Residential Landscape Ideas for Your Michigan Home

The housing market in S.E. Michigan may not be as robust as it was in the mid-90's, but that doesn't mean you can't still build equity in your home. Some Michigan residents have decided to sell and relocate, while the remaining balance of homeowners have decided to Stay Put. Either way, considering landscaping improvements can both add equity, marketability and enjoyment to your home. Staying or selling, to get the most out of your home you may consider these landscaping improvement ideas.

Maintenance Free

In today's busy world, it seems even more difficult than ever to find time to even mow the lawn. Work, work, work, run, run, run... it's Saturday...work some more, attend the kids games...Sunday...family events...who's going to mow the lawn? Not enough time in the day is an understatement anymore, there's not enough time in the week! Homeowners and homebuyers appreciate maintenance free landscaping.

Weed Barrier Mesh

Install a quality weed barrier mesh under the mulch or decorative stone in your landscape beds. Keep the plastic garbage bags for your trash and put the newspaper in the recycle bin - just keep them out of your landscape beds. A quality weed barrier mesh will significantly reduce the amount of time you'll have to spend pulling weeds, and allows proper moisture to penetrate...

Clean Edges and Trim

The appearance of anything maintained is always more pleasing to the eye - just ask your spouse. Consider a quality edging material for your landscape beds and around your trees. It makes trimming easier, and maintains a clean look and a defined separation between lawn and landscape. TIME SAVING TRICK: A 20' piece of landscape edging will create a perfect circle around a tree that almost every riding mowers turning radius can mow around, thus saving time with the trimmer.

Enviro-Mulch or Decorative Stone

Many homeowners are replacing or freshening-up their mulch with a product called Enviro-Mulch. Enviro-Mulch is a kiln dried, natural wood product that is pressure treated with a colored dye, enabling the mulch to hold that nice fresh look for almost 3x longer than natural hardwood mulch or wood chips. Otherwise, consider decorative stone. No doubt, stone has a greater upfront cost, but it will last forever. No re-mulching which means, more leisure time!