Survey Says: Americans Love their Yards and they are Important to a Home’s Resale Value
According to an online survey commissioned by the National Association of Landscape Professionals and conducted by Harris Poll in May 2015, eighty-three percent of Americans think having a yard is important. 91% of Americans want to live in an area where they can see or walk to nice landscaping. So if you want the best chance of increasing the home prices in your neighborhood, make sure the landscaping looks good.
Nice landscaping helps to sell your house. Eighty-four percent say that the quality of a home’s landscaping would affect their decision about whether or not to buy. Great neighborhood landscaping helps, but it isn’t enough; yours needs to look good too.
Your neighbors care what your yard looks like. Seventy-one percent think it is important that their neighbors have well-maintained yards. Perhaps “good landscaping makes good neighbors” should be the new adage.
We want to enjoy our yards. Seventy-five percent of people feel that it is important to spend time outside in their yards.
Despite common misperceptions, even Millennials want to spend time in their yards. Seventy-five percent of Millennials (18–34 year olds) think spending time outside in their yards is important.
People want help with their landscape. A large majority of Americans (67%) agree that professional landscape help would allow them to have a nicer yard.
Lawns Clean the Air: “A well-watered and fertilized lawn is a carbon sink. If people recycle the grass clippings, leaving them to decompose on the lawn, the U.S. lawn area could store up to 37 billion pounds of carbon each year.” Christina Milesa, NASA Ames Research Center
Lawns Are Really Cool!: Turfgrass and shade both reduce energy use by 20 to 30% compared with rock-based landscaping. In a study of energy used for cooling residences, shade alone reduced energy use 24.3% and turfgrass alone reduced use 19.8%. (McPherson, Simpson, Livingston. 1989. Effects of three landscape treatments on residential energy and water use in Tucson, Arizona)
Lawns Produce Oxygen: “55 Square feet of turfgrass provides enough oxygen for one person for an entire day.” Dr. Thomas Watschke, Penn State University.
Lawns Reduce Stormwater Run-off: A lawn’s filtration system is so effective, rain water filtered through a healthy lawn is as much as 10 times less acidic than water running off a hard surface. Much less water volume also runs off a lawn than hard surface area.
April is National Lawn Care Month so it is a great time to think about what your lawn and landscape do for you. Even in the age of the smartphone and TV show binge watching, the love affair with the American yard is not over.
