Whether your home is sitting on acres of land or a small, city plot, your backyard is a personal haven that should make you feel joy every time you’re in it.
A yard that expresses your personality, meets your lounging needs, and requires only the amount of maintenance you are willing to do, is easier to obtain than you might think.
Through landscaping, DIY projects, and some professional maintenance, your yard can become like a second home right outside your back door. Here are some of the best tips for home backyard landscaping.
1. Work with What You’ve Got
Admittedly, landscaping can get expensive.
There is a reason the home remodeling market is already worth around 450 billion dollars. However, there are ways to keep from emptying your pockets on your home backyard landscaping.
The best way to avoid a high bill is to focus on the features already present in your yard.
Do you have a lot of trees? Maintaining them through regular tree care can give your space a polished look and can often cost nothing more than a little elbow grease.
Annual, professional tree care is also important to keep your branches from reaching power lines and preventing damage to your property during storms.
Some people think they have to forget about home backyard landscaping because their backyard is all concrete or loose substrate. However, these types of yards are incredibly common in desert areas like Nevada and parts of California and their yards are still beautiful.
This is done by focusing on decorating fences, using potted plants, implementing hanging decor like chimes, and focusing on the arrangement of interesting and functional outdoor furniture.
2. Get the Right Furniture
People put a lot of work into their home backyard landscaping projects. It would be a shame for all that work to just sit outside, unseen due to a lack of seating or shaded lounging.
There are no rules that say you have to buy thousands of dollars of expensive outdoor furniture. In fact, some people truly enjoy using fold out beach loungers in their backyard and saving their funds for more expensive projects.
Still, there are a few things to keep in mind when buying outdoor furniture
- Not all furniture is outdoor safe.
- Rugs and pillows are your friend.
- Awnings, umbrellas, and other outdoor shade are key.
- Think about pets and children.
- Choose colors that pop!
Not All Furniture is Outdoor Safe
Sure, that 25 dollar absolute steal of a table you found at a yard sale would look great on your back patio, but it may not be safe to use outside.
Furniture built to use in the house is often not properly sealed to keep out the moisture that is present outdoors. Even if your keep the furniture under an outdoor structure, humidity, dew, slanted rain, and other forms of moisture can still reach it and destroy its integrity
Luckily, there are some easy, DIY ways to make indoor furniture safe for outside.
Resealing the furniture with outdoor grade varnishes intended for patios is a great way to make the furniture outdoor compatible. You will want to reapply the sealant once or twice a year, depending on how hard the furniture is used.
Rugs and Pillows Are Your Friend
There is no easier way to make your outdoor space feel more put together than the use of outdoor rugs and pillows. These specially made outdoor accessories are safe to use in the elements and can bring a lot of personality to your space.
Outdoor rugs often have a low pile, which is great for outside because it present a low tripping hazard and allows patio furniture to sit upon it securely. Additionally, the material of outdoor pillows is tougher than your standard cotton throw pillows and stands up against rain, bugs, and dirt.
However, they may still fall victim to pets with a penchant for destruction.
Awning, Umbrellas, and Other Outdoor Shade Are Key
Don’t let cool climates fool you, the sun is a cruel mistress that will damage your skin on the nicest of days. That’s why providing shade in through your home backyard landscaping is on our list of tips.
There are some super elegant ways to implement shade on your yard through the use of gazebos, pergolas, awnings, and other full structures. These design elements are highly sought after for their chic appeal, but can be pricey.
Some less-expensive alternatives are to set up your seating beneath shade trees, use patio umbrellas or other large parasols, hang patio curtains, or keep a pop-up canopy on hand.
Think about Children and Pets
Children and pets are the best. However, they are all determined to put themselves in danger at all times. That’s why you should keep them in mind when purchasing and placing patio furniture.
Do you have a dog that loves to try and jump the fence?
You might want to keep your tables and chairs away from the fence line, where you are only providing the escapee a boost over your barriers.
Does your toddler like to run around without looking where they are going?
It might be a good idea to avoid the purchase of glass tables or the use of an unsupervised fire pit.
Keeping the safety of your little ones in mind is always an important factor when performing a home backyard landscaping project.
Choose Colors that Pop!
There is a common theme of using neutral tones indoors to allow for changes to decor over time. Nobody ever wants anything to clash, which is understandable.
However, outdoor decor is far more forgiving.
If you have ever wanted to adorn a space with vibrant oranges, shades of lively purples, or a mix of bright blues and yellows, your outdoor space is the place to do it,
Whether you want to implement color into your home backyard landscaping through the use of furniture and decor or brightly colored plants and features, go wild! This is your space and you should love it enough to want to spend time there again and again.
3. Maintaining Your Property Doesn’t Have to Be Expensive
One of the tough parts of owning a property is shelling out cash for maintenance. Luckily, constant innovations in the lawn and landscape maintenance world have helped ease the financial burden of these tasks.
If you have a built-in pool on your property, you may be wary of seeking out a pool cleaning service. However, modern innovations in the field have created advanced cleaning systems that not only cost way less than previous techniques, but can actually save you money in the long run.
Other forms of property maintenance like pruning, pest control, stump removal, and gutter cleaning don’t need to cost you a fortune either. Some of these maintenance items can be performed without the help of a professional with just a little practice and some low-cost equipment.
Pruning, while delicate, can easily be completed without professional help and only requires pruning shears and gardening gloves. After pruning a small section be sure to take a step back and look at your tree or shrub from a distance to avoid over trimming.
Pest control can sometimes be handled without a professional as well. This is because sometimes the best control is prevention. For instance, the best preventative rodent control is keeping your home properly sealed, remove leaf-litter and stacked wood from near your home, and never move boxes from outdoor storage to inside your home without checking for tag-alongs.
Tree stump removal is a great example of outdoor maintenance that used to be expensive, but modern equipment has greatly reduced the cost.
In the past, removing a tree stump required the use of either dangerous chemicals, fire, or heavy manual labor. Luckily, the modern technique of using a tree stump grinder is faster and cheaper.
Tree stump grinding allows you to wear the stump down below ground level and cover with top soil. It is fast, easy, and the equipment is readily available to rent from most home improvement stores.
4. You Don’t Need to Have a Green Thumb for Great Landscaping
Home backyard landscaping should be fun, but those that have a hard time keeping plants alive may feel stressed at the ideas of decorating their home with needy flowers and other plants.
Let us let you in on a little secret:
You can use fake flowers outside.
It’s true! There are many homes that implement the use of faux plants outside. Sometimes it is because the environment doesn’t allow lush flowers or grasses to grow, other times it is because it is too difficult for the home owner to maintain the living plants.
The trick is to arrange your fake plants in flower boxes, decorative pots, and other planters. These items can be strategically placed around your property to create unique points of visual interest. As long as you focus on using high-quality faux plants and rotating out your plants to fit any seasonal decor, you will be amazed at how real the arrangements look.
5. Get Crazy with Your Trees
When it comes to home backyard landscaping, there are some really cool things you can do with your trees to give your property an eccentric and personalized feel.
Bonsai
Bonsai trees are an ancient art, where full sized trees are maintained in small pots to create dwarfed versions of the trees.
Topiary
Topiary is the art of pruning trees and shrubs into living statues. Often, the plants are shaped into animals, letters, symbols. However, some topiary artists have even crafted ornate replicas of people.
Tree Shaping
The art of tree shaping is the ancient Indian art form of intentionally forming the growth pattern of trees and woody plants to create intricate shapes. Once complete, the trunks of these trees will often have a beautiful, lace-like pattern that seems to defy nature.
6. Maintain Your Patios and Walkways
If your patio or brick walkways fall into disrepair, you may be looking at spending a pretty penny. That is why regular at-home maintenance is so important.
If your brick walkway needs refilled, consider using polymeric sand to close up the gaps. This special type of sand binds to together when wet and doesn’t simply wash away the first time it rains, which gives a lot of extra life to your walkway.
Patio maintenance can be as simple as removing weeds and moss, pressure washing regularly, and filling joints with polymeric sand.
7. Check Your Yard for Dangers
Picture it. You spend weeks putting together your dream home backyard landscaping. You finally invite over all your friends for a celebratory barbecue, but halfway through something goes awry. Out of nowhere, you are all swarmed by a hive of killer bees that were hiding among the trees. Panic ensues, and obviously, your party is totally ruined.
Okay, that may be a little over-dramatic. Still, if you have trees or bushes on your property, it is a good idea to have them checked for dangerous pests before using your new outdoor space.
Though you may not need killer bee extermination, you might end up removing a family of snakes, a hive of hornets, or a mound of fire ants.
8. Get a Professional’s Opinion
Our final tip of home backyard landscaping is to use the advice of professionals.
Even if you plan to complete your entire landscaping project alone, running your ideas through a professional will prevent you from starting a project only to discover halfway through that it cannot be done.
Sure, you may spend a little on the consultation, but the saved costs down the line are more than worth the trouble.
Get Started On Your Dream Yard
There is no time like today to begin turning your backyard space into a place you and your family can truly enjoy. As long as you focus on blending functionality and personal style and you really can’t go wrong.
You deserve a backyard that reminds you every day why you love your home. Whether you decide to match your indoor decor or express your colorful furbishing dreams, it is easy to express yourself through your landscaping. Take a little hard work and creativity, and in no time you can be throwing a backyard soiree that impresses all your friends and family.
