15 Budget-Conscious Tips for Sprucing Up Your Yard & Boosting Your Home’s Value

If you’re trying to impress potential buyers — or even guests — nothing is worse than having unkempt grounds. An unruly yard is an immediate turnoff, as buyers might assume you’re not maintaining the home well. Boost your home’s value by sprucing up your yard with these 15 budget-conscious tips.

1. Create a welcoming entrance with one or two big pots filled with colorful plants.

2. Make a significant impact on your landscape with a few 5-gallon trees for about $35 each, if you plan to stay in your home for at least five years, says landscape architect David Keith, owner of Arbor Studio, in Blanco, Tex. Smaller trees also tend to acclimate better.

3. Invest in a couple of great architectural pots that make a statement at your entrance, Vincenta says. Add rounded boxwoods for a classic look, or try a seasonal planting of ornamental grasses, and colorful annuals and trailing plants for an eye-catching display.

4. Add a bench or garden ornament, such as a trellis or birdbath to a key spot, or add a nice mailbox with some plantings at the base.

5. Hire someone to professionally prune or selectively remove (and replace) overgrown bushes.

6. Spruce up your foundation plantings with a border of long-blooming perennials.

7. Redo an area of your garden or even a small backyard.

8. Hire a landscape designer or architect to create a plan that you can install or to develop a solution to a nagging problem in your yard.

9. Add several evergreen plants, both trees and shrubs, to punctuate an entrance, create year-round color in your yard or block a bad view.

10. Go green by creating a rain garden that will capture and filter runoff from your roof.

11. Install landscape lighting to illuminate the path to your front door.

12. Buy a small, freestanding water feature, and add rocks, boulders and plantings to make it look natural.

13. Clean up existing plant beds by removing weeds and overgrown plants.

14. Prune shrubs — but not into an unnatural ball or square shape.

15. Trim tree branches that hang too low and create hazards.