It’s hard to deny the popularity of lawns. Surveys show that 83% of people think having a yard is important and 90% of people with a lawn believe it is important to take care of it. You can take care of your lawn yourself, and most people do. On the other hand, you may want to seek professional help with your landscaping.
Having a nice lawn is not just something to make you feel good. Nearly all real estate agents consider landscaping to be one of the five best home improvements to make in terms of adding value to your home. In fact, landscaping is one of the few home improvements where you are likely to increase the value of your home by more than you spend on the improvement. Research shows that landscape design and other landscaping tasks can improve the value of your home by anywhere from 150% to more than 200%.
That’s something to consider when you are wondering how much you should spend on your landscape design. There is a wide variance in what you can do and how much you can spend. You can do all the work yourself, in which case you only pay the one-time expense for equipment and ongoing expenses for things like fertilizer that you will have to buy from a garden center. You will only get max return on investment, however, if you have experience and know what you are doing. You can do a hybrid of taking care of menial tasks, such as mowing the lawn, yourself while hiring professionals to do other things. For example, you might hire a nursery to come to your home and do all your plantings for you. A nursery center will know what kind of plants will look best, how to plant them to make them look the best and how to take care of them. One final option is to leave all landscaping tasks up to professionals. That means you hire someone not only to do plantings, but also to mow, fertilize and water. It’s the most expensive option but also the one that will give you the best looking lawn.
When it comes to your landscaping, you have to make a decision based on what you can afford, but you don’t want to do nothing. A house lacking in curb appeal will not realize its full value.