You don’t need to break the bank – or your back – to beautify your yard for summer. To help you bring some life back into your yard after a long winter, RiverheadLOCAL spoke with Maria Verderber, owner of Verderber’s Landscape, Nursery and Garden Center in Aquebogue, who offered up five tips to spice up your outdoor space.
Plant With Color
Flowering shrubs, trees and perennials are a nice easy way to color your yard without replanting every year and are surprisingly low maintenance, according to Verderber. To start, she recommends planting hydrangeas, a flowering shrub that either flowers all summer long or blooms later in the summer, depending on the variety.
For a big splash of color, Verderber suggested planting flowering trees. She recommended Japanese Dogwoods, which bloom white flowers, or crape myrtles, which bloom in colors of lavender and pink.
Verderber said the best perennials to plant for color include Stella d’oro daylily, Nepeta (also known as catnip) and Russian sage. Landscape roses will also bring color to your yard, she said, and they are disease resistant, so they won’t have to be sprayed. The best roses to plant are knockout roses and carpet roses, as both come in a variety of colors.
Spread the Color
“Nicely placed pots can add a lot of summer color to your yard,” Verderber said. Place potted flowers and plants all around your yard to splash it with color, she suggested. Pots should be scattered along walkways, by front entrances, on decks and patios and around the pool garden.
“Place them where you will be sitting, so you can enjoy them,” she said.
Give New Life To Your Furniture and Pots
If your pots, planters and outdoor furniture are looking drab, Verderber said an easy and inexpensive idea is to use spray paint to spruce them up.
“Bright deco colors are in, and are available any place spray paint is sold,” said Verderber. The colors of the season include lime green, bright blue, lemon yellow and pink, she said.
Use coordinating colors in your yard for extra “pop,” Verderber said. For example, in her own yard, Verderber spray painted her table and chairs a light blue and her Adirondack chairs a light green.
“You can use two colors to create a theme around your entire garden,” she said.
Incorporate Sound
Wind chimes can add a musical element to your yard. Pick them up from your local gardening store or build your own out of anything from seashells to bamboo.
But don’t stop there — now on the market are a number of self-contained fountains that are small enough to place on your deck or patio and can simply be plugged in.
“You don’t need to run electrical and install a timer to enjoy the sound of water in your yard,” said Verderber.
And finally, Verderber said to consider adding solar lighting around your outdoor seating area for the nighttime. A small fire pit is also easy to build and will make your yard a fun place to hang out even on cooler nights.
