Editorial
Front Page - Friday, May 28, 2010
Maintaining residential landscape could be key to sales
Erica Tuggle
Landscaping is a home investment unlike any other, in that increases in value over time. A ten-year-old tree is worth more than when it was bought, unlike a ten-year-old kitchen, says Janet Phillips of Landscape Arts, Inc. Pictured below is a before and above is an after shot of her work.
- Photo provided
Before Janet Phillips moved to Chattanooga, as she was enrolling her youngest child in school, she was looking for something to do. In 1978, her husband was in the service and the family had owned four homes in four different states and gardened in each to a host of different conditions. While they were selling one of these houses, their Realtor noted that the house had been professionally landscaped. Little did the Realtor realize the professional landscapers were Janet and her husband.
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Janet says homeowners need to consider landscaping as an investment unlike any other.
“It not only increases the enjoyment of their home, but adds to the value,” she says. “Research shows that pretty much what you put into a landscape will raise the value of your home by the amount of money you spend on it.”
Landscaping is the one home investment that increases in value over time, she says.
“If you do new carpeting, drapes, a new kitchen, in ten years, it is going to be a ten year old kitchen, ten year old carpeting and ten year old drapes. But if you put in a new tree, in 10 years. it is going to be a 10 year old tree and is going to be worth a lot more than when you put it in,” she says.
Landscape Arts is a full service company that designs, consults, installs the project they have designed and can maintain the work after the installation, thereby following the client during the whole process as they work to boost their curb appeal. Landscape Arts has received the seal of satisfaction award for five straight years as the No. 1 Landscaper from services select in the Chattanooga area. Local consumers nominate companies for the award, she says.
The work that Landscape Arts does is 80 percent residential, and she says calls she receives from sellers looking curb appeal are frequent.
“It is something that people may have put off and put off, but are now selling their home and see that curb appeal really makes a difference,” she says. “We recently did a project for a former Realtor, that said she had clients that would refuse to even go into a property and look if the outside of the house was not appealing.”
Janet says when they begin a consultation, they work to figure out what they can recommend according to their soil conditions, exposure conditions, the architecture of the home and such to find out what the client is looking for.
“We’re not trying to come out and install or suggest something that would not be suitable for your home,” she says.
When Michael Phillips started his business, Fiddleheads Native Landscaping, in 2001, he says the trend in the call for native plants was untapped. With the increase in Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) buildings, everyone is now aware of the benefits of growing native, he says.
Builders get points on the LEED certification for the native plants because, unlike exotic plants, the native plants are not going to take over the area with their seed spread. Michael says the native plants are in a group classified as zeroscaping, which means that after the initial planting and first-year maintenance, the native plant can maintain itself. Native plants are also an integral part of a healthy ecosystem in providing the energy that sustains forest and wildlife including important pollinators and migratory birds, he says.
In the new economy, there is a good deal of maintaining of jobs that were done a couple of years ago, Michael says, since people are not spending the same money as they were before.
Fiddleheads does landscape consultation and design for the do-it-yourself type person to help them figure out what plants they need and what they would like their yard space to look like. They also do hardscapes such as patios and outdoor living spaces, landscape lighting and water features.
Although the economy may have slowed down some landscaping projects, it is balanced by the return to popularity of outdoor living as more people stay home, he says. He says places where people can sit around and enjoy their own yard and Chattanooga is picking up momentum.
He says what most people do not realize when they install a project is the maintenance aspect, and so, he says, Fiddleheads offers yearlong maintenance packages so that their clients do not have to worry what to do for each particular plant during each different season.
Michael agrees that curb appeal is the biggest thing that draws someone to a property.
“In these little North Chattanooga bungalow houses, it doesn’t take much to give it some curb appeal, but there are so many houses for sale, and if you draw people in that is the first impression they get before they walk into door,” he says.
He says, in his experience, the North Chattanooga houses that keep up their exterior appearance consistently sell faster than others, and a little landscaping work can give potential buyers the impression that the house is better taken care of.
Michael says if people already have an established landscape, then the main thing is to maintain what they have and come up with a long range plan of what to install in the future that they can work piece by piece to install.
“If you want that curb appeal, it is a year long process of maintaining the work, and knowing the right time to do things with certain plants, do not wait till it’s too late in the year to do things,” he says.
Both Janet and Michael agree that the bottom line is that those who keep their
houses in top shape are the
properties that will have the “SOLD” sign on their well-maintained lawn.
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