Five tips for upgrading your backyard

The backyard has become an extension of a home’s living space. Upgrading a backyard can bring years of enjoyment or highlight your home for potential buyers.

From the traditional grill and picnic table to lavishly landscaped patios and decks with lounge areas, buyers’ love affair with the backyard continues to hold true.

Here are five ideas from PLANET, a professional landscape network and trade association for the landscape industry, for helping you transform yard into the ultimate retreat or entertaining space this summer.

1. Create a wildflower or herb garden. Wildflowers or herbs make great container gardens or ground cover. They are beautiful and smell great. Many home chefs grow their own herbs and many landscape companies now create edible gardens for clients. These gardens are also a benefit for the environment and for wildlife, providing food and safe cover for small animals.

2. Add outdoor lighting. Outdoor lighting highlights a home’s landscape, special trees, as well as walkways and porches, providing both curb appeal and safety. “Nightscaping” makes gathering spaces usable and enjoyable for entertaining after dark. Landscape professionals can design lighting to complement or highlight important areas of the yard, or there are a variety of basic do-it-yourself options, such as adding a set of solar walkway lights.

3. Add a water feature. Water features, ranging from small fountains to ponds, streams, or water walls, create a sense of peace and calm, helping people connect with nature, and may attract wildlife.

4. Add a fire feature. A portable fire pit or stone fireplace into the deck or patio extends the time people can spend in their backyards, making a cozy entertaining space on summer nights or well into the fall and winter.

5. Add an outdoor kitchen. Outdoor kitchens have been growing in popularity for years and are often the center of family life in the summer. They can be as extensive as a complete kitchen made of stone, brick, or concrete pavers with a stove, stone or brick oven, counters, and even a sink or refrigerator, or they can be as compact as a patio with a grill and table. There are a wide variety of options for every space, purpose, and price range.