Eye-Catching Landscape Ideas for Year Around Curb Appeal

Guest Blogger #409, Entry #1016, March 14, 2012

With a little landscaping you can create massive curb appeal in just a weekend. Even with a small budget you can make a big impact on the way that your home feels when people approach it.

Spring is coming, and will be here before we know it. Trees and shrubs are already beginning to come out of their winter hibernation. It’s time to start planning your landscaping projects.

Layout your landscaping beds

Image via: The Style Saloniste

Laying Out Landscaping Beds

Too many houses adopt a very simple approach to laying out landscaping beds. Almost every house has a rectangular bed that butts up against their rectangular house. Break away from this vanilla approach!

Create some interest using the shape of the bed. Use a radius or two and curved lines. Think big, experiment with a can of landscaping spray paint on your lawn. Be bold and take a chance with the shape.

Start Plant Selection With A Showcase Plant

Choose a showcase plant for each flower bed. It should be one of your largest plants and definitely your most interesting.

Plants like cut leaf Japanese maples and red twig dogwoods make excellent choices for a showcase plant.

Is your spring home ready for gardening?

Image via: Apartment Therapy

Complimenting Your Showcase Plant

Choose a few small flowering shrubs to plant in the same bed. Azaleas and rhododendrons are both excellent choices.

Both choices will flower in early spring, right into the summer. There are hundreds of different varieties to choose from. The colors of their flowers are just about limitless so you’ll be sure to find some to compliment your showcase plants.

Be sure to get evergreen varieties of azaleas and rhododendrons. The evergreen variety will hold its green throughout the winter, giving you a bit of color all year long.

Mix In Some Conifers

Use some evergreen conifers as well. Adding a couple conifers will bring balance to your flower garden and give it more year round interest. Look for varieties that are indigenous to your local area. They will likely be hardier and easier to maintain.

Leave Space For Annuals

Everything that I have mentioned so far is a perennial. It will come back year after year. Make sure when you’re laying out your flower garden that you leave some room for annuals.

Every spring you can add new annuals to your garden. They won’t come back next year, so you can totally remake your garden every growing season.

After two or three seasons you’ll learn which annuals look great and are easy to maintain all season long. You’ll start to look forward to planting them every spring and trying new plants.

Get ready for landscaping this spring!

Image via: ehow Home

Don’t Forget Bulbs In The Fall

For the earliest possible spring color in your garden, plant some bulbs in the fall. Tulips and daffodil are both great options. I prefer daffodil, only because my local squirrels and neighborhood cats love to knock the heads off of our tulips.

You’ll learn what works best for your garden very quickly. Within the first season your new landscaping will be the talk of the neighborhood and the envy or neighbors.

The author of this article, Scott Jenkins, loves all things related to homes. He is fond of landscaping and quartz countertops, as well as helping homeowners make comparisons like Silestone vs granite countertops.

For more landscaping ideas on Stagetecture, click here.