How To Keep Your Yard Looking Good

Not everyone enjoys their yard, and not everyone has the time or the passion for keeping it looking good. It’s understandable; gardening is hard work, and not something that everyone is going to like.

Yet having a yard that looks good can make such a difference to how you perceive the rest of your home too, and this is especially true if you are trying to sell or you have guests coming. Here are some tips on how to keep your yard looking good even if you’re not green fingered. It will be worth it in the end.

Have A Spring Clean

You will have heard of a spring clean for the interior of your home, when you give everything a thorough tidy and scrub after the winter weather has passed and the sun is shining. At this point, the idea is to take down drapes and blinds, dust lightshades, vacuum skirting boards, and clear out cupboards; basically give your home a really deep clean rather than just a cursory one as might normally happen on a weekly basis.

The same can be done in your yard, and spring is the ideal time to do it. Take on this task just once a year, and the yard will look good for the next 12 months (or at least until winter takes holds). During your spring clean of your outside space, you can:

• Remove old dead plants and shrubs
• Clean any paving slabs
• Plant new flowers or bulbs (depending on what suits and exactly what time of year it is)
• Tidy bushes

This will make a huge difference to how your yard looks and you’ll gain a great sense of accomplishment too.

Make Repairs

Something that can often be left at the bottom of anyone’s to-do list is repairs. They are only small things, after all, so why do them straight away? The problem is, small problems can quickly escalate into big problems if they are not dealt with quickly, and when it comes to repairs in your yard, this is always the case.

You might spot that your fence needs replacing. Don’t wait until it has fallen down and your neighbor is angry, or your dog can run away; put in a new fence right away. It’s easy to learn how to do this, and there is a lot of choices, so the end result will look even better than the original. Perhaps it is a cracked paving slab that needs your attention. Do this sooner rather than later and not only will your patio area look more attractive, but you will lessen the trip hazard and ensure your friend and family are kept safer.

Use Fertilizer

If you add a good layer or high-end fertilizer to your yard when you are planting, you will be giving the shrubs, bulbs, seeds, plants, and trees – whatever you have chosen to plant – much more chance of growing successfully and looking and being healthy.

Adding fertilizer isn’t a difficult task, and it can be done at the same time as you are digging over the ground for planting, so it is hardly even anything extra that needs to be added to your to-do list. The difference it can make to your yard, though, compared to the effort that you need to put in is amazing.

Weed Control

Even if you’re not planning on planting much in your yard because you don’t enjoy it or don’t want to maintain the shrubs and plants, weeds will still be a problem. No matter how much work, or how little, you put into your yard, weeds will appear, and they will make even the tidiest of outside spaces look messy.

If there is one thing you do when it comes to working in your yard to make it look good, it is to deal with the weeds. You can spray the areas that you know they grow before you even see them, and try to stop them before they begin to make a mess of your yard. If you do spot stray weeds anywhere, try to pull them up or spray them with weed killer as soon as possible; the longer you take to do the job, the harder it will become.

Mowing The Lawn

As well as weeds, an unkempt lawn can make your yard look untidy, even if you are taking care of everything else within it. Make sure you mow your lawn on a regular basis or hire someone in to do it for you if you prefer. It should be done at least every two weeks and sometimes more depending on how fast your grass grows (the quality of the turf and the type of soil it is growing, as well as the climate,  will determine this).

Remember to change the direction you cut in each time, as this will keep the grass looking at its best. If you mow vertically, then mow horizontally or diagonally the next time and so on. Plus, although your first instinct might be to rake up the clippings and dispose of them, it is now said that leaving them on the freshly cut grass is actually better for it.

Watering

There are some truly simple things you can do to keep your yard looking good, and one of those is to keep it watered. There are a number of ways this can be done, some requiring no effort on your part at all. It will depend on how hands on you want to be as to what you pick as your preferred watering method.

You might, for example, choose to use a can and water each plant individually. Alternatively, a hose might be easier for you, especially if it has a shower end attached to it. Or you might want to set up a sprinkler system on a timer. After the initial set up, you can just leave it to work (early morning is best because the wind is often calmer and therefore the water will have a chance to soak into the roots, plus, if you water your yard in the sunshine, much of the water will evaporate before it can really do any good).