The landscape around your home is important for many reasons. While it adds appeal with color, texture, and shade, landscape design can also add value to your home. Depending on your home and your landscape design, you can add between 5.5 and 12.7 percent of value to your home. From hardscapes and sod to flowerbeds and trees, knowing where to get started updating your landscape can be overwhelming. Fortunately, focusing on one or more of these trends is a great place to start. Here are a few landscaping trends to consider for 2019 and on.

Low-Maintenance

Many people feel that the more flowers, shrubs, and trees you have in your yard, the better. However, less can actually be more when creating an appealing and valuable landscape design. In reality, more and more people are seeing the benefits of the "less-is-more" type of landscape design, especially since it will require a lot less maintenance.

To get started, remove any flowers, shrubs, and trees that are overgrown, affecting other areas of your landscape design. The fewer plants you have, the less maintenance you will have to complete to keep them healthy.

If you are starting from scratch, choose low-maintenance plants that require very little watering, pruning, and fertilizing. Low-maintenance perennials come back each year without any effort. Here are a few to consider for various parts of your yard:

• Hosta
• Liriope
• Iris
• Sedum
• Thyme
• Coneflower
• Jacob's Ladder
• Muhly Grass
• Sage

With very little effort, the above perennials can fill in areas of your landscape with enormous color and texture.

Another low-maintenance option is to reduce the size of your lawn. Watering, mowing, and fertilizing a large plot of grass can be time-consuming, stressful, and expensive. Instead of a large lawn, consider creating natural beds using pine straw or gravel. Add a few shrubs and some outdoor furniture and you can create a simple yet beautiful section of your yard that requires very little work.

Staycation Spots

Outdoor living is also a key part of your landscape design. While most homes will have some type of deck or patio in their backyard, creating a more functional and attractive outdoor living can be a great investment. As a matter of fact, many people are investing a great deal of money into their outdoor living spaces, helping them stay home more and save money on eating out and travel expenses.

One of the easiest ways to create a staycation type of outdoor living space is to ensure you have multiple areas for relaxing, entertaining, cooking, and dining.

Consider a covered deck or screen porch for relaxing throughout the year no matter what type of weather you are experiencing. A fireplace or heater can warm you up through the winter while ceiling fans and misters can cool you off in the summer.

Build a large patio off your deck/porch to accommodate a cooking station. An outdoor kitchen with grill, refrigerator, and even pizza oven will be beneficial when entertaining your immediate family and guests. Make sure the patio is large enough to include a dining table, as well.

Edible Landscapes

Finally, choose plants that are not only pretty but also functional. Even if you are not a professional chef, you can learn to use fresh herbs and other plants in food or medicinal recipes.

Create a garden in your backyard that consists of delicious and fragrant herbs, such as oregano, dill, cilantro, basil, and rosemary. Chives are also a good option, since they are edible and produce flowers that add enormous color to your garden.

Many herbs and plants can be infused into tea or oil for drinking or aromatherapy purposes. Lavender is a great example of a truly functional plant. Citronella should also be included in your garden. While not usually eaten, citronella does repel insects, improving the comfort of your outdoor living areas.