Front Range Real Estate Podcast with Joan Pratt

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When selling a home, most people will focus the bulk of their attention on the inside and don’t consider the potential of their outdoor living area. In this edition of Rock Talk, Dusty Hettinger, of both Rocky Mountain Ponds and Waterfall as well as The Sprucery Garden Center, is here to explain how water features and outdoor landscaping can significantly reduce your home’s days on market by extending your living area and adding value to your property.

Do water features actually add value to your home? Installing a water feature and adding some simple landscaping to your yard not only looks attractive, but can also significantly decrease your home’s days on market and extend your living area by essentially adding square footage outside of your home.

Here’s a quick example. A few years ago we had a client who was trying to sell his house without any sort of outdoor landscaping. His house sat on the market for about a year, and then he asked us to come in and take a look at the outdoor area. Without making him sink a whole bunch of money into an expensive renovation, we just added a simple water feature as a focal point. The house sold within a month.


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We added a simple water feature as a focal point and sold fast
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How difficult is a water feature to maintain? A lot of people ask this question having heard horror stories about waterfall maintenance in the past. The most common water features installed today are ponds. We make our ponds about three feet deep and install the pump down at the bottom to create flow. The key is that we’ll only put a few inches of water into the pond so that when the sun shines onto it, the rocks will absorb more sunlight than the water. This prevents the formation of algae. This way, the only step you’ll have to take in order to maintain the pond is to occasionally place a bit of algaecide in the water.

We’ll also install a high-efficiency pump and a float-valve in the pond. This will automatically add water from your irrigation system so that in the summer, the pond stays filled at all times. If you decide that you’d like to turn the water feature off in the winter, just unplug it and it will self-drain without any need to take the pump out of the water. All of this makes maintaining your water feature very easy.

Which landscaping options are best for the local area? After adding your water feature, the next step will be to complement it with the right landscaping as a backdrop. The problem that many of us have is that local deer love to eat a variety of flowers and colorful plants.

Luckily, we know of certain perennials that flower for a long time, which deer tend not to eat. Salvias, yarrow, and most types of daisies are all perennials that add a splash of color in spring, summer, and fall. At The Sprucery, we actually have an entire section of deer-resistant plants.

If you have any other questions about this topic, feel free to contact Dusty by phone at 303-237-9919 or emailing him at http://rmpw.com/contact-us/. And if you have an idea for future episodes of this blog, please send them to us and we’ll make them the focus of our next topic. Thanks for watching, and make it a great day!