How to add value to your home. 49

How to Add Value to your Home.

The following outlines how to add value to your home with some front garden ideas to create a fantastic grass landscape. This blog outlines several easy-to-do and low-cost options that produce a great-looking grass landscape and add value to your home.

Adding value to your house.

We all like a good-looking lawn or grass landscape, and if you are selling your house, a well-manicured and maintained lawn can add a significant amount of value to the property:

• “Good landscaping can increase the value of a home by 15-20% and, perhaps by 25%.”
• A 2013 study by the University of Western Australia found that even a broad-leafed tree on a street verge in front of a home increases the median property price by about $16,889.
• According to data from the Husqvarna your garden could add as much as 16% to the value of your property.
• For every percentage of ground a lawn covers, a lawn can add 0.2% of value to a property. In other words, if your lawn covers 25% of your block, it can lead to a 5% increase in its overall value.
• Improving your landscaped area and garden from ‘good’ to ‘excellent’ adds at least 6-7% value.

These front garden ideas can help you achieve this.

The situation in 2023/2024

In 2023, the housing market came under increasing pressure, and adding value to your home without blowing the bank is more important than ever.

However, you don’t have to get a landscaper to carry out any work, and there are several front garden ideas that you can do yourself.

Add Value to your Home by Cleaning up.

This front garden idea is by far the simplest. In fact, it is common sense, but with a little effort you can achieve great results. Tidy up the lawn by removing debris off the surface and tidying up lawn edges. It’s simple to do and makes a massive difference.

Colour Things Up to Add Value to Your Home.

The next front garden idea is to work on the lawn colour. Another simple one.

Colour and aesthetics are a grass landscapes friend. Make sure whatever you feed your lawn with contains iron (Fe). 

Nitrogen (N) causes both growth and a colour response. A high iron fertilizer gives you a great colour, without having to mow more! Iron will darken the leaf and give it that dark green colour we all like. It does this by oxidising (rusting) on the leaf surface.

Alternatively, if dormant (winter) or just plain “rooted”, use a turf-pigment or colourant. If you’re looking at selling your house in winter when the lawn has a brown dead appearance (it’s probably dormant!) turf pigments or grass paint such as Vertmax can cause an immediate colour response.

Use the products that commercial growers or professional sporting venues use rather than a special “home garden” one.

These are massively cheaper, and you apply at a lower rate, so they offer better value for your money.

These are widely used in the professional turf market, so depending on the size of your lawn area, there are a range of pack sizes to choose from. These give an immediate, long lasting colour response without the need to break out the mower.

Staining.

However, be aware that some pigments and colourants can stain clothes and concrete so make sure they are allowed to dry before you walk on treated grass and don’t get them on paths etc.

If by any chance you do, immediately wash off with water.

If staining does happen, you can try using oxalic acid. Don’t worry its an active in Barkeepers Friend range of cleaning products.

Oxalic Acid Powder works really well for removing rust stains from concrete and stone surfaces such as pavers. Use one-half cup of oxalic acid powder in 4L of warm water and apply to the stain. Let it sit, and if needs be, use a scrubbing brush. Leave it to sit for 30 minutes and wash off.

Height of Cut.

Our front garden ideas, now get a bit more complicated but can have a huge payoff for your grass landscape. Maintain the lawn at the right height of cut. Nothing looks worse than a “shaggy” lawn that looks like a car crash. 

Different grasses prefer different heights of cut, but the best all-round option is to cut as high as possible without the grass looking a mess. The key is frequency. Letting the grass grow long and then cutting it down, will only result in it becoming an unsightly yellow colour. The rukle of thumb is never to remove a third of the leaf at any time.

Consider a fence to Add Value to Your Home.

The simplest things work the best. If you haven’t got one consider a fence! If you have already have a fence around your grass landscape it will really set this off. Also make sure if you already have a fence that it is well-maintained and not falling to bits. More likely if you’re reading this you haven’t got one so here are a few tips.

Remove any weeds to Add Value to your Home.

Deal with any weeds by either hand weeding or if widespread, use an appropriate weed killer. For those who don’t like using chemicals, here are a few alternative options you can try. 

As with most things, there are a range of options that you can use. What you use will depend on the weeds you are trying to kill and the grass type present. As a general rule a broadleaved weedkiller like ProForce Warhead Trio will cover most problem weeds if they are already present. 

Grass weeds and sedges/nutgrass will need something more specific.

There are now options available that kill the existing weeds on pathways and driveways and stop them coming back for up to 8 months. Check out ProForce Numchuk Quad later on.

Winter Grass.

This is the bane of lawn owners but fear not. This handy guide on how to manage winter grass should fix you up in no time!

If you want to stop weeds from reappearing, use a pre emergent herbicide.

Non-chemical weed control.

We have a blog on alternative non chemical pest control front garden ideas, but here are a few to start with.

If you do not want to use chemicals, you can use sugar to kill broad-leaved weeds. Simply sprinkle sugar over your lawn and give it a light watering to water it into the soil. It’s best to do this three or four times in the spring. This ensures you get any new growth or difficult to kill weeds that survived the first couple of hits.

Another option is vinegar. White vinegar works the best (and is the cheapest) option as a weed killer. You can simply put this in a pump pack and use it to spot-treat the weeds. Do not apply this all over the lawn as it will kill the grass as well as it works in contact with vegetation.

Mulch.

With flower beds, mulch is your friend. As a front garden idea, this can be a massive pain in the rear but gives a big payoff. If you already have mulch, freshen it up and replace it. Alternatively, there’s a new range of colourants/pigments specifically designed to add colour and make it appear new.

Pathways and paved areas.

The next front garden idea relates to pathways and paved areas. For surrounding pavers, pathways and driveways, Numchuk Quad® is a new product that kills all existing weeds, and prevents them from coming back for up to 12 months. One application causes an immediate knockdown, and then the chemicals it contains prevent any regrowth. Job done!

If all else fails – get a new lawn!

The final front garden idea. Failing all this, sometimes it might be time to get a new grass landscape. Yes, it’s going to cost money, but you will get an immediate return on your investment. The key is making sure that you choose the right grass, it’s installed properly, and probably most importantly, you are able to look after it!

Add value to your home by installing a new lawn.

Giving a detailed outline of what a new lawn involves is beyond the scope of this blog, but for quick results, we suggest that you use instant turf as a quick option for a front garden idea. 

If time isn’t so pressing, seeding is a good option, but depends on what grass type you want. 

After preparing the seed bed properly, all you need to do is unroll the turf, and keep it irrigated. If you seed, you need to prepare the seed bed, keep water up to the seed (without over-watering), and keep an eye out for disease.

How much does instant turf cost in 2024?

The average Australian lawn is 130m2, so you should pay around $1000-1500 for new grass without any labour costs. Based on around 130m2, you are looking at $2.50-3/m2 for installation if you don’t do it yourself.

The cheapest option is to do the work yourself. The only thing it will cost you is your time. Do realise it isn’t simply a case of plonking the turf down and walking away.

Giving detailed costings is beyond the scope of this blog, but ballpark figures for using turf are as follows. Pricing is in $/m2.

The turf you choose will depend on your location, how shaded it is, and what you are going to use the lawn for? Dogs, kids or just to look at.

So in summary there are a lot of grass landscape and front garden ideas that can cost effectively add value to your home. Feel free to contact us if you have any questions