Start your landscape from scratch with confidence
Just bought a home? Design your first landscape with AI. Arden helps new homeowners visualize garden styles, plan budgets, and avoid costly mistakes.
Moving into a new home with a bare yard or neglected landscaping is both exciting and overwhelming. Where do you start? What style suits the house? How much will it cost? New homeowner landscaping is about establishing a foundation — the bones of a garden that grows more beautiful with each passing season.
The biggest mistake new homeowners make is rushing to the garden center and buying plants randomly. This impulse approach leads to a disconnected collection of specimens that never looks cohesive. A better strategy is to visualize the end goal first, then work toward it incrementally.
Arden lets you photograph your new property and preview how different landscaping styles would transform it. See your blank canvas as a cottage garden, modern landscape, or native prairie before spending a dollar — then make informed decisions about where to invest first.
Key benefits
Style discovery
Preview dozens of landscaping styles on your actual property to find the aesthetic that matches your home architecture and personal taste.
Phased planning
A complete landscape does not happen overnight. Arden helps you visualize the end goal so you can work toward it in budget-friendly phases.
Foundation-first approach
Start with the elements that take longest to mature — trees and structural shrubs — while planning beds and details for later phases.
Mistake prevention
See how plant choices, materials, and layouts look in context before committing. Prevent the expensive trial-and-error that wastes first-year budgets.
Practical tips
- 1 Live with the property for a full year before major landscaping to observe sun patterns, drainage, existing plants, and seasonal conditions.
- 2 Start with one high-impact zone — usually the front entrance or the view from your most-used window — rather than tackling the entire property at once.
- 3 Invest in trees first. They take the longest to mature and provide the framework for everything else. A $50 tree planted now is worth more than a $500 tree planted in five years.
- 4 Photograph your property from every angle and use Arden to generate style options before visiting a single nursery.
Related garden designs
Häufige Fragen
Q1 How much should a new homeowner budget for landscaping?
A common guideline is 5-10% of your home value for full landscaping. For a $400,000 home, that is $20,000-$40,000 over time. But you do not need to spend it all at once — prioritize trees, basic beds, and one social area first, and expand over subsequent years.
Q2 Should I do the landscaping myself or hire a professional?
DIY the things that are forgiving — planting beds, mulching, container gardens. Hire professionals for the things that are expensive to fix — drainage, hardscape construction, tree removal, and irrigation. Use AI design previews to plan and a professional to execute the structural elements.
Q3 What should I plant in the first year?
Trees, evergreen structural shrubs, and a ground cover or mulch to suppress weeds. Skip the flower beds for now — focus on the permanent framework. By year two, you will understand your site conditions well enough to make confident plant choices for borders and beds.
Q4 How do I deal with a bare dirt yard?
Cover bare soil immediately with mulch to prevent erosion and weed growth while you plan. Seed with a temporary cover crop (clover, annual ryegrass) in visible areas for a green appearance. Then design and implement your permanent landscape in planned phases.