Are You Making One of These 7 Landscaping Mistakes?

April 2, 2016

By: Lisa Kaplan Gordon

Don’t let badly designed or maintained landscaping wreck your home’s curb appeal. Here are pitfalls to avoid. Clumsy, neglected, and hodgepodge landscaping not only hurts your home’s curb appeal, it can cut the value of your property and make it harder to sell. Real estate appraisers say bad landscaping is a buyer turnoff that can increase the number of days a property languishes on the market, which also hurts prices. “I’ve been with clients who won’t even go into a house because of the bad landscaping outside,” says Mack Strickland, a Chester, Va., REALTOR® and appraiser.

Even more important, bad landscaping is a downer that hurts the way you see and enjoy your home.

Don’t let bad landscaping happen to you.  Here are the seven landscaping mistakes that bust, rather than boost, your home’s curb appeal.

1.  Planting Without a Plan:

Some landscaping choices, such as a line of begonias, will last a season; others, like trees, can last a lifetime. So, take time to plan and plot a yard that gives you maximum enjoyment and curb appeal. For the design challenged, landscape architects are worth the investment ($300 to $2,500 depending on yard size). They will render elevations of your future yard, and provide plant lists so you can install landscaping yourself.

2.  Too Much Togetherness:

Yes, planting in clusters looks way better than installing single plants, soldier-like, throughout your yard. But make sure your groups of perennials, shrubs, and trees have plenty of room to spread, or they’ll look choked and overgrown. Also, over-crowded landscaping competes with itself for food and water, putting the clusters at risk, especially during drought. Google how high and wide the mature plant will be, and then combine that info with the spacing suggestions on planting labels. At first, garden beds of young plants will look too airy and prairie-like. But within three years, your beds will fill in with room to grow. Remember: First year it sleeps, second it creeps, third it leaps.

3.  Zoning Out:

Don’t be seduced by catalog plants that look gorgeous on paper but aren’t suited to your hardiness zone. You’ll wind up with plants that die prematurely, or demand winter covers, daily watering, and other intensive efforts to keep them alive and well. Check plant labels to see which hardiness zones are best for your plants.

4.  More of the Same:

Resist the design temptation to carpet-bomb your yard with your favorite plant or shrub, which will create a boring, monochromatic landscape. Worse, your yard will look great when your fave flowers bloom, then will look drab the rest of the year. Mix things up and strive for four-season color. For example, combine spring-blooming azaleas with summer-blooming roses and autumn-blazing shrubs — such as burning bushes (Euonymus alatus). For winter color, try the red osier dogwood (Cornus stolonifera), a hardy shrub that sports bright-red branches in winter.

5.  Refusing to Bury Your Dead:

Nothing wrecks curb appeal faster than rows of dead or dying shrubs and perennials. So quickly remove your dearly departed landscaping from your front and side yards. Spent plants that lived their natural lives are good candidates for a compost pile — if you grind them first, they’ll decompose faster. But if your landscaping succumbed to disease or infestation, it’s best to inter them in black plastic bags, then add to the trash.

6.  Weeds Gone Wild:

Weeds not only wreck the look of your landscaping, they compete with pricey vegetation for water and food. Weeds also can shorten the life of brick, stone, and pavers by growing in mortar cracks.

The best way to stop weeds is to spread a pre-emergent about three weeks before weed seeds typically germinate. If you can’t stop them from growing, at least get rid of weeds before they flower and send a zillion weed seeds throughout your yard.

7.  Contain Those Critters:

Deer, rabbits, and other backyard pests think your landscaping is an all-you-can eat buffet, leaving you with denuded branches and topless perennials.

If you’ve got a critter problem:

• Plant deer- or rabbit-resistant varieties. Your local extension agent can provide a list of green things critters won’t eat in your area.

• Install an electric fence around landscaping you want to protect.

• Spray plants with critter repellent. After a hard rain, spray again.

Replacing Rain Gutters and Downspouts!

March 31, 2016

By: Pat Curry

Replace missing gutters and downspouts to prevent serious siding and foundation damage that may cost you $10,000 or more to repair.

Your home may be your castle, but if you’re missing downspouts and sections of gutter, you’ll certainly have a moat where daisies once flourished. Excess water near your foundation risks thousands of dollars in foundation repairs. The good news is that gutter or downspout replacement only requires about $15 worth of materials and three to four hours of your time.

Cost of Replacement Gutters and Downspouts!

You’ll find aluminum and vinyl gutter components surprisingly affordable. Here’s what to look for:

• Home centers sell 10-foot sections of gutter for less than $8.

• A 10-foot downspout costs you less than $13.

• Clip-up downspout extenders that snap out of the way when mowing cost about $8.

• Gutter sealant runs about $7 for a 10-ounce tube.

• Buy additional hangers and clips ($2) — the damage may have occurred because there weren’t enough of them in the first place.

• In some cases, you’ll also need some end caps ($7 per set), joint connectors ($6), and a box of self-tapping screws ($6).

How to Replace Missing Gutters!

More often than not, an entire 10-foot section of gutter will be damaged or missing. Use a hacksaw and tin snips to cut shorter lengths of replacement gutter.

• Grab two ladders and enlist a helper.

• Remove any old joint connectors and scrape any sealant or gunk off the existing gutter.

• Do a test fit with new joint connectors.

• Fill the ends of the new joint connectors with sealant before installing the gutter.

• Loosen adjacent hangers if needed to add the replacement section.

• Add hangers every 3 feet. Confirm that the gutter is pitched toward the downspout at a slope of 1/4-inch for every 10 feet.

How to Add a Downspout!

• Fit the new downspout up into the drop outlet (the piece at the end of gutter that feeds into the downspout). Notice that the drop outlet fits inside the downspout section to contain the flow and keep the jointing from leaking.

• Fasten the joint with two self-tapping gutter screws. Add additional sections as needed.

• Finish the downspout with an elbow positioned at least 6 inches above grade.

• Attach the downspout extender (it should extend at least 5 feet into your yard).

Adding All-New Gutters and Downspouts!

If there are lots of missing or damaged pieces, you may decide it is time for a whole new set of gutters. Most residential gutters are made of lightweight and durable aluminum. Vinyl, galvanized steel, and even copper also are options.

Aluminum gutters can range from about $4.50 to $9.50 per linear foot installed. On a 2,000-square-foot house with about 180 linear feet of gutters, that’s roughly $800 to $1,700.