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Top Landscaping Tips to Spruce up Your Outdoor Living Space

July 6, 2022

Throughout the Greater Kansas City area, we’ve seen our fair share of sunshine and heat waves this summer which can sometimes do some damage to our outdoor living spaces. At Inspired Homes, we understand how important it is to have the perfect outdoor environment in order to fully enjoy the summer months, so we’ve put together the ultimate landscaping to-do list to make your outdoor space exceptional this season. 

Figure out your signature style

Before you get started on the nitty gritty work that landscaping can sometimes entail, you’ll first want to hone in on a particular design style for your exterior. When you take the time to curate your outdoor space to match up with your personal style, you’ll instantly feel much more excited about getting through the actual work in order to enjoy the final product. Take a minute or two to think about any garden spaces or patio areas that you’ve always wanted to recreate for your own home. Do you envision a quaint country garden with rustic charm or a modern design with clean lines and simple coloring? Whatever it is that you land on, make sure that it stays true to your preferred design style. 

Give your lawn a refresh

Once you have the ideas down on paper, it’s time to really start tackling the yard work. Throughout the area, summer rain showers come and go, so there will be times when your yard may look a bit lackluster if you don’t have some sort of watering routine when the temperature rises and the rain stays away. 

The key to watering your yard is to remember to water slowly to ensure that it has been applied evenly over your entire lawn. Ideally, you’d like the water to soak roughly 6-8 inches into the soil to help fully enhance the overall health and look of your landscape. This is also the ideal time to clear out any weeds or debris from your yard to ensure that everything is in pristine condition before you begin planting. 

Choose your preferred plants

Now that your yard work is mostly done, you’re ready for the real fun to begin. Stroll through any farmer’s markets or local stores to see which plants, flowers or vegetation you could add to your landscaping. If gardening isn’t quite your main area of expertise, looking into adding a variety of native plants to your garden is never a bad idea as they won’t need much help from you in order for them to thrive. Throughout the states of Missouri and Kansas, there are some incredible native plants such as yellow cornflowers or sunflowers to add a bit of color to your space or wild ginger always adds beautiful foliage and makes a great addition to any home garden. 

Ensure your soil is primed and ready

Although you want your lawn to have plenty of water, having too much moisture in your soil isn’t necessarily a good thing when you’re about to begin planting. If there’s too much moisture right away, the soil could become too compact and cut off the air circulation to the roots of the plants before they even have the chance to properly grow. One easy way to know if this is the case for you is by taking a handful of soil and trying to form it into a ball. If it sticks together easily, it’s still retaining too much water. In order to allow the sun to dry out the soil a bit more before you begin planting, you can lightly rake over the soil to slightly break it up. 

You’ll also want to test your soil and see if it has the correct nutrients for your garden to properly grow depending on which plants you chose. There are a number of tests you can pick up to use at home in order to check your soil’s pH and nutrient levels. Testing this before you begin planting gives you a better idea of how your plants will grow in your current soil and see what you may need to add to the soil in order for your plants to be as healthy as possible. 

Take advantage of your outdoor space

The summer season is the ideal time to completely spruce up your outdoor living space in order to take full advantage of the pristine summer nights we see throughout the area. At Inspired Homes, we know your exterior living space is just as important as your interior—so if you’re ready to make the move to the new construction home of your dreams, take a look at our available homes throughout our incredible communities. As soon as you’re ready, give us a call at (913) 270-0233 or fill out our online form today.