When the spring sun begins to warm the air after a long and cold winter, you will wander out to your yard only to find your gaze taken up with winter damaged landscape. Since springtime is the perfect time to clean and refresh every aspect of your life, the change in seasons is the perfect time to refresh your outdoor space with maintenance and upgrades to make your lawn the trendiest on the block!
A walk around the outdoor space will give you the opportunity to make plans on what to do and where to start. Besides the usual landscaping maintenance of your lawn, seeding, mulching, and hardscape repair, taking a stroll around your outdoor space can provide some incredible inspiration for ways to spruce up your landscaping for spring and beyond. Here are some of our best ideas on ways to enhance your landscaping features beautifully.
Put Some Spring in Your Flower Beds
The surprising burst of yellow or purple crocus, multicolored tulips and yellow daffodils help shoo winter away and keep your landscaping looking lovely throughout spring and into summer. These beauties are often the harbinger of spring and add the color we’ve been anticipating throughout the long winter months.
Bulb plants that make their early spring appearance should be planted in the fall for the best results, but surveying your beds will allow you to plan the perfect placement for each floral. You can also speak with a professional gardener to get vivid spring colors in your garden this month. When you plant in the fall, these early spring flowers are perennial and multiply on their own, giving you a never ending supply of early spring flowers that can be divided and moved to other areas in the landscape.
Bring Trends to Your Outdoor Living Spaces
Your personal taste concerning color, texture, size and shape are the most important factors to consider when updating your outdoor living space, but it is fun to go through your space and update it with some beautiful design trends every year! Here are some of the biggest 2016 spring trends for your outdoor space.
- Get creative with hanging planters. Fill with your favorite annuals or with eye-catching strawberry plants which will provide a nice draping effect.
- Transform your fire pit into a flower showcase or a beautiful succulent garden. You can make this a removable garden so you can choose when you want to use your fire pit for a relaxing evening on your patio.
- For your outdoor furniture, try adding a chaise lounge to bring a touch of luxury to your living space. Adding furniture pieces that look like they could be part of your indoor living room are also very chic for 2016. Additionally, outdoor furniture trends are moving away from square and box looks and more towards circular furniture pieces.
- Creams and neutral colors for cushions and furniture frames are still en vogue, but 2016 encourages you to add a pop of color with pillows or even outdoor blankets draped over chairs. Other materials that are gaining popularity for outdoor furniture are distressed leather-look and microfiber.
- A defining feature you can add to your living space to create a rich aura of relaxation is shade. This can be done with a pergola, a classic gazebo, or a standalone arbor.
- Easy to maintain, environmentally friendly gardens with drought-resilient plants is a popular new trend. Adding vegetables, fruit, and herbs to your garden also provide a beneficial economic aspect. These gardens reduce the number of grassy areas to give your outdoor living space texture and they also contribute to serving the environment.
Get Your Landscape off the Ground
Copper wind sculptures and outdoor metal art will add a luxurious element to your outdoor space. These versatile pieces can be free-standing or suspended from trees, porches, anywhere you think they would add height and energy to your landscape. Retaining walls made of stones or pavers will create height, definition and an interesting texture to your space. The addition of a water feature would also add height and serenity to your landscape.
Clean Your Hardscapes
Existing hardscapes in your landscape weather over time due to the harshness of winter and the fading effect of the sun. The mild weather of spring is the perfect opportunity to clean and protect your hardscapes from future distress. Inspecting the hardscapes, repairing any issues, cleaning the grime that distorts the look of the hardscape, and sealing the material to prevent future issues will keep your hardscape protected and beautiful to match the rest of your trendy outdoor living space.
When performing this maintenance process on your hardscape, it is important to use a premium cleaner and degreaser that is environmentally friendly and safe for a variety of hardscape surfaces. If you are hiring a contractor to perform this maintenance for you, be sure they are using a premium cleaner that provides a safe and long-lasting protection of the stone, paver, or concrete. For more information on maintaining and cleaning up your hardscapes for spring, you can check out our article, Spring Cleaning and Maintaining Your Hardscapes!
Spring cleaning and refreshing your outdoor space is an annual event that requires some planning, but worth the time investment. Once the final flower is planted, outdoor space rejuvenated with the latest trends, landscaping additions completed, and hardscapes are shining, the beauty of your outdoor space will be undeniable!