Front of House Landscaping Checklist

Prepping Your Lawn

Prepping your lawn for summer in the Midwest doesn’t have to be a chore. Start now and you’ll have a lush carpet of the lawn as early as next month. Front-of-house landscaping is important when it comes to your property’s curb appeal and value. We’ve put together a checklist covering the components of creating a great lawn, from watering to fertilizing, as well as some other design planning tips.

LANDSCAPING: LUSH LAWN

Water once a week once the lawn is established, about 30 and 45 minutes.

• When seeding, water for a longer period of time once a week to encourage roots to extend deeper into the soil.
• Spread fertilizer once in the spring using a product that contains micronutrients like sulfur, copper, and iron. You may also want to apply dolomitic lime every few years to restore the pH and add minerals like calcium and magnesium.

LANDSCAPING: WALKWAYS THAT FLOW

• When planning walkways and pathways, incorporate natural access patterns that follow the flow and rhythm of your yard. Failing to do this will force kids, pets, and visitors to forge their own paths, and you don’t want people traipsing through your beautiful lawn.
• Make your walks at least 36 inches wide, according to Better Homes and Gardens.
  Your path’s maximum slope incline should be 10 percent. Ideally, the slope should be somewhere between one and five percent.
• Create a buffer zone of ground cover next to your pathways. Use lawn area, mulch, or crushed stone, at least two feet wide to give people plenty of room for movement.

LANDSCAPING: ARCHITECTURAL FEATURES

• Plan out major feature upgrades years ahead of time. Steps, driveways, porches, and fences are the most expensive and permanent of your landscape elements. Thus, you don’t have to do all of these at once.
• Trees, shrubs, and other large plants are meant to be permanent and grow over time, so plan for their growth by strategically installing other features farther away from them.
• Plant bright flowers in between those permanent fixtures that you can change from year to year for a touch of color, versatility, and style.

Planning landscape features and installing them on your own can be a lot of work. After all of that hard work on the front of your home, you want to make sure that your gutter system works properly so your landscaping is protected. If your home needs a new roof or gutter system to distribute water away from your home more effectively, let our experts at Home Solutions of Iowa handle the job.