Landscaping Ideas For Apartment Buildings: To Increase Occupancy and Retention


Everybody loves to come home to green lawn, shade trees, pretty flower beds. So when potential renters are looking at apartment buildings, appearances matter.

Landscaping plays a huge factor in an apartment building’s curb appeal. Beautiful, well-tended landscaping tells potential occupants that property managers care about the place.

A few key areas need special attention. Let’s take a look at a few great landscaping ideas for apartment buildings.

Create An Appealing Entrance

An apartment building’s entrance is everybody’s front door. It has to be inviting, appealing and safe.

Trees and shrubs soften the often-imposing effect of a multi-story building, offer shade and screen undesirable views. They also help buffer sound in noisy neighborhoods.

Flowerbeds and flowering shrubs add color and beauty. Large containers of colorful annuals look welcoming flanking the door.

A well-designed and lighted walkway adds to both security and appeal. Lighting should both highlight the entrance’s best features and provide a sense of safety.

Apartment building landscape entrance design

A Place To Sit

A courtyard area near the door, furnished with a bench or two and planted with shrubs and flowers, gives tenants a place to rest or gather to chat on the way in or out. Add a fountain or other water feature to boost the relaxation factor.

Add Color With Flowering Shrubs

A large, sprawling apartment complex usually includes big expanses of brick or wood. Flowering shrubs break up the stark landscape and will get larger and more eye-catching as the years go on.

There are lots of choices here in Idaho, including several beautiful native shrubs: Golden currant offers bright yellow flowers in early spring. Chokecherry explodes with white flowers in early spring that transform into reddish-purple fruit. Woods’ rose offers pretty pink flowers in late May.  

Native plants — plants original to your area of the country — are hardy and less susceptible to pests and diseases. They grow well and require little care.

Bonus: birds, butterflies and hummingbirds will start flitting around your apartment building. Natural entertainment.Landscaping at apartment complex

Include A Common Area

Apartment dwellers give up having their own back yard, but an appealing common area is the next best thing.

These shared outdoor spaces can include an expanse of lawn for kicking a soccer ball around, a paved courtyard with benches for relaxing or gathering, a court for basketball or tennis.

This is also a good spot for a water feature — a soothing fountain or a pond with bubbling jets.

Separate areas with low shrubs to offer semi-private spaces for reading or conversation.

Add a grill or a fire pit, and you encourage residents to gather and get to know each other.

Provide Safety And Security

Everybody wants to feel secure in their own home. Landscaping shouldn’t block visibility. That means medium-sized —  not huge —shrubs, as well as trees with canopies above eye level.

Lighting at entrances and along paths increases tenants' sense of security when taking walks at night or returning home late after a long day at work.

Offer Privacy

Fences and walls do the trick but they’re not the only — or always the best — solution for privacy.

Trellises with climbing plants offer some privacy as well as visual interest.

Install groupings of plants to create a natural privacy screen. Stagger a few deciduous shrubs, a couple of evergreens, and a cluster of perennial grasses. Different heights, colors and textures looks natural and interesting.

Large containers of plants offer privacy, too, as well as plants that naturally grow in a tall column, like yews or bamboo.

Guide Pedestrians With Pathways

Walkways show pedestrians the way toward an entrance, exit or other destination on your property. They also keep people from walking on the surrounding landscaping. If there’s a path, chances are people will use it.

Consider permeable pavers for your walkways. They absorb rainwater and keep it from running into waterways and storm drains.

Plant Trees

Everybody loves trees. They add character, provide shade, offer privacy.

Potential tenants will opt for a shady, peaceful apartment complex over a sun-baked, barren one.

Keep Things Tidy

Well-kept grounds encourage renters to keep their own areas clean and free of clutter, too.

The smallest tasks can make a big difference. Add new mulch to plant beds, prune trees and shrubs, kill weeds and remove any dead plants.

Let Outback Landscape Boost Your Apartment Complex Appeal

First impressions matter.

The experts at Outback Landscape have great landscaping ideas for apartment buildings.

We can add just the right trees, flowering shrubs and colorful flower beds. We create pathways and courtyards, install lighting and water features. Fire pits? We do that, too.

Then, we’ll keep your landscape looking great with regular landscape maintenance services.

Let our experienced team show you how to draw more tenants to your apartment complex — and make them want to stay.

Call us at 208-656-3220 or fill out our contact form to schedule a free consultation with one of our team members.

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