3 Easy Ways to Add Curb Appeal in Late Summer
Using these three quick & easy ways to add curb appeal in late summer will freshen your home’s exterior so you can enjoy the beautiful fall weather to come.
This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Gilmour. All opinions are 100% mine.
By the time August rolls around, our initial excitement over the gardening season may be…lacking. It’s hot. We’re tired. The weeds may have taken over areas.
It would just be nice to float in the river or sip an ice tea on our porches.
But for many of us, late July into August is the calm before the storm of back-to-school, abundant garden harvests that need to be preserved, ramping up of sports, extracurricular activities, or job responsibilities (and some deal with all of these at once!).
This means that late summer could be the perfect time to set a few hours aside to spruce up the outside of our homes and landscaping as we move into autumn.
Using these three basic, easy ways to add curb appeal are all you really need to make a big impact for low cost. You won’t believe the difference it makes to clean and tidy up, either!
It’s a great way to welcome visitors and the coming fall season.
Three DIY, Easy Ways to Add Curb Appeal
1. Clean Siding, Porches, Decks & Windows
Basic cleaning of your home’s exterior really gives the biggest return on time spent. Seriously, I didn’t think our house was that dirty until I started taking the before pictures (can you say spider webs?) – and then comparing them with the after.
Wow. And while I’m showing you nooks and crannies that most don’t see as they visit, the overall effect after cleaning is really noticeable.
I think the entry porch and door in the lead photo looks so much more crisp and clean than before cleaning! We used the Gilmour Power Jet Wand along with the Flexogen hose to clean pretty much everything.
We even rinsed the outside windows with it, which helped get rid of the spider webs (so many webs…), but will need to use a cleaning solution soon to really get the windows clean (and then use the jet wand to rinse).
To be honest, we weren’t sure how the wand would work, since it wasn’t like renting a power washer or anything. And while one area of siding with dried-on mud from a gutter cleaning did need scrubbing with a brush, it worked like a charm overall for basic cleaning of cobwebs (I have mentioned them, right?), dirt, leaves, and debris.
Both Brian and I like how:
- The direct spray tip sends water right where you want (especially nice for the cracks between porch/deck boards).
- It’s easy and comfortable to hold and use – the metal is strong, but not heavy.
- There’s a control to regulate the force of the stream (though we used it on high for all of our cleaning – you mayĀ want less force for car cleaning applications).
- It’s really fun to use – especially when it’s hot out and the backspray helps cool you (how many cleaning things can you say that about, ha!).
Nothing tells this kind of story better than pictures, so I’m (bravely) sharing our dusty, dirty, cobwebby before, so you can see the difference. Again, wow.
If you had only time for one of the things on this list, this is worth the effort! (And yes, next up is restaining the porch steps and entry!)
2. Do a Mid-Summer Trim of Beds & Borders
I know I’m totally guilty of thinking that I’m done with the beds and borders in late spring, but the truth is everything can benefit from a nice trim in late summer.
The spring and early summer blooms need to be deadheaded, there will be browned leaves to remove and lawn edges to freshly trim.
The before-and-after difference isn’t huge in the photos above – the bed is still lush in its summer growth – but it’s a LOT more neat and tidy.
An added benefit to this cut-back is that there are lots of perennials that may produce another set of flowers for you, like reblooming daylilies, coreopsis, hardy geranium, and rose campion. And of course if you keep your roses deadheaded, most will continue to bloom until frost.
3. Water Well & Apply a Fresh Layer of Mulch
After trimming and cutting back flowers and shrubs, soaking the ground thoroughly will give them a much-needed late-summer boost (I like to use soaker hoses like I wrote about here).
If you didn’t get the beds mulched in the spring (it happens to all of us…) or if your spring mulch is looking tired, adding a fresh layer now is a great way to keep your beds looking great through to the fall and help hold in the moisture you added.
I really like the look of dark garden compost as a landscape mulch – it feeds the soils as it breaks down (I never use any other fertilizer) and the dark brown adds a cooling effect to the garden versus lighter, red-toned bark or straw mulches.
But use what you can get in your area, as anything will be an improvement over dry, cracking ground and straggling weeds. While thisĀ will cost some money, at around $20 for a trailer load (enough to cover the beds around most entries), it won’t break the bank.
What outdoor tasks do you like to get done before fall?
Disclosure: I received product and/or compensation for this post. As always, the opinions, thoughts, and projects are all mine and I will NEVER promote something I don’t love and think you will find helpful – promise! For more info, you can read ourĀ entire disclosure page here.
I would love to try this hose. I don’t have any great gardening tip except to try and stay on top of what needs to done.if it goes to long it starts to look like a jungle.
We are an organic family so we never use commercial artificial chemicals on our lawn or veggies. We fertilize our lawns with milorganite and molasses and our veggies with Garrett Juice, molasses and worm castings. You can find the recipe for Garrett juice online, just Google (Garrett juice recipe). We have noticed that the ants that we had such a terrible problem with last year are almost non existent since we’ve been putting down the molasses. Bonus!
That’s interesting, Melinda, I’ve never heard of Garret juice!
I have two large vegetable gardens. I plant some flowers around the edges to attract beneficial insects and I keep an old mailbox in each garden to hold a few garden tools so if I am in the garden and see something that needs to be done, I have a tool handy.
In the fall, when I get my vegetable garden ready for winter, I remove all of the annuals and put down a thick layer of compost. I don’t work it in but let the winter rains wash all of the nutrients into the soil. Then, in the spring, I just have to do some minimal weeding and my garden beds are ready for planting.
I try to spend a few minutes every day pulling any weeds that I notice. It really helps to prevent them from getting out of control.
Even though I am in Canada I have a friend who lives in Oregon who could have the prize if my name was drawn. She has just gotten a garden plot this year, and is really enjoying all the fresh produce from it. She would definitely make good use of the hose.
Now for my garden prep. I use the cardboard as well, it works great to kill off perennial weeds. I have raised beds made with cindercrete blocks (2 blocks high), so my spring prep for them is really minimal, just a good loosening of the soil with my winged weeder seems to do the trick. I am going to try to cover my potato patches with the heavy black poly this year to see if we can get away without having to till the soil. I know it works with your soil, but we have a lot of clay in our soil, so it seems to pack down even without walking on it.
Our most consistent effort is to capture all the good lawn clippings and leaves dropping for our compost pile… That and mulching to keep the water in and weeds down; no rocket science here ! : )
I like to try to provide small wildlife habitats in our yard. One place is where we empty our compost kitchen scraps under a tree, and we put our sticks and plants from weeding there too. It doesn’t smell at all, and it’s exposed to rain and wind and sun and insects, so it all decomposes easily. Little animals find shelter in the brush and nibble on the food scraps. I’ve seen a box turtle in there before, as well as rabbits and birds, and there are countless tiny animals in there too. š
Amazing how a little clean up can make the whole house look so fresh and pretty. Seems maybe I need ot do the same! LOL! Hapy Weekend. Over form weekend link up. Linda
Love these tips! I forget that it’s that easy just need to get on the ball! š
i can always use another garden hose.
I fill my containers with cuttings I’ve overwintered to save on my spring planting budget.
Great minds and all of that….last night before it got dark and then early this AM before anyone else was awake I was outside working on our front beds. There are some Dr. Seuss evergreens that needed a hair cut and a few other kinds that desperately needed to be cut back as they were overflowing the front walk and rock walks through the bed. I am keeping a set of gloves and pruner in one of my decorative pots so when I am out there I have no excuses and can just grab a few weeds or trim a few things. It really only takes a few minutes and makes it look so much better….I just need to remember to do it!
Aerating our beds does wonders when the winter snow packs down our soil and mulch. Great tips and love the giveaway!
Tip: position your water barrel near the gardens or flower pots you will be watering most so you don’t have to carry water so far!
I am just getting back into gardening again this summer and look forward to ramping it up next spring. My biggest tip is a lesson learned the hard way – water, water, water your containers…they dry out so quickly! Make it a regular routine, like feeding the cat or grabbing the newspaper, and your plants will thank you! (Btw, my husband re -stained our porch and steps and it looks so beautiful – what a difference!)
My tip is to deep mulch with newspaper under and keep om top on topmof weeding
Start early and ding pruning and other maintenance works best in morning during summer months
I’ve learned to put down more mulch — if there isn’t enough mulch, you’ll get weeds! Also, you should pull weeds as soon as they pop up, or you’ll be swamped with weeds!
My tip is we all live such crazy lives today, so take a few minutes each week to just go and sit in your garden and enjoy the beauty of it, both vegetables and flowers. I found a beautiful yellow bench with metal daisies that makes the back of the bench at Lowes a few years back and “planted” it in the middle of my vegetable garden that also has lots of beautiful different kinds of flowers planted among the veggies. Every so often, instead of rushing out to weed and water, I just sit on my bench and enjoy the beauty of the garden. Get a good mental picture of it and that holds me over during the winter of good memories and reminds me how pretty it will be in the Spring. This is a great stress reliever and doesn’t cost anything but a few minutes of your time.
Love this tip, Jean!! A reminder to enjoy it, too š
We moved into a new home this past winter, and this spring the yards went crazy! As my husband and I are disabled, we wanted low maintenance. All the flowerbeds got new mulch cloth put down before the new bark mulch, and we are so happy we had that done. Our neighbor didn’t use the mulch cloth, and he has so many weeds growing through his bark mulch. We have none! It still looks so nice, I highly recommend mulch cloth!