Every homeowner association is unique and has specific requirements when it comes to curb appeal landscaping. An HOA is an organization found in subdivisions or planned communities responsible for creating rules and regulations for their residential community. The organization consists of current residents who create bylaws dedicated to preserving and enhancing landscapes and property within the neighborhood.
Curb appeal landscaping is one of the many reasons why HOA communities continue to attract new residents. While residential landscaping typically beautifies a home, curb appeal landscaping enhances the aesthetic for every visitor. When performed by an experienced landscaping company, the practice can deliver stunning results that improve the overall value of the home, make existing households more pleasant, and enable potential residents to feel welcomed into the community.
Interested in learning more? Here is how you can benefit from curb appeal landscaping for your HOA community.
What is Curb Appeal Landscaping?
Curb appeal landscaping is simply a category of landscaping services that enhances the overall appeal of a home or neighborhood. This is typically the first impression of your landscape before seeing anything else. So, elements such as lush green lawns, fresh plants, and outdoor lighting all contribute to creating a stunning first impression. Curb appeal landscaping has the power to increase property value and create cohesion throughout the neighborhood.
According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, improved curb appeal provides a plethora of benefits to communities. These advantages include improved resident retention, better maintenance practices, and reduced rates of crime. For HOA organizations, increasing the betterment of community members is of the utmost importance and a must-have practice for your neighborhood.
Why is Curb Appeal Landscaping Important for Subdivision Common Spaces?
Improving Aesthetic Value
First and foremost, curb appeal landscaping dramatically improves the aesthetic value of your entire neighborhood. When you have beautiful flowers, freshly trimmed grass, and a clean landscape presented across the homes in your community, it presents a sense of uniformity and the importance of beautification of your landscape.
Increasing Home and Neighborhood Value
When all houses look their best, this not only affects the individual value of a home but the entire neighborhood. Maintained spaces make places more desirable to live in. Also proving how committed the current residents are to sticking to HOA landscaping guidelines. This is beneficial for homeowners who want to improve their real estate portfolio, aim to raise rental payments for their tenants, or plan to sell their home in the near future.
Boosting Community Cohesion
Homeowners associations are made up of the existing residents in the neighborhood. Their main goal is to enhance and enforce for the betterment of all individuals. When people come together to decide how to improve the landscapes and common areas, it establishes a sense of pride that strengthens the community.
Ensuring Consistent Maintenance
Almost all HOAs require their residents to maintain the look of their lawns and ensure consistency. For this purpose, some HOAs also hire a professional landscaping company that provides services in compliance with the community guidelines. That way, the homes have a uniform and orderly appearance. This is especially common in smaller neighborhoods with fewer homes, but similar architecture.
How Can HOAs Boost Neighborhood Curb Appeal?
Lawn Maintenance
Almost all curb appeal landscaping guidelines by HOAs include instructions on lawn maintenance. This details specific standards for lawn mowing, turf upkeep, and watering schedules. During drier seasons, they address ways to help decrease landscaping water use and help maintain eco-friendly initiatives across the community.
Tree Maintenance and Pruning
Trees are an important part of upholding a clean and well-maintained landscape. Specifically for curb appeal, it is important to practice rejuvenation pruning which targets dead or overgrown limbs. This way, residents are protected especially if the trees hang too low over road signs and obstruct the view. Be aware of the Georgia tree law defining tree ownership between homes and the HOA’s responsibility to maintain trees.
Seasonal Plant Installation
Especially in the spring season, it is the perfect time to plant vibrant flowers throughout the neighborhood. For the entrance, installing a variety of flowers creates a beautiful and attractive look as people enter. HOA guidelines include a “plant palette” which is a list of approved plants. This not only ensures a uniform appearance across all homes to maximize curb appeal but also keeps invasive plant species away from the community.
Seasonal Cleanup
Seasonal cleanup is essential to maintaining curb appeal, especially in the fall and winter. Your HOA can set rules for seasonal landscaping such as raking leaves in the fall. This can also include specifications on cool season and warm season grasses, like removing thatch in summer and fall. This keeps your community looking its best every single season, no matter how hot or cold the weather may get.
Accent Lighting Installation
Curb appeal does not exclude lighting and other enhancements. For outdoor lighting, there are several benefits including appeal, safety, and most importantly, visibility.
Hiring Landscaping Professionals
Performing curb appeal landscaping can be a bit difficult for individual homeowners. That’s where hiring a landscaping company can make it easier for residents to maintain and improve the value of your community. Additionally, this also ensures that the guidelines put in place by your HOA for lawn maintenance and improvements are met.
What to Expect from Homeowner Associate Guidelines for Landscaping
HOA Guidelines
In Georgia, HOAs have the right to maintain the aesthetics and value of the community by establishing bylaws to be followed. In the set of bylaws, the board members define guidelines for curb appeal landscaping that cover aspects from lawn maintenance to specific home additions such as fence installations. The guidelines are not to offend, but to prevent violations of community upkeep.
Proactive Communication
To ensure compliance with the residents, establishing proactive communication creates transparency for all homeowners. The HOA guidebook should be easily available to existing homeowners and new residents, to ensure that everyone is in agreement about curb appeal landscaping. This prevents any confusion and violations of the bylaws.
Community Building
When you talk about HOA guidelines and proactive communication, you need to factor in community-building practices. By holding regular meetings between HOA members and gathering ongoing feedback from residents, you can ensure that everyone feels heard. This creates a sense of unity across your neighborhood and motivates all residents to do their best to maintain neighborhood curb appeal.
Every HOA has its own rules to maintain its integrity and improve its aesthetic for the community. This also holds true for curb appeal landscaping in Georgia, where different HOAs can impose their own guidelines.
With that being said, some general landscaping rules are common among HOAs. These often extend to the following aspects.
- Types of plants, sculptures, and furniture that you can display.
- Adjustments you make in your personal garden.
- Approval requirements for planting or removing certain trees.
- Authorization for installing fences.
In order to make sure that everyone complies with your HOA’s rules, you should make these rules easily available in your HOA guidebook and understand their regulations on landscaping. From there, you can ask a seasoned landscaping company to design or maintain your community’s curb appeal landscaping around those guidelines.
Contact Oasis Landscapes & Irrigation to Get Personalized Curb Appeal Landscaping For Your HOA
At Oasis Landscapes & Irrigation, we take pride in designing personalized spaces for residential community projects to bring the best out of them. Whether your HOA wants to follow long-established rules or wants to design its guidelines around landscaping suggestions, our experts can help you show off your community’s appeal to the world.
To see how our solutions can help, contact us via our online form or call us at (770) 609-1818 for a personalized consultation. We will be glad to understand your requirements and help you meet them with our award-winning landscaping services.
