The Finances Of Landscaping

SmartMoney Magazine
Fertile Ground
By Chris Taylor

You’ve done everything humanly
possible to boost the value of your home:
put a trendy island in the kitchen, laid fresh
carpeting to replace that dusty ’70s shag,
constructed a spa-quality bathroom bigger
than most studio apartments. And now
you’re scratching your head, wondering how
to jack up your resale price even more.
Look outside, silly.
After all, when well-heeled buyers pull up to
your home, it’s not the luxury faucets or the
gorgeous granite counter they see first. It’s
the landscaping. And if your lawn is patchy,
your trees are on their deathbed and your
plants are a poor excuse for flora, it isn’t
going to matter what kind of magic you’ve
worked indoors. Those buyers may keep on
driving. “When people ask me how they can
get strong interest in their property, I always
tell them to fix up their landscaping,’ says
Walt McDonald, president-elect of the
National Association of Realtors. “If a
homeowner is reluctant to do it, I tell them
they won’t get top dollar.”
That’s the payoff. You will not only attract
more buyers and get a quicker sale but also
probably get a welcome boost in your sale
price. “If you spend 5% of the value of your
home on landscaping, and do it wisely, you
might get 150% or more of your money
back,” says Massachusetts Realtor Gill
Woods. And sometimes that number can go
even higher. If your home’s landscaping is
on the low end for the area and you’re
putting it on par with your neighbors, you
could be looking at a 15% rise.
Just ask Chuck Mitton of Cherry Hills
Village, Colo. He and wife Jean went to town
on the nondescript backyard of their ranch
home a few years ago. A tangled mass of
overgrown plants became a three-level
wonderland, complete with ponds,
waterfalls, dwarf conifer trees and fresh
flowerbeds with roses and azaleas. Oh, and
don’t forget the new “hardscapes,” such as a
winding brick walkway, a backyard hot tub,
and a barbecue pit and dining area, where
the couple eat “almost every day” during
warm weather. “If you’re going to do some
landscaping, I’d say do quite a bit,” suggests
the semiretired bookkeeper and investor,
who spent $60,000 on his additions. “Then
you can enjoy it yourself — and the value of
your home will go up too.”
The proof: When Mitton refinanced in 2001,
the originally $250,000 home was
reappraised at $750,000 — roughly
$150,000 to $200,000 of which he attributes
to the landscaping. “Landscapes take time
to mature,” says the 59-year-old, “but I’d say
people might be able to make 200% of
whatever they put in.”
Plus, it can be fun. Gardening is one of the
most popular hobbies in America: In 2001
homeowners spent $37.7 billion taking care
of their yards, up from $22.5 billion five
years earlier, according to the National
Gardening Association. While the increase
has been fueled by a maturing boomer
population and a spike in homebuying,
people are also clueing in to the fact that it
can add dollars to their home’s value. And
academic studies are proving it. A study by
Clemson University and the University of
Michigan found that consumers value a
landscaped home up to 11.3% higher than
its base price. And one Quebec survey
found that hedges raised property values by
3.6%, a landscaped curb by 4.4% and a
landscaped patio by a staggering 12.4%.
In fact, you’re going to have to do what you
can to make your property stand out, now
that the housing market is cooling. Most real
estate watchers, such as home-price
research firm Fiserv CSW, are predicting
slower price increases in the coming years;
other market bears are warning of a steep
drop-off. “Six months ago anything on the
market had people clamoring,” says Woods.
“In a cooling market, it’s going to be more
difficult to get a buyer into a piece of
property. The key thing now is ‘curb
appeal.’”
Such appeal isn’t just about your lawn,
trees, shrubs and flowering plants, though
— these days you’ll want to consider
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popular hardscapes such as gorgeous
walkways, sweeping arches, full kitchen
areas and barbecue pits, elongated patios
and decks, elaborate backyard retreats and
gazebos, and more. The stakes have been
raised.
To put it into perspective: For a $500,000
home, on which you spend $25,000 to
spruce it up, even a modest gain of 7.5%
would put $12,500 of straight profit in your
pocket. Though the result — a perfect yard
— may look beautifully simple, a thousand
factors contribute to it, from dealing with
contractors and knowing what to plant to
hiring landscape architects and designers,
and making sure your costs don’t spiral out
of control. To sort out the complexities,
we’ve broken down the four big trends du
jour: curb appeal, the year-round yard, the
sanctuary and bringing the indoors outdoors.
And we’ve got insider tips for every stage of
the process.
Project 1: Curb Appeal
First impressions, as anyone in the dating
game will tell you, are key. So before you
start designing that luxurious backyard koi
pond, get the front of your house in order:
mowing, weeding, trimming shrubs, putting
in fresh sod if you need to. “If you have a
budget, it’s important to focus your
landscaping around key areas,” says Kevin
Selger, a landscape architect at Philadelphia
firm Kling. “Something that’s going to be
viewed a lot — like the front of the house.”
When the no-brainers are done, you can
start getting serious. The hot trend at the
moment: beautiful pathways, made of brick
or concrete pavers, winding from the street
to the front door. “You have to eliminate the
‘garage walk,’” says Linda Engstrom,
president of the Association of Professional
Landscape Designers, referring to the
typical 3-foot-wide path that routes visitors
from the garage to the front door. Contractor
Bob Novelli of Selbyville, Del., tackled the
project on his own home, ripping up asphalt
and concrete and replacing it all with 1,800
square feet of interlocking concrete pavers.
After adding lighted retaining walls and a
screened back porch — at a total cost of
around $25,000 — he had his home
reappraised at $325,000 this past October,
up from $225,000 in October 2001. “This
project had a lot to do with it,” he says.
Make the path slightly staggered or curved
to give it some character. Place a wooden
“pergola,” or archway, over the path to
define an entranceway; one can be
purchased at a home-improvement store for
a few hundred dollars. Flank the path with
Mediterranean-style pots featuring flowering
container plants.
Next, add some light. Low-wattage ground
lighting to sandwich the path is fairly easy to
install and will boost the effect immeasurably
in the evening hours (do-it-yourself kits are
available from around $100). For
showstopper trees, add one higher-wattage
lamp beneath. “It gives the whole front yard
a soft glow,” says Maureen Gilmer, host of
the Do It Yourself network’s Weekend
Gardening and a nationally syndicated
columnist based in Palm Springs, Calif.
Redoing the front of your home can have
spectacular effects. Anneke Moore of
Portland, Ore., tackled the project to get her
place ready for sale in 2004, when she and
her husband, Dan, plan to retire to Arizona.
“I wanted the landscaping to be an asset to
the house,” says Moore, a manager at a
local high-tech firm. “And I wanted it to have
enough time to grow into something
special.”
With guidance from Linda Engstrom, Moore
installed a pathway of concrete pavers,
wooden pergolas to frame it as the main
entranceway and a boundary hedge to give
the home some privacy from their busy
street. With those changes to the front,
along with a similar overhaul of the back —
which totaled around $25,000 — “I should
be able to clear $250,000,” predicts Moore,
judging from other recent home sales in the
neighborhood. Her original buying price for
the home 25 years ago: $70,000. “I was
surprised at how much hardscapes became
part of the plan,” she says. “It was a lot more
than somebody just suggesting plants to
throw into the ground.”
Remember, low-maintenance plant material
is best. Buyers want the yard to look great,
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but they don’t want it to be labor-intensive. “I
call it meat-and-potatoes landscaping,” says
Gilmer. Otherwise, “you may turn off buyers
— particularly downsizers.” Also keep in
mind that these trees and shrubs are going
to grow by leaps and bounds, so you want to
give them the space to do it. “The biggest
single mistake people make is overplanting,”
says Selger — say, crowding two majestic
oaks within 10 feet of each other. “Plants
grow. If you want instant impact, be
prepared to have maintenance problems in
a few years.”
Project 2: The Year-
Round Yard
The novice gardener might plant once a
year, enjoy a single blooming and not think
about winter much at all. Not that there’s
anything wrong with that.
But now it’s time to take it up a notch. By
smart planting and giving color to the yard
year-round, you’ve instantly set your home
apart from most others in the neighborhood,
which will likely be leafless and drab in the
winter months. At her home, for instance,
Anneke Moore has nandina “firepower”
shrubs in the front yard, with their brilliant
red leaves, along with mock orange trees for
some fragrance. “Getting color in winter is
not easily done here in the West, so people
go to evergreens all the time,” Moore says.
“But now, in the winter, my yard is full of
color.”
Other ideas for year-round color, which are
good for most areas of the country: flowering
shrubs such as viburnums with their colored
berries, or trees with colored bark such as
coral bark Japanese maples. Ornamental
grasses, including fountain grass and
maiden grass, are hardy through different
seasons — as well as ultra-trendy and easy
to maintain. And always remember to match
the plants to the home. Pansies and
petunias may be perfect for a cottage-style
house, but not for one that’s sleek and
contemporary.
Whatever you plant, insiders say the soil is
just as important as what’s going in it —
maybe more so. “We have an adage around
here: Plant a $50 plant in a $100 hole,” says
Selger. One tip is to contact your local
agricultural agency (often on the county
level), which can either test your soil or refer
you to a local lab. In a couple of weeks, you
should have an analysis of your soil, along
with tips on how to improve it. A few
common problems: Your soil is either too
acidic (which requires lime) or too alkaline
(which requires sulfur), or there’s not
enough organic matter, which means it’s
time for mulching or composting.
Likely your most valuable asset, though, is
your trees. They’re also the perfect
investment. “You buy a tree for $20 when
you first put it in, and immediately it starts to
rise in value,” says Mayita Dinos, host of the
Do It Yourself network’s Weekend
Landscaping and a garden designer in Los
Angeles. “It’s one of the few things that
appreciates over time; almost everything
else depreciates the minute you install it.”
When deciding which tree to plant, look
around your neighborhood to see which tree
the municipality plants in public areas. It’s
always very carefully picked, in terms of
hardiness in local weather conditions,
susceptibility to disease and structure that’s
not prone to falling branches. Depending on
your region, you might opt for oak, maple or
gingko biloba (which all do well in colder
climes), crepe myrtle (flourishing from the
D.C. area south to Florida), or magnolias
and liquid ambars (best in areas with milder
winters), to name a few.
The payoff: You might get a buyer like Jane
Billish of Naperville, Ill., who owns a
scaffolding business. Billish and her
husband, Scott, bought a property with a
modest home three years ago, attracted
almost solely by the three-fourths-acre
wooded lot. “We’d all but given up,” she
recalls. “Then I saw this place one Sunday
morning, and by the next weekend, we’d
bought it.”
But Billish figured there was even more
value to be plucked, so she brought in arbor
specialists The Care of Trees. They
removed some diseased elms, which were
crowding out higher-value trees. They also
did some pruning and fertilizing, and now
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Billish has a property full of healthy oak,
maple, ironwood and hickory. In conjunction
with renovation projects Billish did on the
house itself, the property was recently
reappraised at close to triple what she paid.
“We’ve made 200%,” Billish marvels. “These
trees are such an asset, it’s hard to
adequately express their value.”
Most experts say that younger is usually
better when it comes to planting trees, but if
you’re selling within three to five years, you’ll
need some size to get the full effect.
Maureen Gilmer’s favorite size is 15-gallon
— maybe 1 or 2 inches in diameter, around
8 feet tall — which will set you back around
$50 to $150. “The numbers I’ve heard are
that trees can enhance your property value
as high as 5 to 20%,” says The Care of
Trees President Scott Jamieson.
Depending on where you live, going
ultra-native with your trees and
surrounding landscaping can be
downright trendy. In the drought-prone
Southwest, for instance, it’s known as
xeriscaping, in which gardeners opt for a
truly desert look: sand, cactus and
boulders, as well as a variety of native
plant materials such as mesquite, or
acacia trees; cassia, or “Texas Ranger”
shrubs; sage; and more. Projects might
start at $2,000 without any existing turf,
or at around $3,000 if you need to take
up your current landscape, according to
Robin Jablonski, a construction division
manager for The Groundskeeper in
Tucson, Ariz. But talk about easy to
maintain.
Project 3: The
Sanctuary
Once you’re done with the front of your
house, your next point of attack is the
backyard “sanctuary.” More and more,
people are valuing a private place they can
retreat to — away from work, from
plummeting 401(k)s, from those heartattack-
inducing news tickers on CNN.
And the key feature of any sanctuary is
water: fountains or small ponds that bring
motion to an otherwise static environment.
“Water gardens are hot right now, and the
trend is only growing,” says Nancy Jacks
Montgomery, spokeswoman for the
American Nursery & Landscape Association.
For $500 to $1,500 you can buy a simple
fountain, says Gilmer (to have a contractor
install it, it could cost $1,000 more). Stick
with classical forms, nothing overly
elaborate or tacky, and try calming colors
such as a subtle bronze or a moss green.
For an even more budget-conscious option,
take a large terra-cotta pot, add a small
recirculating pump from a hardware store,
and you can have “a small water feature for
under $50,” says Linda Engstrom. Or just
have those pots collect rainwater, creating a
mirrored effect around the garden.
A more elaborate project is a small pond.
Confident do-it-yourselfers can tackle this for
a few hundred dollars, with preformed
plastic liners from Home Depot or Lowe’s.
You’ll need a pump to keep the water
moving (you might need to call in an
electrician to install an outdoor electrical
circuit) and the right chemical balance to
prevent algae buildup. Jazz up the effect
with miniwaterfalls, smooth river stones or
colorful fish such as koi (although be
warned, that may attract some unwanted
wildlife into your yard). To have it
professionally done might cost around
$2,000 for a basic pond and upward of
$8,000 for an elaborate setup, according to
contractor Bob Novelli.
To have the water effect without the actual
water, try a dry riverbed, as Anneke Moore
did. It not only looks terrific, as a curving
trench with artfully placed rocks, but also
has improved a drainage problem she’d had
for 20-odd years that had left her with a
soggy basement. With the right design, it
almost becomes like a Japanese rock
garden. “We’re seven minutes from
downtown, and it’s a real haven when we
come home,” she says.
The crucial part of any sanctuary, however,
is a seating area where you can drink it all in
and enjoy the fruits of your labor. Get some
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additional privacy with tasteful wooden
screens, install a couple of wrought-iron
benches, and make sure you’re not blocking
your sight lines to the foliage or water
features.
One kind of water feature that may not be
the smart way to go is a monster backyard
pool. If you’re in a warm clime and it’s the
norm for your neighborhood, then fine. But if
you’re looking to make big money on the
project, forget it. “People tell me, ‘I’ve got
$75,000 in this pool — retaining walls,
cabanas, dressing rooms,’” says real estate
agent Gill Woods. “But are you going to find
someone willing to pay extra for those
improvements? The answer, normally, is
no.”
The reasons: One, it’s a relatively highmaintenance
project; two, it might turn off
safety-conscious buyers. “If I have a small
child, that’s a danger for me,” says Mayita
Dinos, noting that big ponds can give people
pause as well. “In this economy you don’t
want to be eliminating people like that.”
But get your sanctuary right and buyers like
Robin Whitesides might come knocking.
When she was hunting around Newport
Beach, Calif., for a new home, the choice
was clear. She could opt for a property with
awful landscaping and then invest another
$50,000 or so to get it up to par, or she
could buy a place with everything already in
place. Guess which one she chose?
It wasn’t just the basics, either. Her
backyard retreat features year-round color
shifting among the azaleas, gardenias,
camellias, lilacs and hibiscus (”something’s
always blooming,” she says), mature trees
that screen out the neighbors’ yards and a
wall fountain that’s lit up at night. She and
her husband, Glen Esnard, have added their
own touches in the past year, such as
flowing vines (passionflower and scarlet
trumpet creeper) and banana plants and
dwarf lemon trees, in keeping with the
“tropical” theme. The happy ending: They
bought at over $800,000 and had their home
reappraised at about 15% higher in less
than a year.
Project 4: Bring the
Inside Out
In this recently white-hot housing market,
some buyers have had to settle for less
space than they would’ve liked. The magic
solution to the problem: Extend your living
space outdoors, especially in sunnier areas
of the country. In one shot you’ve increased
your usable space. “It’s almost as if the wall
between the indoors and the outdoors has
come down,” says Bruce Butterfield,
research director for the National Gardening
Association. “You’re seeing outdoor rooms
and living spaces that have all the features
of indoor kitchens or family rooms.”
That means cooking areas, such as a
barbecue fire pit or even professional-grade
kitchen setups; elongated patios and decks;
or high-end gazebos. Just talk to Robin
Whitesides. In the top-of-the-line backyard
that attracted her to the property, she has a
curved bar with seating for six, a cooking
area with a built-in barbecue and a
refrigerator, and a hot tub. “People are
spending more these days on their outdoor
cooking rooms than their indoor kitchens,’
marvels Linda Engstrom. “Elaborate stone
fireplaces, full kitchens right on the patio. It’s
amazing.”
Deck and patio additions are the natural way
to extend one’s living space outside, and
decks bring one of the highest cost
recoupings of any home project (76%),
according to Remodeling Magazine’s “2001
Cost vs. Value Report.” (An indoor sunroom,
by contrast, gets you only 60% of your
dollars back.) Redwood or cedar is still a
high-end choice, although more recycled
plastics that look like wood are being used
for long life, according to Kling’s Kevin
Selger. Redwood is a popular option for
gazebos, too, and you can even buy
premanufactured versions that are dropped
on-site. A 10-foot-wide model might cost
between $4,000 and $5,000, says Selger.
If you’re putting in significant hardscapes,
make sure of a few things. Don’t damage
the root systems of major trees in your yard,
which could potentially cost you thousands
of dollars. The Care of Trees’ Jamieson
even recommends roping off areas around
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trees to the furthest reach of their branches,
at the very least. Also, find out whether you
might be about to dig into any utilities. Hit a
gas line or TV cables and you could be
liable for repair costs — if you don’t check
with the local public service commission.
Once your property is marked by the proper
local authorities, “if you do hit, you’ve
covered yourself,” says Bob Novelli.
Huge hardscapes are often the most
expensive projects you can undertake, so if
you want to know up front what kind of
return your landscaping investment might
get, “it wouldn’t hurt to talk to an appraiser,”
suggests Jim Park, director of research for
the Appraisal Foundation in Washington,
D.C. “They’ll tell you whether what you’re
about to do is too much — or too little.”
Check with the Appraisal Institute or the
National Association of Independent Fee
Appraisers for member listings.
Some folks, however, just follow their gut.
Michael Wessels of Salisbury, Md., recently
went to town on his waterfront backyard, so
he could maximize the use of an area that
had been underutilized for years. Using
Novelli’s firm, Hardscapes, he installed a
patio of brick pavers, brick retaining walls to
shore up areas that sloped down to the river
and the piece de resistance: a hot tub
recessed into the patio. Wessels splashed
$55,000 into the project on a $450,000
home — more than many would spend,
especially if you’re looking to flip. But he’s
planning to stay and enjoy the work, and
along the way he “without a doubt increased
the value of the house,” says Wessels. “We
live on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, with
blue herons, bald eagles and ospreys all
around, and this whole project helped to
open up more of the outdoors to our home. I
can’t say enough about it.”
THIS ARTICLE WAS PUBLISHED IN
SMART MONEY MAGAZINE FROM THE
WALL STREET JOURNAL MARCH 3, 2003