Use These Landscaping Tips to Completely Transform Your Yard

Creative landscaping can provide your lawn and gardens with interest and give your home's curb appeal with a boost.  Use the following professional Houston landscaping ideas to create an easy to maintain and timeless landscape.

Create Curved Lines

Frequently landscapers place edging around a house foundation, flower gardens, and sometimes driveways and sidewalks.  When edging is installed in curves instead of lines that are perfectly straight it adds character and appeal.  Edging is permanent, and therefore enhances your landscape at all times of the year, which makes it easy to transform something boring into a thing of beauty.

Use Native Plants

Choose native plants so that you have less maintenance, just like you plant grass that is native to your local area.  When you use plants that grow well in a certain zone or are native to your area, it keeps pruning and water costs down, and your plants will thrive in the process.

Use Potted Plants

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When pots are incorporated into your landscaping it makes your yard more versatile as well as more low-maintenance.  Potted plants make it easy to add color to various parts of your yard, and you can move them around.  For some added color, you can coordinate the flowers in your pots with the current season. During the spring and summer try pinks and whites, and then in the fall switch over to reds and yellows. 

Containers make it easy to add splashes of color to your hard if you don't have a lot of money or space to plant an in-ground garden. In addition, they are very versatile, which allows you to make changes to your yard whenever you want to and match your mood or the season.  You can't get any more low-maintenance than potted succulents, while herbs such as peppermint, lavender, and basil provide mosquito-repelling as well as culinary properties.  Water your container plants as needed by giving them a gently spray with your garden hose.

Combine Various Plants

Select a diverse selection of plants that that will bloom during different times of the year.  If all of your flowers bloom all at once, they will look gorgeous at the time, but during the other parts of the year, your yard will be lacking in color. Try using perennials such as Rozanne geraniums since they from June all the way through October. If your furry friend keeps invading your garden, there are certain plants you can plant to deter dogs and keep them out of your garden.

Consider Using Artificial Grass

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Do you have pets?  How about kids?  Think about trying artificial grass.  It is the way of making your yard child-proof and dog-proof since there isn't any way they can run around tearing your grass up.  It also requires zero maintenance.

Illuminate Walkways and Focal Points 

Show off your beautiful landscaping after hours with landscape lighting. There are many roles that lighting plays, from adding to the attractiveness on your home to illuminating sidewalks and steps for safety in order to showcase your landscape's best points of interest.  

Placing lights along walkways and paths is one of the most common ways to use them, although they don't have to be put in straight lines at certain intervals.  They can be placed on both sides of your sidewalk to break lines up.  

Plant Lavender

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A burst of color and relaxing aroma are added by lavender and you only have to water one to two times per week if there isn't regular rain in your area.  It acts as a bug repellent as well, so plant it close to your patio. 

Use Natural Hedges

Do you have neighbors that are too close for your comfort? Add privacy without needing to build a fence by growing tall trees, shrubs, or plants to help obscure your view of the neighbors.  

Bougainvillea, bamboo, boxwood, privet, and cypress are all fast-growing, attractive options that all can provide you with a sound barrier, windbreak, and privacy screen.  For irrigation, add soaker hoses in between your trees and shrubs so that the water goes directly to the roots of your plants.

Incorporate Outdoor Seating

Install a bench or patio away from your house and close to the edge of the lawn to provide you with an outdoor escape.  You can use pavers, stones, or concrete.  Build it close to tall flowers or trees to provide you with privacy, and benches or chairs so you can lie or sit down for a nap or read. Surround the area with flowers and keep it within 608 feet of your property line.

Customize Your Walkways

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Since first impressions are so important and because you want your visitors to feel welcome as soon as they start walking up to your house, why not add an inviting walkway that features a clear, clean path with an attractive border of plants or neatly trimmed grass on both sides.  Traditional bedding plants (like geraniums, petunias, and begonias) and ornamental grasses thrive in sunny walkways.  

For a shady yard, plant moisture-loving ferns, hydrangeas, and hostas.  To make sure that only the plants are irrigated by your watering system, and not your path, have soaker hoses installed along the walkway with an electronic time attached for automatic watering.

Create A Natural Water Feature

Having a water feature, even if it's a self-contained small unit on your patio needs to look as if it belongs.  Natural stone can be used to build it or the same material or stone that is on your house can be used.  Your project could backfire if too many materials are used.  A good rule to follow is to use a maximum of three materials in a single area so things don't look too busy.

Use A Walkway To Connect Various Points of Interest

Rather than tramping down your lawn and creating a makeshift path made up of dead grass between the garden, fire pit, and patio. why not make a beautiful walking using crushed stone, decorative brick, natural flagstone, or concrete stepping stones.

Build a walkway, pathways, or another type of landscaping feature made out of a similar or identical material that is used on the exterior of your house, like stone or brick, since it will aesthetically tie your path to your house.  Or using a material that offers the walkway a striking edging.

Use Crushed Stone

An excellent xeriscaping technique is to place crushed stones in your flower beds.  It's a great option to use in beds since it never has to be replaced.