There are plenty of reasons why you may be looking into how to improve your front yard. You could be required by your neighborhood or Homeowners’ Association to keep your yard up to a certain standard. Perhaps you are considering putting your house on the market. While a house with a shoddy front yard can be sold, it will likely sell for less than a house with a refreshed and pristine front yard would. Maybe your plan is to add value to your home by improving your front yard. Of course, you may simply want to improve your front yard for your own benefit. You’ll feel a lot better about your property if your front yard reflects the quality of the rest of your property.
But the question is, how do you go about this process? It’s one thing to know that you need to improve your front yard. Actually understanding how to improve your front yard is another thing entirely. Of course, some of this will also depend on the current state of your front yard, as well as where you live, the vegetation of your property, and much more. With that in mind, we’re going to cover several different ways for you to improve your front yard. The more options you have, the easier it will be for you to find strategies that are right for your property.
1. Reconsider Your Driveway
Your driveway is actually a part of your front yard if you have one at all. This is an excellent was for ways of how to improve your front yard You may not currently have a driveway, and if you have the opportunity to add one to your property the overall value of the property itself could be raised significantly. But this can’t be done easily. You’ll need help from a professional concrete service provider, and you may want to look into improving your garage while you’re at it. A motorized garage screen could make your property not only more aesthetically appealing, but more convenient to use as well. The fact is that garages and driveways often go into disrepair far before you would think. They experience a lot of wear and tear due to the stress caused by cars, and additionally, they tend to begin eroding due to weather damage as well.
Nobody wants an unsightly driveway. Cracks and potholes, however, aren’t just bad to look at. They also cause can damage your tires, and additionally the internal workings of your vehicle. You may need to have your driveway entirely replaced if it’s been overly damaged; but in some cases, some simple repairs could have it looking and performing just as it did when it was new. Additionally, you may want to add a pathway from your driveway to your house. Expanding your driveway will be beneficial to updating your home and increasing its curb appeal. So, while you’re considering the practicalities of your driveway, consider its aesthetic features.
2. Install A Sprinkler System
The last thing you want when considering how to improve your front yard is to deal with dry, dead grass. A dried out lawn can make your entire front yard look horrible, no matter what you do improve the rest of it. At the same time, it’s so easy to forget to water your lawn. Watering your lawn is time-consuming and tedious. A lot of us just don’t have the time to do it as much as we should, at least if we want to maintain the appearance of our yard. This is why it’s a good idea to install a sprinkler system to do the watering for you. A sprinkler system is the kind of thing that you can literally set and forget, leaving it on to do the work.
The question is, what kind of sprinkler system should you invest in? A lot of this will again depend on the type of lawn that you have. You’re probably fairly familiar with rotary sprinklers, which have several different arms. Attached to these arms are sprinkler tips attached to a spinning head. As you turn the sprinkler on, the head will begin to spin and the water will therefore be spread in a circular manner. If you have a smaller yard, this can be highly effective, and they often work well if you have low water pressure. But if you’re dealing with a longer or larger yard, a rotary sprinkler is a great option. Impact sprinklers, on the other hand, spray outbursts of water that spray in jets across yards. They won’t work very well if your water pressure is low, but they are quite common due to their effectiveness in watering large yards. Of course, traveling sprinklers have become more popular recently because they actually can roll around your yard. These sprinklers can require more attention to sprinkler system care, but ultimately they can be highly effective if your yard is more spacious. No matter what the size of your yard, there is a sprinkler system that can work for it!
3. Add Security Cameras
This might seem to be a strange approach when you first look into how to improve your front yard. But security systems can add a lot of value to your property, and they actually key into improving your front yard in more ways than you can know. This is in part because typical sprinkler systems are often set up around front lawns, or they at least focus on them. If people are causing your house for a potential robbery, they actually might cross your front yard to do so. Having security cameras installed around your front yard can make your overall home much safer.
But there is more to security than adding in cameras. Alarms can also be added so that motion is detected on your front lawn. Additionally, you may want to reach out to a garage door company about improving the overall safety and security of your garage. After all, a lot of us store valuable equipment in garages, as well as of course our cars. The last thing you want is for the security of your home to be compromised because you didn’t consider installing a new garage door as you considered how to improve your front yard.
4. Add New Plants
Your grass shouldn’t be the only vegetation in your front yard. You may also want to consider adding in new plants, like flowers and maybe even succulents. Again, the types of plants that you’ll add to your yard may very well depend on where you live. Tropical plants may not fare so well in your yard if you live in the northeast! Fortunately, there are plenty of other options for you to choose from if your ideal flowers aren’t right for your yard. Additionally, there are a couple of different ways that you can add plants to your front yard. If you’ve gotten really dedicated to exploring how to improve your front yard, you may want to grow the plants from seeds. This would of course require a lot of time, hard work, and dedication. If you’d rather skip that process, most plants can be bought from nurseries as seedlings or even as fully grown plants. They can be transplanted into your yard with the help of good soil and fertilizer.
Keep in mind that you don’t necessarily have to do all of this by yourself. You can actually work with a professional landscaping company to help you map out how to add new plants to your yard, as well as what plants should be added. Different plants, for example, may not be ideal for those who have pets in their front yard, due to toxicity. Other plants may be ideal if you’d like to attract butterflies and hummingbirds to your yard. A professional landscaper can handle the work for you, and can even add in other features beyond plants. Why not include a decorative landscape rock while you’re at it, simply to improve the overall appearance of your yard?
5. Make Sure Your House Matches Your Yard
There’s no point in improving the overall appearance of your front yard if your house isn’t similarly refreshed. The fact is that the outer facade of your house needs to match your new yard. You should focus on the aesthetic appearance of your home, first ensuring that there is a fresh coat of paint that will prevent it from coming across as shabby. Additionally, your front door should be repainted, or even entirely replaced if necessary.
Of course, new coats of paint are one thing. The more physical parts of your home need ot be updated as well. Part of this may involve focusing on your roofing. An unsightly roof can’t (and shouldn’t) be matched with a healthy front yard. With that in mind, you don’t necessarily have to replace your entire roof just to make it look great. Some smaller mends can have your roof looking better before you know it! Just make sure that you make these mends in the right order; the last thing you want is to have your fresh, new yard cluttered with debris from your roof improvements.
6. Utilize Stone
There are so many different ways that stone can figure into your plans as you begin exploring how to improve your front yard. You could, as previously mentioned, add a new pathway from your driveway to your home, using stones to line it. Or conversely, you could choose to make a small stone border around your property. This will add a lovely aesthetic trim to your house, while at the same delineating the perimeter of your property. Of course, this is hard work, and you need to make sure that you’re choosing the right stone to work with.
For that reason, it’s advised that you work with experts in stone masonry. They can advise you on how to add stone that will endure the elements in your area, as well as what would work best for borders as well as pathways. The most important thing is to remember is that, while it does cost money to work with stonemasons, it’s worth it in the long term. Trying to execute these complex improvements on your own could result in shoddy craftsmanship, and ultimately you will end up wasting time, money, and effort.
7. Consider Mulch
But what happens if you don’t live in an area that will allow you to landscape easily? What if weather conditions mean that your lawn will almost always remain dry in some parts, no matter how well you water it? In that case, it may be a good idea to utilize mulch. This is quite common in areas like Florida, to the extent that mulch is sometimes referred to as a Florida lawn. Additionally, there are many different types of mulch, some of which are more brightly colored, and others of which may even have a pleasing scent.
While you consider the type of mulch you add to your lawn, strategically covering places where you can’t keep the grass replenished, you may also want to think about gravel. In some cases, gravel can be used in place of much. Gravel is also used as a part of a chip seal service if you’re redoing your driveway. Therefore, you may want to think about adding gravel to your driveway while you’re having a chip seal service finished.
Ultimately, what you decide to do in your front yard is very much up to you and your personal tastes. But keep in mind that a lot of the changes you execute may affect the value of your property as well. If you’re not planning on selling your property soon, this may not seem important. However, it’s something that all homeowners should consider if they are wondering how to improve your front yard. After all, improving your yard is really another step in improving your home.
