Landscaping selections enhance home's curb appeal

Local home builders are partly responsible for that growth.

Stephanie Montgomery of Stenger Homes, known for such developments as Wild Horse, Iron Bridge, and Stone Meadow, said, “We’re doing more landscaping than ever before. We require it on all the houses we build.”

Stenger’s new Lions Gate subdivision features an entrance roundabout – a circular area that smooths traffic flow and provides a central island ideal for landscaping.

“We’re doing extensive landscaping at the entrance and in a common area, more than we’ve done on other developments,” Montgomery said. “We’re using more water features, statues and rocks.”

Lions Gate has the largest water feature of any Stenger project, a creation of stonemason Tom Schrauth of Cape Fair. Water features – landscaped areas incorporating waterfalls, rivulets, ponds or pools – are finding favor with builders and buyers nationwide, and especially in the Ozarks, which has an abundance of attractive native rock and stone.

Landscaper Vickie Wester is starting work on an entrance waterfall for Stenger Homes’ new Bent Tree development. Through her business, Hartville-based Beyond the Garden Gate, Wester has used more than 400 tons of rock, including 82 tons on one new home alone in S.L. Stinnett’s Turnberry Estates development.

“A landscape can make or break a home. It’s the first thing a potential buyer sees,” Wester said.

Angela Blevins, project manager for Howard Bailey Co. builders, noted that where once home buyers did not want retaining walls, “Now people are putting in rock retaining walls to gain character. They’re also layering their yards to give them more depth.”

The Bailey firm, which builds mostly custom homes and some spec homes, has customers meet with landscapers to fulfill their needs. “People are more picky about what trees they use and how those retaining walls are going to lay out,” Blevins said.

Like most builders, Bailey includes a landscaping allowance in the cost of a home. The amount of such an allowance varies.

“I’m a firm believer that landscaping can make or break a house. Curb appeal is so important these days – it can make a house really pop,” Blevins said.

Real estate agent Ava Snyder of Murney Associates also emphasizes curb appeal. Snyder, who holds seminars in preparing properties for sale, said Murney encourages its sellers to landscape. “It doesn’t have to be expensive to make things look good. It’s an important staging factor. It also lifts your spirits,” she said.

Snyder added that while landscaping is less prominent in winter when plants are dormant, “in the spring, summer and fall, it’s vital.”

Landscaper Glenn Kristek, co-owner of Wickman’s Garden Village in Springfield, said his work has more than doubled in the last year. “We do what we call a design-build. We do all phases – irrigation, rock work, patios, waterfalls, lawns, and lawn care.”

Kristeck said he believes that landscaping “increases the hard value of the residence, but the real value is in the quality of life.”

Landscaper Gregg Larson is seeing some new trends in landscaping. “My customers now want more color and more variety,” he said. Larson noted that clients are trading the traditional “more green and little color” mix of needle evergreens, yews, and junipers for “more color and a little green.”

“The vast majority are interested in perennials,” he said. “People see new things in magazines and on television and don’t feel quite as much that they’re taking a chance, but rather are moving ahead with everyone else.”

Grower Lee Coates supplies many landscaping projects with thousands of plants grown at his Peggy’s Flowers operation in Highlandville. He credits the landscaping boom to consumer education and the advent of many more attractive, easier-to-maintain plant varieties. “Because of garden writers and the increased availability of a wider selection of plant material, landscapers are expanding their plant palettes to meet customer demand,” Coates said.

Growers, builders, landscapers and home buyers who live in the Springfield area are especially fortunate, Coates added.

“We live in a unique environment – on the border between woodland forest to the southwest and prairies to the northeast. That means we can grow woodland shrubs and flowers and prairie shrubs and flowers. In Missouri, horticulture has surpassed dairy farming as an industry. Springfield has one of the largest per-capita expenditures on horticulture in the nation,” he said.

Some seminars at the 2005 Home Builders Association of Greater Springfield’s Home Show will address landscaping. Becky Nicholas, landscape designer with Wickman’s Garden Village, will conduct seminars at the event.

“This year we’re doing it on quality of life,” she said. “It will cover … everything from small courtyards, patios, and decks to large landscaping projects.”

Editor’s Note: Frank Shipe is a former SBJ staffer who hosts a nonprofit community gardening and landscaping Web site, www.ozarksgardens.com.

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