Photo courtesy of Gardens of the Carolinas
landscaping
INCREASE YOUR HOME’S CURB APPEAL WITH INNOVATIVE LIGHTING STRATEGIES AND A REALIGNED WALKWAY Want to increase your home’s curb appeal? Innovative approaches to traditional technology offer exciting new landscaping options. Custom lighting is a tried-and-true way to show off your home during the evening, when many people are out and about and will be looking at it. New products have opened up fresh ways to landscape with lighting. Long-lasting LED lights eliminate the chore of changing bulbs, since these light-emitting diodes last indefinitely. Homeowners can also control their lighting direction, intensity and color to a much greater degree than in years past. “Through lighting, you can kind of make
trends
things that you don’t want to see go away,” says John Spivey, founder and president of Gardens of the Carolinas in Raleigh. Homeowners can illuminate a shrub or tree, for example, effectively blotting out anything near it that they’d rather de-emphasize. Increased color, style and pattern options also leave homeowners with more lighting options than they have had in the past. Walkways are another traditional yard feature that landscapers are treating differently right now. Traditionally, the walkway from the driveway to the house is narrow and turns at sharp angels. “If you’re able to realign that walk
BY ELIZABETH BRIGNAC
from wherever your guests are going to park, they’ll be able to see where they’re going,” Spivey says. “We have encouraged people to change their entryway design and have their walks curve out to the driveway”—or the street, he adds, depending on where people are likely to walk, as opposed to meeting the driveway at a sharp angle. Front yards are being used more, so emphasizing hospitality by making entrances and walkways more attractive has become increasingly important. “It has a more friendly feel,” Spivey says. “It’s more pleasant, and when you ask about curb appeal, this is something that really hits the mark.”
MARCH/APRIL 2020
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