When prospective home buyers take a drive through your HOA, they are looking at more than just one or two houses that are for sale.
In fact, they are paying extra special attention to your HOA’s common areas. Do they look like fun places to walk or for their kids to use? Are they drawing people in as relaxing spaces to hang out after work or on weekends? Do they look well cared for?
Does this have you panicking when you think about your HOA common areas? Never fear: Turfscape is here!
We have lots of regular interaction and experience with Northeast Ohio HOAs. And there are a few easy HOA landscape enhancements that you can use to keep potential homeowners loving your community, as well as retain those who already live there and enjoy the space.
Landscape Enhancements for an HOA
There are some areas that tend to get more attention than others at your HOA.
Think entryways, well-used common areas, and play or recreation areas, for instance.
Luckily, adding value and wow factors to these spaces can happen with these 5 easy HOA landscape enhancements.
1. Add Some Mulch
Applying fresh mulch to your landscape beds can instantly give dull, tired plants new life and visual pop.
In addition to being an aesthetic refresher, mulch also helps your plants retain moisture, saving you money on your water bill by reducing irrigation. 
Hate weeds? Mulch helps block them from becoming eyesores in your landscape beds.
Fresh mulch annually can provide all these benefits, so it’s something you definitely want to include. Springtime is usually the best time for this HOA landscape enhancement in Northeast Ohio.
2. Add Plants Around Focal Points
Areas on your HOA that need an extra boost can benefit from the addition of eye-catching plants. The spaces to focus on most for immediate impact include highly visible spots like entrances and entranceways; signage; street corners; cul-de-sacs; and shared facility areas like pools, clubhouses, guest parking, and recreation arese.
Perennials and shrubs can add interest, texture and variety to a space -- like an instant face-lift.
Annuals are another addition that can bring impact to these spaces with lots of eye-popping color.
If the space needs some height or you want the ability to change or move the plants more frequently, container plants can be great additions as well. Choosing planters that match nearby structures, signage, or buildings can also bring consistency and cohesion to this easy HOA landscape enhancement.
3. Update Site Furnishings
Site furnishings can make or break your HOA.
When they look good and coordinate with your site amenities, they add great value to those who use them. But when they are worn out, scratched up, breaking, and falling apart, they can detract from your HOA’s image.
Assessing the condition of your site’s furnishings and then making a plan to replace those that have seen better days is an easy HOA landscape enhancement.
This could include getting more modern benches for common areas or replacing old garbage cans. These inexpensive upgrades can instantly kick up your property’s aesthetic value. 
The trick is making sure your old furnishings and new furnishings are all complementary to your other HOA structures, containers, and color schemes.
4. Aerate and Overseed Lawn Areas
Aeration and overseeding are extremely beneficial for your lawn and soil. Unfortunately, many people underestimate these services because they don’t see the immediate benefits. 
But you should never underestimate the power of a simple annual lawn service that can improve the health, greenness, and thickness of your lawn areas. If you get this service in the fall, for instance, by spring, your lawn will have new life.
And this can be especially beneficial for HOAs where homeowners have smaller yards. They will naturally congregate in the community’s common lawn spaces to gather with friends and take advantage of the extra space to play games, run around with children, or even just relax and picnic.
And bringing people together is how this easy HOA landscape enhancement can create that sense of community on your property.
5. Dormant Pruning of Trees
Trees and shrubs do add value to your HOA. However, dying, diseased, and dead plants can pretty quickly make an area seem tired and worn out, taking away from your original intention to energize the space.
Correct pruning is a great way to eliminate dead, dying, or diseased/decaying branches. These branches are the biggest safety hazards on your property. They are the first to fall during storms. To enhance safety measures on your property and decrease your liability, pruning these branches annually is essential. 
But an additional level of pruning that can be an easy HOA landscape enhancement is dormant pruning. This more aggressive type of pruning takes place in the winter months when your deciduous trees are dormant. And the result is an influx of healthy growth the following spring.
Enhance your Northeast Ohio HOA with Turfscape
Enhancing your HOA grounds doesn’t have to take a lot of time and effort. The addition of mulch or some color pops with annuals in key areas or updating furnishings can do wonders to improve the overall feel of your HOA, as well as keep homeowners happy.
In fact, convincing board members that these HOA landscape enhancements in Ohio are important isn’t hard when they see how much of an impact they can have on the community.
Curious about which easy HOA landscape enhancement can do the most good for your property? We know it can be overwhelming.
Work with your service provider to walk your property and identify the simple improvements that would work best within your site and budget. Sharing your overall goals is also important, so your commercial landscape professional can match the right enhancements to your needs.
Want to learn more about how we can help you enhance the landscape at your HOA? Get started today with a free quote. We’ll review your options together so you can feel confident and make a great choice.
