A house with absolutely no landscaping! Where do I start ?

Question

My daughter and her husband just purchased a house. There is nothing outside. Not flowers , bushes or trees. There is a fence in the back of the property and the two sides are open to the other neighbors yards. Needless to say they are new at this and need direction. Can you all help?! Trying to be a helpful MOM.

Ken · Answer

Pinterest. Always Pinterest. It is THE go-to place for design and decorating ideas. Begin with the end in mind. Once you have developed a vision of what your yard can be you can take small steps to get it there always with that final plan in mind.

Alternatively you could hire a landscape architect to design your yard. This is what they do and in every case I have seen it was worth the price.

You can always tell, as you are driving down the road, which home owners have a plan and which ones are just doing stuff.

Teri · Answer

Have them make a plan on graph paper of what they want it to look like. There is a lot of research that needs to go into this plan. Look at native plants for the area. This should be a plan for them to do over several years. If they are in the USA each state has a Master Gardeners extention office at one of the state universities. In Indiana it is Purdue University. They do classes all over the state on learning about plants,soil, critters etc. But the first thing is to map out the yard and come up with a plan. It will be a work in progress. What state do they live in?

Luvmycrafts · Answer

We have local garden centers that will help you with ideas if you bring a pic of the house in. They can see what would work best for your area of the country, as well as what would be good against a house as it grows, etc. The smaller family run places are great for lots of free advice.

Dianne Sabido · Answer

First do your research. Find out through a Garden Center what your Zone is in. What Plants will be comfortable in its surroundings, What is the Kind of soil you have, Take a sample to your Garden Center.

My son and his wife also bought a fixer upper, and we have had a lot of challenges, one is we are in Phoenix Arizona, and not to many plants will survive the heat. We went to our local nursery, and he asked if we could bring him soil samples, In phoenix, there is a lot of rocks, as people have street wells, if you want to use a lot of water, you have to notify the the nearest water company. So there is a lot of discussion with a Professional Nursery. Ours carry the Blue Bell plants, if they die, it can be replaced.