Curb Appeal Matters All Year Round
Regardless of whether your priority is to keep every space occupied while attracting patrons to your shopping center, create an appetizing and inviting restaurant façade, provide a safe and enjoyable outdoor public space for a retirement community or multi-family dwelling property, or remain more attractive to lodgers than nearby competitors, maintaining curb appeal is critical all year round.
In fact, your property’s exterior plays a huge role in the way your brand will be perceived, and we all know how important a prospective customer’s initial reaction is. Fortunately, there are a variety of steps you can take to ensure your grounds are making the best possible first impression.
[ez-toc]Maintain a Tidy Appearance
First and foremost, if people see an unruly outside, they’re likely to be put off by the idea that doing business with you will be unruly too. This is where securing a landscape maintenance partner that will be on your property with regularly scheduled services is a wise investment. Services that can be performed to maintain that tidy appearance includes:
Properly Trim & Prune
Keeping border areas, trees, shrubs, and other plantings properly trimmed and pruned can go a long way. Not only does it keep your greenery healthy and long-lived, but it also shows people how much you care about how you appear to the community, and that translates to how much you care about how you appear to your customers as well.
A landscaping specialist like your local U.S. Lawns will be able to provide the right trimming and pruning services at the proper time of year, so check with us about getting on the schedule sooner rather than later.
Remove Weeds & Debris Regularly
Another routine landscape maintenance service that should take place on a regular basis is keeping weeds, leaves, sticks, and other debris removed from all areas of the property. This includes cleaning up any loose gravel or dirt that has made its way to the parking spots and walkways. There are also specially scheduled Fall Cleanup and Spring Cleanup services that should be performed that will keep your property looking its best when Mother Nature is at its messiest.
Power wash Your Property
If it’s been some time since you’ve washed the sidewalks, exterior steps, or retaining walls, power washing is a low-cost and effective way to make a visually noticeable difference to hardscape features.
Make Landscape Improvements to Increase Safety as well as Aesthetics
Remove Hazards
Although we already mentioned how important pruning and trimming are for appearance, eliminating low-hanging limbs before they become “eye stabbers” and preventing unhealthy branches from presenting danger in high winds make trimming and pruning doubly impactful.
Improve Drainage
By keeping drains unclogged and, if necessary, adding new drainage solutions like surface drains, French drains, trench drains, or maybe a natural rain garden or dry creek bed, you’re protecting the turf and the concrete alike from preventable water damage.
Other landscape improvements you can make to support both safety and aesthetics are:
Install Lighting
There is a multitude of ways lighting can be used to improve curb appeal and make people feel safer on your property, like:
- Backlighting under the eaves and other structure overhangs to add warmth.
- Accent and display lights to highlight statues, signage, fountains, and other hardscape features.
- Solar lights or another border lighting to illuminate walking paths and stairways.
- Sparkle lights and festive lighting that can show your company’s support for a local sporting team or celebrate seasonal changes, special events, or holidays.
Add Seasonal Color & Hardscapes
Some of the best ways to attain real curb appeal are through the use of:
- A nice mixture of annual and perennial flowers that blossom during different times of the year.
- Diverse varieties of trees and grasses with foliage in shades of green, red, orange, and gold.
- Ornamental trees and shrubs that bloom, along with evergreens that remain bright green and grow vibrantly shaded berries that will keep your landscape looking lively through the winter months.
- Wood mulch and other ground covers are vital for plant health as well as for providing that neat, put-together look.
- Hardscapes such as:
- Large planters with eye-catching greenery.
- Paver pathways lined with benches.
- Flagstone patios with umbrella-covered picnic tables.
- Flowering vine-covered arbors or trellises.
- Pergolas and Gazebos.
- Natural rock water features.
- Stone fireplaces.
- Playgrounds or recreation areas like volleyball and basketball courts.
- Seasonal or themed decorations like:
- Holiday lights and other decorations.
- Harvest items like pumpkins, gourds, and shocks of hay.
- Wreaths made of flowers, vines, berries, and other items that represent your brand message and/or the season.
- Container gardens with plantings that represent your business (i.e. a small herb and vegetable garden outside a restaurant, grape vines surrounding the patio of a wine bar, palm trees, and tropical plants throughout a tropically themed resort, etc.)
Trust your Landscape Enhancements to the Professionals
As you can see, the possibilities are endless when it comes to creating the curb appeal that resonates with your audience throughout the year. It may even seem a bit overwhelming as to where to start and where to stop.
But you’re in luck because there is a locally owned and operated U.S. Lawns nearby with the regional experience, national backing, and landscape enhancement expertise to help, no matter the season.
Get in touch with us today to find out how we can take your landscape from blah to beautiful and keep it that way all year, while you focus on all your other tasks at hand. Your Turf. Our Lawn.