carl1313 said:Hi everyone, I live in Tampa Florida, and I just bought a house. The landscaping is just not the best (Builder landscape included with the house 
). I am not a very creative person 
. So I need all your help to have the best landscape in a cookie-cutter neighborhood. 
This is for down the road, although as much as it goes against my grain, crowded planting works better than semi-sterile perfect spacing.
My other half convinced me of this.
Beyond that when your cement gets weathered or you just get tired of square edges and everything being a shade of grey; tear out as much as you can afford and put in paver stones with your side walk have curves rather than rigid square angles..
Pick a color that you like, but this my favorite, the shades of reds that were so common up here are no longer in production replaced by pastel shades of brown that are about as eye catching as shades of grey.
I thought she was nuts but my sig. other had me put a red paver stone patio around half o the house with red edgers covering another fourth.
It looks good and I get nothing but compliments on it.
If you want really different, put a design in the paver stones; now it has been a few years since I have put any in and I am not sure you can get them anymore, up here at least bit they really add character.
We did a drive way with one and it looked great; at the same time a fellow we did retainer wall work for had put in a brown colored cement drive way ---- except ---- the cement dried to a shade of purple.
Not a happy camper.
If you are a builder you can do it for a third to half the price of a landscaper as I did.
