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What Type of Garden Will Add Value to Your Home?

It's no secret that beautiful landscaping can add interest, marketability, and value to your home. Everything from a lush green lawn to perfectly landscaped areas complete with mulch and garden decor makes a home shine a bit brighter.

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If you are selling your home, you may be thinking of adding a garden. While the general consensus of realtors is for homeowners to partake in exterior home projects prior to selling, there is some debate about what type of garden will add to the value of your home. Before you dig into the ground or rush out to your favorite garden center to purchase hundreds of dollars worth of flowers, consider what types of gardens will actually add value to your home.

Simply put, the overarching answer to what type of garden will add value to your home is one that is easy to maintain. Homebuyers appreciate a blank canvas both inside your home and outside. When they see an overly ornate garden they are seeing something that they are inheriting from you rather than a space they can make their own. While homebuyers are attracted to a blank outdoor canvas there are a few basics that buyers are especially fond of.

Mulch

Mulching

Adding a fresh layer of mulch to your home’s landscaped garden area will increase the value of your home by $1,749. This is an incredible value considering it only cost around $340 to add a fresh layer of mulch to 3 cubic yards of landscaping. Mulch offers a polished look and uniformity throughout the entirety of your garden area. Mulch comes in a variety of shades and can be found at most home improvement stores or garden centers.

Low-Maintenance Bushes

bushes

Continuous color throughout even the darkest of winter months is a plus for homebuyers. Small bushes such as boxwoods, dwarf spruce, or dwarf juniper fit perfectly into any garden area. Due to their small stature, these bushes require very little care as they will not grow much. They do not require much trimming either and have a reputation for being drought and pest tolerant.

Easy to Care for Perennial Flowers

perennial flower

Adding perennial flowers to your garden is the easiest way to add vibrant color to your home. Perennials, unlike annual flowers, will come back year after year which means you only need to plant them once. If your garden will be in direct sunlight for more than six hours you should choose hardy drought-tolerant flowers.

These include coneflowers, daisies, lavender, daylilies, Russian sage, and marigolds. These flowers can withstand extreme heat and are not susceptible to common garden diseases or pests. Choose two to three different types of flowers and plant them in groupings, or drifts, to maximize their colorful appeal.

Add Light

lighting

One final addition to your easy-maintenance garden is light. Homebuyers love to see beautifully landscaped areas lit up on even the darkest of nights. Garden lighting is fairly easy to add and relatively inexpensive. Rather than hire an electrician to install lighting, you can simply add a few solar-powered landscape lights.

These come in various sizes, shapes, and brightness levels but are very easy to install. Simply push them in the ground around your plants and you are done. The lights will absorb the sun’s rays and use that as the energy they need to shine when the sun goes down.

What Type of Gardens Do Buyers Dislike?

cabbage

Overall, extensive gardens or overly personal gardens are a deterrent to most homebuyers. The top three gardens that turn off potential homebuyers are English gardens, koi ponds, and vegetable gardens.

Each of these gardens requires extensive work, gardening know-how, and a time commitment that most homebuyers do not have. English gardens in particular require constant maintenance and investment. From pristinely trimmed hedges to overflowing swaths of rambling roses, an English garden is home to many plants that require quite a bit of attention. In addition to the finicky plants, English gardens tend to be large and take away valuable yard space.

Koi ponds are unattractive to homebuyers with children who might be uncomfortable with an inground water feature as it presents a safety issue. Additionally, koi pounds require a working maintenance system to keep the water clean and the fish alive.

Finally, vegetable gardens that take up more than a few feet of space are usually considered a waste. While you may love the idea of growing your own spinach and harvesting your yearly crop of potatoes, a homebuyer with no gardening experience will see otherwise. Any vegetable growing you are doing should be limited to containers or pots that you can easily move when you sell your home.

If you are selling your home and want to add color with a small garden keep it simple. Easy low-maintenance garden beds are the most attractive to homebuyers and with the right plants, mulch, and lighting you can add value to your home.

About the Author Laura Bennett

Hello, I’m Laura Bennett. I love nature especially when it comes to flowers and different kinds of plants. I started a very small garden behind my house and I named it Humid Garden. So, I created this blog to provide aspiring and inspiring thoughts about gardening for gardeners and anyone who has the intention of keeping a garden.

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