The Benefits of Bountiful Landscapes

If you've ever seen your neighbor toil tirelessly over his front yard landscape, you might have wondered if the poor fellow had lost his marbles.

What does he get out of landscaping, anyway, aside from dirty fingernails, overworked sweat glands, and the expense of installing new cobblestone steps in his garden?

So what if a little landscaping has made his lawn easier on the eyes than your unkempt, jungle-like front yard?

Does he know something about landscaping that you don't? If this is how you looked at landscaping, you could be missing the forest for the trees.

Bountiful Landscapes: The benefits of landscaping

Landscaping is the art of adorning or improving a section of ground by contouring and by planting flowers, shrubs, trees, and other natural or decorative features.

Many people still have the mistaken notion that landscaping is nothing more than an empty nester's fruitless pastime or a grade-schooler's 4-H project.

On the contrary, landscaping yields money-saving benefits and requires more skill than watching lettuce grow.

Landscaping is not mindlessly strewing stones on a plot of grassy land or carelessly planting perennials in every available nook and cranny of the backyard.

Landscaping combines elements of art and science in order to enhance a property's aesthetic and economic value and make a home more energy-efficient.

Beautiful landscapes improve a property's resale value

The most practical pay-off of landscaping is its potential to raise the value of real estate. Emblems of breathtakingly designed landscapes, such as a tranquil Japanese garden with a small pool and pebbled walkways or warm, inviting decks decorated with exquisite wicker furniture, suggest a healthy living environment.

Lush landscapes create the positive impression that the insides of the house are properly maintained, too. A study by the American Nursery and Landscape Association found that beautiful landscapes can increase property value by seven to 14 percent and can accelerate the sale of a home by five to six weeks.

Moreover, experts believe that homeowners can recover as much as 100 percent of the money they invest in cultivating landscapes when they sell their homes at higher values.

Think trees are only good for giving shade? Think again: the Council of Tree and Landscape Appraisers has found that mature trees in well-nurtured landscapes can add an appraised value of $1,000 to $10,000 when compared to similar properties with no trees or poor landscapes.

Many homebuyers willingly pay a premium on picturesque landscapes because they help create a sustaining environment while evoking a sense of harmony and balance.

Landscaping for energy efficiency

Aside from the potential to raise a property's resale value, landscaping delivers another attractive return: it can reduce a dwelling's annual heating and cooling costs.

According to the U.S. Department of Energy, carefully positioned trees can cut as much as 25% off a household's energy consumption for heating and cooling.

Additionally, well-designed landscapes provide enough energy savings to return the initial landscaping investment in eight years.

Landscaping can help decrease heat buildup in the home by blocking and absorbing the sun's energy in the summer, while trees, fences, or other landscaping features can be used as windbreaks to shield a house from wind chill during the winter.

Combined with the increased resale value of the property, the reward of energy savings will leave landscaping homeowners laughing all the way to the garden supplies depot.

Blooming landscapes enhance a property's aesthetic value and create a desirable living environment

"A thing of beauty," wrote John Keats in 1818, "is a joy forever." Captivating landscapes provide a shelter of serenity and calm against an outside world that is subdued by noise and haste.

You spend a good part of the day running the rat race. Don't you want to come home to a solacing house framed by sturdy trees, colorful blooms, and cozy deck chairs nestled within welcoming landscapes that smell of freshly cut grass?

Landscapes that celebrate the beauty of nature in all its vibrant hues comfort the soul and reinvigorate the senses.

Deciduous trees, sprouting blossoms, and hardy perennials in lush landscapes offer a glimpse of renewal and eternal hope, conveying the message that tomorrow is another chance to start over.

In one of O. Henry's endearing short stories, a young artist ravaged by pneumonia is kept alive by the sight of the "last leaf" clinging tenaciously to an ivy vine outside her window.

Such is the power of magnificent landscapes to uplift and inspire when all hope seems lost and to heal and mend where illness has robbed a woman of her will to live.

Properly designed landscapes promote healthy living by muffling outdoor noise and improving air quality, thereby creating a personal Eden impervious to gloom and decay.