

How Much Landscaping is Too Much When Selling Your Home?

Overdone landscaping can be a problem when selling your home. Home buyers are often attracted to properties that are easy to maintain. Overdone landscaping is much the opposite. Yards overflowing with flowers, exotic plants and deep garden beds are often more difficult to maintain than homes that have small garden beds and lots of grass.

While large, beautiful gardens can be beautiful to behold, they are less beautiful for a homeowner who is too busy to maintain it. For some homeowners, big gardens can equal big burdens. This is especially true of new homeowners, who often spend the first year in their home organizing, unpacking and settling in. The best gardens for new homeowners are those that are small and easy to maintain.

Overall, you will want your landscaping to invite potential buyers into your home rather than turn them away before they reach the front door. By following these tips and putting in a little time and effort, you can make your home stand out among the competition.