Marketing ammo for landscapers

If you're going to invest in good landscaping, go with the big plants.

That's one of the conclusions from a group of researchers at Michigan State University's department of horticulture, who put a price tag on consumers' perceived home value of landscape design. The results show that good landscape design can add as much as 5% to 11% value to a home.

Of course, everyone knows good landscape design adds value to a home. But until now that value hasn't been quantified. Landscape design and installation businesses have had little consumer information to use for marketing their services.

Using 1,323 volunteers in seven states, the researchers quizzed them on three attributes: plant material types, plant size and design sophistication.

“The landscape attributes that contributed most to the increase in perceived home value were, in order, design sophistication, plant size and plant material type,” the researchers report in their study, flagged by the Appraisal Institute. “The minimalist landscapes, with small plant size and little sophistication, even detracted from the perceived value of the home.”