About.com has an excellent article on how landscaping increases the value of your home.

I used to be a big fan of About.com, I probably used to read something interesting on there every day. However, over the years it has become increasingly commercial, with ads cluttering up the pages, and pop-overs and pop-unders (For instance, I'm on a Mac, with a pop-up blocker. Still got 2 pop-under ads when I went to the site). I now only bother going there if I find a link to something that really interests me.

This article is worth the hassle, at least for me. It really quantifies how a nicely landscaped garden affects the home's value. This is always useful when a spouse doesn't like you spending money at your local nursery. Now you got statistics to back you up.

Of course it's important to keep the garden looking nice even when you're not trying to sell your home, because the liklihood is that someone else on the block is, and we all now how each home can affect another's value. In the end, you win by increasing the property value of the whole neighborhood, right? So you're really being a community activist when you garden!

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