Gardens are one of the top features we look for in a home. Whether it’s big or small, having a bit of outside space gives you room to enjoy the good weather. It’s essentially an extra room that acts as a playroom, dining space, and lounge. Filled with grass, trees, shrubs, and flowers, gardens can be a haven of tranquillity and provide an important connection to nature.
Unfortunately, as much as we’d like them to, gardens don’t look after themselves. But even if you’re not green-fingered and don’t enjoy working in the garden, it’s important to keep your outdoor space maintained. Here’s why:
Your garden can drastically affect your house value
An overgrown, neglected garden can damage your home’s value. While an attractive, landscaped garden can add as much as 20% to your property value, it’s thought that an overgrown one with shabby and outdated features can decrease a home’s value by around 15%. So, maintaining your garden is a good way to protect what is likely to be your biggest asset.
A well-maintained garden is more manageable
Keeping your garden maintained is the best way to make gardening manageable. Not only is it off-putting when you’re faced with large weeds and brambles but it’s also time-consuming and hard work to tackle a heavily overgrown garden once or twice a year. It can also make it unaffordable to get a gardener in to do any work. They’re likely to need a few days rather than a few hours to get the garden looking its best as they’ll need to do lots of clearing and tidying before they can take on any seasonal jobs. So, regularly maintaining the garden is going to make it easier on you and your wallet.
Regular maintenance makes it easier to keep plants and trees in check
When your garden is well maintained, it’s also easier to spot potential problems and nip them in the bud before they’re too hard to handle. For instance, it’s much easier to spot invasive plants and stop quick-growing plants such as bamboo from breaking out of your garden and causing havoc with your neighbours. You should also be aware that if you have invasive weeds and plants present in your garden, you’re expected to control their growth and stop them from spreading beyond your boundary. Your local council can take action if you fail to do so.
Regular garden maintenance can also help you spot other issues such as roots spreading too near your house and rotten tree branches causing a hazard. It’s also easier to spot plant diseases and pests before they spread across your garden.
Tidy gardens are more usable
There’s nothing worse than a garden being untidy and overgrown when there’s an unexpected bit of sunshine. It prevents you from making the most of the nice weather as there’s often too much cleaning and clearing to do before you can get the furniture out. And in our climate, you really need to make the most of those brief sunny spells.
Maintenance helps keep your garden safe and secure
Not only are poorly maintained fences, hedges, and walls a bit of an eyesore, but they’re probably not secure. So, you can’t be sure that children and pets are playing outside safely. It also makes your home more tempting to intruders. And in some areas, a neglected garden can be a target for vandals. So, you want to keep your garden and boundaries in good condition.
How to keep your garden maintained
It’s a good idea to create a seasonal planner for all of your garden jobs, that way you’ll know what needs doing and when. If time is short, break your gardening jobs up into smaller tasks. Or, even better, hire a gardener to take care of all the time-consuming maintenance tasks such as mowing, trimming, and pruning. That way, you won’t need to do more than a little bit of sweeping, watering, and deadheading between visits.
Typically, this type of gardening costs between £14 and £25 per hour, and a small garden is only likely to take a couple of hours per visit to maintain. However, bigger jobs such as painting fences and relaying paths and patios will add to your regular garden maintenance cost.
If you want to keep your garden maintenance costs to a minimum, arrange for your gardeners to take on just the jobs that you find difficult or don’t like doing – such as hedge trimming and weeding – and do the rest yourself. It’s worthwhile keeping your shed and tools organised, so when you can get out into the garden, you’re not wasting time searching for the things you need.
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