10 Yard Features That Are Ruining The Appearance Of Your Home

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Curb appeal matters more than you might think. You may already know that it shapes a potential homebuyer's impression, influences the amount they're willing to pay, and reduces the time it takes you to sell. But even if you aren't planning on listing your home anytime soon, taking care of unappealing or downright ugly yard features keeps the entire neighborhood looking nicer. Additionally, it's more appealing to live in a well-maintained home than one that suggests neglect. From patchy grass to plastic yard art, wilted hanging baskets to weathered fencing, several yard features can ruin the appearance of your home.

It's easy to fantasize about making a major change to the front of your home, but the cost of resodding a new lawn or pouring a new patio doesn't always easily fit into the budget. As tempting as they are, even smaller projects like instant garden kits and colorful mulch are among the landscaping updates that just aren't worth the money. If you still want to spruce things up in your outdoor space, removing old or neglected elements, rather than adding costly new ones, may do the trick. 

Start with the simple things. Get rid of any landscaping waste, tarps, broken bikes, junk cars, or other large unwanted items cluttering up your yard. Curb appeal takes time to achieve, and if your home is looking a little worse for wear, remember that it didn't happen overnight. Don't get discouraged. Just focus on tackling one project at a time, and before you know it, you'll have one of the most charming houses on the block.

Your home can boast a brand new roof, immaculately maintained siding, and freshly cleaned gutters, but if your grass has large yellowing or dead patches, it can totally ruin any curb appeal. Thankfully, there are lots of simple solutions for filling in patchy spots in your lawn. If you simply can't keep up with the maintenance required to seed, fertilize, and mow your grass week after week, consider planting no-mow solutions like Clover (Trifolium repens) or Creeping Thyme (Thymus serpyllum) instead. Or, consider hardscaping solutions like a concrete pad or gravel paths. 

A small flock of backyard chickens pecking away in your yard can be charming. But if your flock is made of plastic, it's time to ditch it. Yes, we're talking about those plastic pink flamingos and giant chicken sculptures that attract the wrong kind of attention. You can probably get away with a few yard art pieces carefully displayed in your flowerbed, or even a larger kinetic sculpture that moves in the breeze. But if your lawn is full of plastic gnomes, flamingoes, or flowers, removing them will make your home look more elegant.

Speaking of feathered friends, attracting birds to your garden can actually improve your mood. It can also make your flowering shrubs and plants more prolific, since birds have a symbiotic relationship with a variety of important pollinators like bees and butterflies. But if your front yard is littered with broken bird feeders with missing roofs or perches covered in poop, it's time they flew the coop. The same goes for any shepherd's hooks or poles that are leaning or rusted. Remove or replace them for an instant boost.

Drooping and dried-up blooms make your landscaping look neglected. If you don't have much of a green thumb, pruning can feel intimidating. But when you leave it for too long, instead of a riot of color, your lawn will be full of crispy brown leaves that look dull and uninviting. Another important reason to cut back your beds once they bloom out is that if you don't regularly deadhead, your plants will spend most of their energy trying to create seeds instead of new blooms.

Do you start the season with lush ferns in your hanging baskets, only to watch them wither up in the hot summer months? Forgetting to regularly water your hanging baskets will quickly turn them from eye-catching into a major eyesore. Leaving your hanging baskets full of wilted or dead plants makes a front porch look terrible, and can give visitors ideas about what you've forgotten to take care of inside your home, too. It doesn't take long to toss those old plants and try a stunning hanging basket flower combo that's also heat-resistant.

Your mailbox is one of the first things people see when they drive by or into your house. If yours is outdated, rusty, or leaning, it can give off a bad impression even if the rest of your landscaping is relatively well-maintained. Thankfully, it's easy to install a new mailbox. But if that doesn't fit into your budget or skillset, just give your box a fresh coat of paint, add new reflective numbers like the Olaine Pre-cut Self Adhesive Mailbox Stickers, and straighten the post manually before securing it into place with a little gravel.

Adding a water feature to your yard can make it feel more elegant. But whether you've got a bubbling stone fountain or a simple birdbath, it will quickly get covered in grime and algae if you forget to regularly clean it. Along with a decrepit look, algae can be slippery, swampy-smelling, and attract mosquitoes. Instead of ditching your water feature entirely, simply clean out the debris, give it a good scrub, and start adding a product like PondBliss Algaecide when you refill it to avoid algae problems in the future.

Overgrown bushes in front of your house don't just ruin its appearance. They can also block paths, creating a safety issue. And, when you allow trees or shrubs to go unchecked for long enough, you may be unwittingly providing a place for pests or prowlers to hide, increasing your chances of an unwanted encounter. The best way to tame your overgrown shrubs depends on how out of control they've gotten, but whether you do a little trim or a rejuvenating hard prune, getting overgrown landscaping under control is one quick way to dramatically improve your home's appearance.

Broken or missing shutters stick out like a sore thumb. And if your home is symmetrical, a missing shutter makes things unbalanced, throwing off the whole look. Even if your shutters are just faded or grimy, they can still make a house look badly maintained. Fortunately, updating your shutters is usually an easy project. They may just need to be cleaned or rejuvenated with a fresh coat of paint. If they're beyond repair and you're working on a limited budget, simply replace your damaged shutters with inexpensive vinyl pairs from a local big box store.

A fence may or may not add value to your home if you decide to list it, but the other benefits, like privacy, security, and pet containment, are unquestionable. But whether you have a picket fence that needs occasional painting, a wooden fence with frequent staining needs, a PVC fence that has to be cleaned seasonally, or a chain link fence that's relatively maintenance-free, weathered fencing makes your entire property look neglected. Tearing down an old fence can be an expensive and arduous undertaking, so consider calling in a professional for advice first.