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5 Landscaping Ideas for Apartments

Are you looking for simple landscaping ideas for apartments? Everybody loves to come home to a place with a good-looking front or backyard. So when potential tenants are looking at apartment buildings, kerb appeal matters.

Landscaping is an important part of apartment living. Your landscaping can make a property feel more comfortable and inviting.

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Apartment Landscaping Ideas

Apartment Landscaping Ideas

A recent study by the National Association of Home Builders found that 71% of people surveyed said their first impression of a building was based on its exterior. In this blog post, we'll explore how to make your property stand out and how curb appeal relates to leasing rates.

Whether you own a rental property or apartment building, beautiful and well-maintained landscaping gives potential residents that good first impression.

More importantly, it can help increase your building occupancy and tenant retention. Remember, these two factors are key to growing your rental income and ensuring you’re paying off your mortgage or residential SMSF property loans on time.

If you’re unsure where to begin, here are five landscaping ideas for apartments:

1. Add Colour with Flowering Shrubs

Landscaping Ideas for Apartments

A large, sprawling apartment complex is usually full of bricks, wood and metal elements. Break up the stark landscape by having flowering shrubs in the front yard. A recent study shows that air pollution is linked to respiratory illnesses, heart issues and lung diseases. 

With so many people affected by breathing in harmful particles, it's important for us to take steps to mitigate the problem. One way that we can do this is to plant shrubs in front of our homes. 

These plants will filter out pollutants from the air and add a splash of colour to the apartment complex. There are a lot of choices, including potentilla, butterfly bush and pastel flowers.

However, the best options are the native plants or flowering shrubs indigenous to your area. Native plants are generally easier to grow and maintain than exotic varieties, which may require more time and energy. They also provide a habitat for native wildlife and are more resistant to disease.

With green-fingered neighbours taking a keen interest in their garden, there are many benefits of this. The psychology of the neighbourhood can be improved with the sense of community that gardening brings.

Plants and flowers can also reduce the urban heat island effect by shading buildings.

2. Add a Place for People to Sit

Want to add more welcoming elements to the front yard of your apartment building? Place a bench or two. If your budget permits, install an entire gazebo.

It can give tenants a place to rest while waiting for their ride or chat on their way in and out of the building. With the recent rise in ride-sharing apps and other transportation choices, it has become more common for someone to need to wait for a ride.

You can also install a water fountain or any other feature that can boost the relaxation factor of the area.

3. Focus on the Apartment's Entrance

Apartment Landscaping Design

If your budget is tight and you can’t landscape the entire apartment exterior, focus on the apartment building’s entrance. Seeing as it’s everybody’s front door, it needs to be appealing, inviting and secure.

Again, you can add beauty and colour with shrubs. They can soften the often-imposing and cold effect of multi-storey buildings. Also, don’t forget about the walkway.

Go for a well-lit and designed walkway, as it adds a touch of welcoming appeal while providing tenants with a sense of safety. Make sure it’s also wide and accessible for persons with disability & senior tenants. 

There are many senior citizens or those with limited mobility or other disabilities that need to have an easier time going up and down stairs. One of the major factors in their decision to rent would be whether or not the property had either of these two features.

4. Create Shared Outdoor Spaces

Apartment dwellers give up the chance of having their own backyard, so they will likely appreciate stunning, relaxing and functional outdoor spaces.

You can create an expansive lawn at the back of the building so kids can run or bike around. You can also add a basketball or tennis court for the adults. Plant trees to provide shade.

Add a water fountain, grill, fire pit and multiple benches. That way, you can encourage the more talkative residents to get to know each other and form a tight-knit community.

(For more on fire pits, see our buying guide and product review of the best fire pits you may want to consider.) 

5. Be Creative in Adding Privacy

Hedges for Apartment Privacy

A garden can be a tranquil and peaceful space. However, the sound of other people's conversations and laughter can be disruptive. One way to provide a serene setting is by incorporating low shrubs that separate different areas in the garden. This will provide a space for reading or intimate conversations that won't disturb others nearby.

Walls and fences provide privacy and security, but they’re not the only or always the best solutions. You can be creative in adding privacy to boost the building’s kerb appeal.

For instance, you can install trellises with climbing plants. Those can help provide privacy while creating visual interest for the tenants, guests and passersby. 

You can also install groups of plants to create a natural privacy screen. Choose plants of different heights, colours and textures to create a natural & stunning look.

To add more height, go for types that can grow in tall columns, like bamboo. (Check out our guide on how fast bamboo grows here.) 

Boost Your Property's Value with these Landscaping Ideas for Apartments

With a little bit of effort, you can make your apartment building the best in the area. A well-landscaped property will be more appealing to potential buyers, leading to a higher price and a faster sale. As a result, the time and money invested in landscaping has a high return on investment.

Landscaping can not only increase the property value, but also help homeowners save money, time, and heartache by reducing maintenance costs and water bills, as well as beautifying their property, whether it be adding new plants and trees or removing any potential hazards from the property.

With these five landscaping ideas for apartments, you can make your property more appealing to dwellers and potential tenants. They may be simple ideas, but they can help grow your rental business and keep it profitable all year round. 

About the Author Lane Perry

Lane shares her knowledge and creative ideas with our audience at Sumo Gardener as an exterior decorator. She has previously worked as an exterior decorator on home renovation projects across the west coast USA, adapting to different environments for both large and small homes. When it comes to transforming your outdoor entertainment space or coming up with creative ways to enjoy your garden, Lane is our expert.

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