In March, 2003* the Wall Street Journal Magazine of Personal Business, Smart Money, featured a special report on how one’s home values are boosted by good landscape.

At the time, the then president-elect of the National Association of Realtors, Walt McDonald, had advised; “when people ask me how they can get strong interest in their property, I always tell them to fix up their landscaping”. Studies showed that a design-wise, landscape investment of about 5% of a home’s value would result in as much as a 150% return. In most any market or region, a home on the market at $500,000 with an extra $25,000 invested in new landscape could result in an easy 7.5% / $12,500 of additional profit.

The Smart Money article suggested four distinct ways to invest in, and enhance, your home and property values – both for your own living as well as for future sale.

First – concentrate on Curb-Appeal – everything that can be seen from the street or during the approach to your home. Curb-Appeal is enhanced through landscape beds, staggered and layered height plantings (ground covers to taller shrubs), shade and special interest trees, walkways, pedestrian and vehicular arrivals and an attention to spacing, massing, scale, framing and accenting.