If you’re a new homeowner who inherited a garden and you’re not quite sure where to start, we’re here to help! Lisa has the simple tips you need to start tackling your garden no matter what hardiness zone and climate your new home is in. Check out how Lisa has tackled her own new inherited garden for some inspiration!
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Hi everyone welcome to today’s video I’m Lisa from down to earth gardening and design and today we’re talking about about some top garden and Yard Design tips for new homeowners so I thought it would be a wonderful time to do this video because we have just purchased a
Little home down in Florida I’m in zone 10A down here now and I’m still going back and forth between here and Connecticut because as you know I have my grandkids and family in both places and I have the business in Connecticut and um family and clients that I love
And lots of gardens so I will be there most of the time but I’m loving this and learning a lot about this so I do provide Consultation Services and one of the most popular times I do that is when a client buys a new home so when you buy
A new home you’re inheriting a yard in some Gardens and a lot of times they’re overgrown or they’re just not what you want you want to be able to personalize it and I highly recommend before you go out and shop for some new things and I personally know that’s really really
Tough to just clean up what you have and work with that for a little bit and create a plan so I’m going to tell you my three top tips of how I go about that and I just went through this with my own home here so I thought it would be a
Great time to do this video okay so first tip is to assess what you have so that is really important um and what I do when I’m assessing f things is I’m looking at the plants shrubs and trees that are already here I’m identifying them getting familiar with them and I’m looking at
The sun orientation I’m looking at the soil um but the most important factor in doing that is looking at the health and safety of things so I need to bring you to the backyard because um that was something that um was really unsafe and there’s a
Tree back there that was getting way too close to the house so I want to bring you back there and I want to talk more about that okay so we’re in the backyard it’s very small but what you do see is this very large Live Oak in the corner
Here and it’s been about 6 months since we had it cleaned up so I’m going to show you some little video clips of what we walked into and what the backyard looked like we basically had about five or six 6 in of leaves that covered the
The backyard here and the limbs were so low that it was very hard to even walk under them so mowing walking under and also they were sitting on the roof so the roof was covered so safety is really important especially when it comes to trees and I also wanted to just clear
The yard get a little bit of sunlight in here and move the limbs up and away from the house so that everybody and everything was safe but what I will tell you um is that the Live Oak is a treasured and protected Tree in Florida and remember when I said get to know
Your plants get to know what you have after doing a little initial research I found that they are protected and in fact the local governments and local towns down here have an application process where you have to apply for a permit to trim up um or do anything to your Live
Oak so then you need to contact a certified Arborist and have them do the work on the tree so it was quite the education process for me but in talking to the knowledgeable arborist um which was fantastic it turned out that they had done maintenance previously on this
Particular tree so it was pretty great that I happened to stumble across that them um but what they called it back here was deferred maintenance and it certainly was so it’s really important for the Health and Longevity of the tree also to take proper care of it and they
Did a wonderful job lifting it and pruning it properly now the Live Oak is a very important species to Florida because it provides shade much needed wind protection and it’s also a habitat to lots of other wildlife and a host to lots of important plants and also a food
Source with all of its acorns but if you think that you’re leaving New England and getting away from doing some Leaf cleanup you’re not so you can see now that it’s shedding a little bit they do shed in the spring um quite a bit but then they will continue
A little bit here and there throughout the rest of the year so when they were pruning the tree I did ask them if they could leave a little bit of a limb so I could have a swing in the backyard for the grandkids so just a little aside
That it really pays to talk to them you can learn a lot um and talk a little bit about what your goals are for the yard too so they can help you with that but cleaning this up back here was a huge priority because we do have a lenai back
Here so I was thinking about how we were going to be using the space sitting back here here looking at the backyard and also cleaning up the fence line a little bit just getting that in order I do feel really happy about the fact that my neighbors are such great
Gardeners and I’m getting to enjoy some of these flowers back here so there’s a beautiful um angel’s trumpet flower that blooms back here that I get to enjoy um and I don’t have to care for so we did clean this up a little bit rake and we’re probably going to be
Ready for the next stage but like I said safety assessing cleaning up was first priority okay so that leads me right into tip number two which is think about the goals for your yard so it’s a great time to start thinking about what spaces you’re going to use the most and I just
Mentioned the laai is going to be one of them I’m really looking forward to having that screened in space back there so cleaning this up back here is actually twofold because now I can start to think about what I’m looking at from there and how we’re going to use the
Space Maybe thinking about a little patio we have an outdoor shower project going on so there’s going to be lots more to come on that um but I want to bring you to the front yard to show you some more of my goals out there so you
Can see what I’m thinking about okay I’m back in the front of the yard and tip number two um involves thinking about how you want to use your spaces your outdoor space what your goals are and included as that is we’re thinking about maintenance how much time we have for
Maintenance if there’s irrigation here watering and whatnot but you actually couldn’t even really see the front of the house when we purchased it and it really is a cute little house a really cute screened in front porch so when the arborist was here we talked about some
Other trees on the property and you can see the remnants of um another tree that was here that we did have removed and what that was was a Laurel Oak so a very tall tree it does not have much of a canopy it grows very straight tall and I
Think you know up to 40 ft so the Laurel Oak that was here not only blocked Ed the view of the house and really took away from the curb appeal but it is a severe allergen so we decided to get rid of that we had the stump ground out and
Um cleared this up instantly so we also had some poto carpets that were planted right up against the front of this screen porch here and it was blocking the view of the house but it was also really obstructing what we can see from this cute little
Screened in porch and the the front here so really nice opportunity to sit here and have your coffee your wine whatnot and visit with the neighbors that are walking by so a really fun little spot and the poto carpets were planted very close and they do get quite large so we
Decided to try to re reuse those and there’s going to be a little more to come on that and just transplant them over to continue a hedge on the side of the house there’s already um four there three or four and so we decided instead of throwing them out to try to replant
Them and continue a hedge so just cleared this right out and boy did it open the house up so I’m so happy with those decisions and I think that that’s um really important to think about the goals of what spaces you’re going to be using and what you want for your new
Home okay so we’re back in the front of the house and that brings me to tip number three which is clean it up and try to use what you have so that is a great starting point is using what you have if it’s healthy and you love it
Then why not just start there so one of my goals is to really have this house be pretty low maintenance um and I really wanted a lot of the debris and the ground covers and the plantings moved away from the house and I do think that
A lot of these things here are actually going to do better now that the trees have been properly pruned and limed up a little bit and that one tree is gone from the front yard so I just want to get it cleaned up so I have a great
Starting point because you all know I’ve got some big plans out here so using what we had um we have this dinina here which is really cute normally this would be a house plant for me in Connecticut and these really pretty dwarf palm trees which I really
Wanted to feature I think they look really pretty in front of the house here so those were a definite keep um but we also had some laiia pea that was really hidden and mixed in the back so what we did is we took some clumps and we lined
The front of the garden so I’m not sure if this is going to be temporary or permanent but what I will say about um monkey grass Lily Turf it’s also called is that it is pretty much bulletproof and that’s what I need for right now it’s a really nice hearty Evergreen
Perennial that does throw out a purple blue flower in the summertime and it can be a little aggressive it makes a fantastic low maintenance plant um or also a ground cover it helps with erosion so it is a nice little plant if it’s used Us in the
Right way but what we’ve done is we’ve taken some clumps and uh we don’t need to buy anym because if we want more we can also divide it and dividing it will also help keep it smaller but we use some Landscaping cloth doubled it up here and put some
Stone on top of it just to keep it really tidy so now you all may know that I’m not a big fan of landscaping cloth the weeds do come right up through it and then it’s harder to get the the roots of the weeds however for this
Purpose of putting it under Stone I don’t mind it I can still see a few little weeds popping up but it sure is helping to keep this area tidy and clean so I also wanted everything away from the house but when you do use Stone as a
Ground cover or as mulch you really need something to separate the Stone from the grass or the rest of the yard you don’t want them mixed together so just as a uh temporary solution we use some plastic edging I’m also not a fan of it but it
Is inexpensive and it’s going to work for now I painted out a nice curve just to give this house a little more curb appeel it really softens it up a little bit um and then eventually we’ll probably put some paper NE in um after we decide what we’re going to do with
The front ofth yard the driveway and whatnot but see how I’m already thinking about some future goals and that is really important and that falls under number two is keep those goals in mind so where you’re going with your plan and have a plan so you’re not really
Spending unnecessary money so by using what you have and then using some cheaper things like the edging and I have just some fun little soul lights out here I’m really keeping the budget down and being mindful about how I’m spending my money now um so that I can
Put a little more money into some really pretty future things so you can also see that I uncovered a pathway here I had some fun doing that I’m not sure if we’re going to keep that either but for now it leads you to another gate we have over here we
Have lots of work to do around the house so as you all may be experiencing if you’re a new homeowner there’s lots of ways you can spend your money and I really just needed to get this yard in shape cleaned up low maintenance and safe for now so we could do some things
On the inside that really needed to be done but you’re going to see lots more videos uh in this yard in the future and I’m really excited about that and I hope I’ve given you all some hope some helpful tips I was going to say hopeful hopeful and helpful
Tips in purchasing your new new home and getting your Landscaping Gardens to where you want them to be so thank you so much for joining me today I really enjoy doing this video for you and I have lots more videos coming your way so be sure to subscribe to our Channel