Key insights
- With summer here at last, many Midwestern homeowners are spending their downtime outside.
- The hottest landscaping trends include relaxing and luxurious outdoor living spaces and the incorporation of sustainable native plants and vegetable gardens.
- While fences are always an option, homeowners can also consider privacy screens made from trees or vertical gardens.
Selling your house? Staying in place? Whether you have plans to move or just want to enjoy more time outside this summer, consider these popular landscaping trends to help you create the perfect lawn and backyard.
Experience outdoor living
According to Houzz, 88 percent of homeowners who were looking to enhance their landscaping planned to upgrade outdoor living spaces to create a unique extension to their home’s interior footprint.
Common outdoor living enhancements include:
- Lounge furniture
- Dining set
- Fire pit
- Master grilling area
- Poolside cabana
- A pergola or gazebo that gives you cover from the sun
It’s easy to get carried away when you see the perfect outdoor sectional couch on Pinterest, but keep in mind that anything you add to your outdoor living area will either have to brave the elements or be put away for winter. Consider your storage options before you buy anything too bulky.
Lean into native plants
While the perfect manicured lawn and garden has long been the goal for scores of homeowners, many are starting to consider wilder-looking native plants as an alternative option for their home’s landscaping.
Native plants thrived long before we ever settled here and began to tend our own lawns, so they tend to be hardier and can require less water. They also have the benefit of being highly valuable to our local ecosystems — many attract pollinatorslike bees and butterflies, and because they do not require pesticides or herbicides, they can help us minimize water pollution caused by chemical runoff.
According to Edina Realty’s gardening expert, IT manager Patti Lauer, the following native plants can thrive in our Midwest climate:
- Black chokeberry ( you can use the aronia berries in smoothies / jam)
- Blue false indigo
- Blue flag iris
- Bush honeysuckle
- Butterfly milkweed
- Cardinal flower (which acts as a magnet for hummingbirds)
- Michigan lily
- Purple coneflower
- Red osier dogwood
- Swamp milkweed
- Wild columbine
- Wild geranium
Add a hint of pink
According to the National Association of Landscape Professionals, pink is in! Whether you add “fresh blooms of roses, petunias, zinnias and hibiscus to flower beds” or incorporate Pantone’s 2019 Color of the Year, Living Coral, into outdoor decor, don’t shy away from this feminine hue this summer.
Start a veggie garden
One trend you’ve likely seen in restaurants is locally sourced food — and while farmer’s markets are a great place to find affordable produce, you can get it for even cheaper when you grow it yourself!
Here’s a handy guide showcasing the best times to start your vegetable garden from seedlings. Note that they provide details on how to start indoors or when it’s safe to begin outdoor planting.
Add some privacy with trees
As the typical American lawn shrinks many homeowners are realizing just how close their next door neighbors are. While fences are an option, you may also want to consider privacy screens made from a row of strategically-planted trees.
Two popular evergreen varieties that will survive our Midwest winters are:
- Aborvitae (also known as Emerald Green Thuja), which has a bright green color that stands out in the winter and matches your lawn in the summer months.
- Wichita Blue Juniper, which has a more subdued silver-blue coloring that looks gorgeous against a snowy backdrop and offers a cooler complement to green grass and blue summer skies.
Build a vertical garden
Another major trend is the vertical garden. Vertical gardens are, unsurprisingly, planted and designed to grow vertically rather than horizontally.
Vertical gardens can be used as a way to:
- Cover up an unsightly fence or wall
- Maximize a small outdoor space, like a condo balcony
- Separate spaces indoors or outdoors — think of them like a modern room divider
Whether you feel like growing vines, succulents or herbs — or a combination of all three — vertical gardens are the most creative pursuit of the landscaping trends.
Get inspiration to start your vertical garden.
Hoping to landscape your lawn before selling?
The landscaping plan you’ll make as a seller will differ from the one you’ll take on if you plan to stay in place for a few years. If you’re not sure where to get started, we can help.
To get the professional opinion of a market expert who knows what today’s buyers are looking for, reach out today to Edina Realty’s customer care team.
