ONE of the ways to boost the value of your property is to make it look good to anyone passing by on the street. It’s called kerb appeal. A well-maintained lawn and a clearly defined driveway are a good start but there’s so much more that can be done by a competent landscaper.

“We can think of landscaping as a decorative wrapping or ribbon that packs a gift, which is the home,” said 27-year-old Rashawn Crewe, founder of Crewe’s Landscaping.

He was all alone when he established the company at age 20 but today it’s a five-employee venture. Crewe’s Landscaping mainly serves residential and commercial clients in the Corporate Area and St Catherine. A fair share of those customers are realtors who want to ensure that listed properties are always ready for a visit by potential clients. Others are new homeowners who want to improve the aesthetics of their recent acquisition.

“The first impression of the home is very important, and the yard is a big part of the first look. Fruit trees, hedging, driveway improvement, all add to the property’s value. Customers tend to gravitate towards homes that are already established with plants, flowers and fruit trees,” Crewe told the
Jamaica Observer.

He and his team install lawns, design flower beds and irrigation systems, pave driveways and walkways. Like many others in the business locally, their work is a blend of vegetation (landscaping) and man-made elements such as concrete and brick for paving (hardscaping).

Those services plus property maintenance as well as interior and exterior design, are also offered by 345 Emaculate Landscaping. The almost-three-year-old company has a team of eight and was established by 31-year-old landscaping architect and designer Shantel Dacas. It focuses on the same geographic area as Crewe’s Landscaping.

It’s a good idea to get a sketch of what the end result will look like before you begin a landscaping project.

“We recommend that clients invest at least eight to 10 per cent of their home’s value in landscaping, which includes soft and hardscaping,” said Dacas. “Using modern landscape design; adding outdoor living space with patios, decks, pergolas, water fountains, swimming pools can increase your residential property’s value. A plus would also be to install modern driveways, synthetic lawn, shrubs, palms and other aesthetically appealing elements to transform your property,”

Her reference to synthetic lawns is in keeping with one of the trends she says she has noticed: Clients want easy-to-maintain options. This includes plants that don’t need to be watered often.

Don-Roy Graham, who ran Brightside Lawncare & Landscaping from 2013 to December 2023, agreed with Dacas on the popularity of drought-resistant vegetation but disagreed with her on the swimming pool. In his view, they are now seen as requiring too much work to maintain.

“Persons would prefer a housing development that has a central pool for everybody versus having a pool just for your personal use — because nobody uses their home pool anyway,” he noted with a wry chuckle.

He said backyard vegetable gardens, on the other hand, are becoming popular.

Before challenges with keeping competent staff pushed him to pause operations, Graham had 63 employees, 3,248 residential clients, and 64 commercial clients all across Jamaica. He has a wealth of experience from the decade he spent in the business and his continued research as he tries to find a way to make lawn care a less stressful venture.

“Persons in the upper- and lower-middle class were always our target market because they were too busy, they didn’t have the time — and time was always on our side. When a client didn’t want to think about maintenance of their property, that’s where we came in. We were fully automated, in terms of the schedule,” said Graham.

Brightside’s main focus was maintenance but it also dabbled in landscape design and installation. Over the years Graham learned that the approaches are starkly different for residential and commercial.

“What will increase the value of a residential property is simplicity, straight lines. I’m talking about not overshadowing or making a space feel smaller than it actually is by adding too many plants,” he stressed, adding that he’s a big fan of walkways and pathways in the grass around a house.

“For residential properties, you will feel cooped up in a small space if you add too many plants but for bigger land, for commercial property, for hotels and so forth, it’s the reverse. In industry, that’s exactly what you want people to feel: safe, protected, and have a feeling of privacy,” Graham added.

Dacas, who stressed the importance of commercial properties starting their landscaping from the kerb as it gives approaching clients the impression that the business is being cared for, also spoke of the positive impact it may have on employee morale.

“For the workers, beautiful landscape may help reduce stress if they have an area where they can step outside and unwind. This may improve the overall productivity of the company,” she said.

Asked to provide tips for someone looking to hire a landscaper she cautioned that, depending on the nature and scope of the project, it may take some time to get tangible results. It helps, she said, if the client has some idea of what he or she wants, and it’s always a good idea to have the landscaper provide a sketch before work begins. She also said it is best to get an estimate and have a signed contract.

For his part, Crewe spoke of the importance of both parties being on the same page.

“Try to find somebody you can have a professional relationship with long term. They will have grown a love for your garden and treat it as theirs,” he said.

But it all begins with hiring the right company.

“You can listen to somebody’s reply on a particular matter and know the difference between somebody who is googling it and somebody who has done it, so paying attention to replies is important. If the landscaper is waiting for the client’s suggestion on how to fix a problem then it’s likely he doesn’t have enough experience,” Graham warned.