Plant Suggestions for Quick Curb Appeal

Safe Plant Suggestions for Calgary

When selling your house, curb appeal is extremely important. Remember that buyers see the outside first, and you want them to be impressed when they first see your property.

A quick and easy way to dress up the outside is with plants. If you have a flowerbed that is not utilized or overgrown with weeds, that's great. Remove the weeds, add some nice compost or garden mix soil and put in some of below mentioned plants plants. By the way, in Calgary we are Zone 3. So you can purchase any plants that say Zone 3 or lower.

These plants grow well in the Calgary area:

1) All types Pink Spirea - Approx. sizes 3'h x 4'w Summer blooms. Full to part sun

2) All types White Spirea - Approx. size 4'h x 5'w Spring blooms. Full to part sun

3) All types Potentilla 3' x 3' (preferrably white or yellow flowers) Blooms spring to fall (the only shrub to bloom all summer in Calgary). Full sun

4) Purple Leaf Sandcherry - 5' x 5' Spring blooms. Full sun

5) Slowmound Mugo Pine -3' x 3' Don't buy the regular Mugo Pine even if they are cheaper. They get 16' tall and are hard to remove later. Full sun

6) Spreading Junipers - any kind (avoid upright junipers - they look very scraggly within a couple of years). Full to part sun

7) Lilacs - always a nice addition but remember they can get big. Stick to the smaller varieties such as Dwarf Korean or Miss Kim or Tinkerbelle. Spring blooms. Full sun.

8) Ninebark - Dart's Gold (yellow foliage) 5' x 5' or Diablo (purple foliage) 7' x 7'. Full to part sun.

9) Roses - stick with hardy types, either Explorer, Parkland or Morden. Approx size 3'-6'h x 3'-5' w. Various bloom times. Full sun.

10) Hosta's - all kinds, Part sun to shade

Make sure that you leave appropriate room for the plants to grow. Information is on the tags attached to the plants. It might look nice to fill in the bed with several plants, but in 1-2 years they will be too big and look terrible. Plan for the future when you plant shrubs and perennials.

After you've chosen a few plants for the bed and have planted them, cover the bed with 3' of cedar bark chips or mulch. It will hide any dirt, slow the weeds, increase water retention for the plants and will smell fantastic as well.

Planters

If you don't have a flower bed, and are not willing to get out the shovel to dig one, purchase some nice planters and fill them up with annuals. You can load the planters up initially which will give you a wonderful display later in the summer. And the nice thing is, you can move them to you new home!

If it's late summer, you will probably have a hard time finding annuals, so grasses and perennials will do the trick nicely. I've also used pretty shrubs with spreading annuals around the edge. Anything will do. The only downside to planters is that they have to be watered daily. If your property is vacant, this may not be the best idea for you unless you can stop by daily to water it.

I also recommend fertilizing it weekly so it will grow like crazy and will look outstanding. Good luck in the sale of your home and happy planting!

Susan Deering

Beautiful Spaces

403-601-4340