Good landscaping is like the icing on the cake for making your home look its best. However if you have bad landscaping, or no landscaping at all, it can not only make your house look hum-drum, but greatly decrease its value overall. Between making sure your front yard has plenty of curb appeal, and your back yard is the perfect oasis for relaxation and entertaining, here are some common landscaping mistakes and how to fix them.
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- Too Many Lawn Ornaments: Often times, people make the mistake of decorating their yard with an excessive amount of lawn ornaments. Not only does this take away from the nature’s pure and raw beauty, but it can also be a distraction and look too crowded. If you still feel compelled to include lawn ornaments in your landscaping plan, just remember to be selective. Remember the old adage, a little goes a long way.
- Cutting the Grass Too Short: If you’ve ever heard that cutting your grass short will make you have to mow it less, you’re not alone. That is a common misconception, and is actually the opposite of true. Cutting your grass too short, especially year-round, can cause more harm than good for your yard, resulting in bare patches and making it more susceptible to disease. While it is acceptable and recommended to cut your grass a little shorter in the winter time to allow sunlight to reach the soil, leaving it a little longer in the summertime will help retain moisture as well as provide more shade to the soil.
- Picking the Wrong Plants: Just because a plant looks really pretty in the garden department of your favorite store does not necessarily mean that it will be successful once planted in your yard or garden. When picking a plant for your yard, some things to consider are amount of light or shade, and soil condition. It is usually a safe bet to go with native plants as a good place to start.
- Overlooking Maintenance: Just like anything, nice landscaping takes ongoing care and maintenance. Overlooking it is one of the biggest mistakes that is made. Of course it’s all well and good to do the initial work, however you’d be surprised how quickly things can start to get overgrown and unmanicured. One way to combat this is to make a maintenance schedule and stick to it. Gardens need to be weeded at least once a month, a new layer of mulch should be added once a year, and regular pruning should always take place to keep plants happy.