From amping up your home’s curb appeal to the joys and tribulations of urban farming, HGTV’s gardening guru Carson Arthur ranged widely during an entertainingly informative presentation at the 2017 Ottawa Home & Garden Show.
Arthur – who’s the kind of big, outgoing guy everyone wants to have at a party – reminded the mainly baby boomer audience that it might not be long before they’re thinking of downsizing. That being the case, they need to know what their likeliest buyers – millennials, who were born between 1982 and 2004 – are looking for in a home.
What millennials want
Forget location or upgraded kitchens, according to Arthur. Younger folks, who he said now comprise 35 per cent of Ottawa home buyers, rate curb appeal as their number three priority when shopping for a home, right behind price and space. Google Street View is a favourite millennial house hunting tool, and if the front of your home is a turn off (think bland landscaping, a dingy front door), they won’t even bother doing a drive-by.
“The best spot to renovate is your front yard,” said Arthur. “It can impact a home’s perceived value by up to eight per cent.” That’s $32,000 on a $400,000 home.
Millennials are also into vegetable gardening big time, according to Arthur. “They want healthy food because of their kids … (and) they want their kids to have the outdoor experience.”
Urban farming
That observation led Arthur down the urban farming track, although just what that had to do with curb appeal and selling one’s home was uncertain.
He sparked laughter from the audience with tales of his own adventures in urban farming (he gets the freshest of eggs, but by the time he bought all the equipment and a hen house, those eggs cost him $3.02 each); warned about blithely planting vegetables in urban soil, which may be contaminated; and reminded us that “vegetable gardening is a passion that requires work.”
Outdoor tips
He sprinkled his talk and the Q&A afterward with an abundance of other valuable tidbits. For example, before installing a vertical garden on your home’s exterior wall, protect the surface against the mould-causing moisture that comes from watering the plants.
Make sure you have fescue in your grass seed mix, he added: Unlike popular Kentucky bluegrass (“We got suckered on that”), fescue withstands droughts, and grubs don’t like it. Got fruit trees? Wrap flypaper around the trunk to trap insects that hatch in the ground and clamber up to feast on your trees.
For more smart gardening ideas from Carson Arthur, visit carsonarthur.com.
