If buyers wither at the sight of your yard

You’ve plastered cracks and washered the dripping faucet. You’ve rubbed, scrubbed and spit-shined both upstairs and down, under the couch, atop the wardrobe and beneath the snoring dog. Proudly, you examine your gleaming home and think, “It’ll fetch a million bucks.”

But did you remember to fix up the garden?

Tending to the garden is frequently the last thing on a seller’s mind. Yet, just as an opinion is formed in the first few moments of meeting a person, so too is an attraction to a house created. By the time prospective buyers step from their car, they’ve usually made up their mind. And what do they see first? The landscaping.

I know from whence I speak. Every spring, for the last decade or so, I’ve done “lipstick and rouge” work for people selling their homes: I’ve spruced up hundreds of gardens just before they’ve gone on the market.

Here’s the prescription I’ve given nearly every one of them:

Clean. You’ve taken all the sculptures your kids made 10 years ago off the dining room table, and you’ve moved hand-me-down furniture into the garage. Well, take all the extraneous stuff out of your garden too. Remember that nobody but you will miss the half-dead rose your aunt in Milwaukee gave to you as a moving-in present.

My rule: If it’s dead, or sort-of dead, yank it. Concrete deer and garden bric-a-brac should go. Anything broken goes. Clutter is what we live with; clean is what we buy.

Fill the holes. Look around your garden, and if the majority of plants are all the same size, break up that uniformity by adding a few new plants of different heights and sizes. Money spent on a few larger shrubs, perhaps a small citrus tree even, is often a wise move.

Avoid orange. Personally, I like orange in the garden, but lots of people don’t. Pinks, purples, blues and whites are the best for selling. Rebels, like me, plant orange flowers when they move into their new houses.

The exception to this rule is California poppies, which, although their bloom is even more orange than a box of Valencias, leave a favorable impression.

Put in gravel. The look of thin strips of property between homes is almost always improved by gravel. The gravel makes the space seem cleaner and less neglected. Remember that pea gravel gets stuck in your shoes; three-quarter-inch gravel is, therefore, more suitable.

Seed the lawn. Feed the lawn. Water the lawn. It’s simple to make the lawn look better in the short term. Once the house has sold, it can return to its customary “sod in the desert” quality.

Mulch is magic. Get a load, probably several cubic yards, delivered. Get some of your friends who are sad you are moving to help wheelbarrow the mulch around. (They’ll be less sorry to see you go afterward.) The “pop” your garden will make after the mulch has been laid will be obvious. The mulch also helps to unify spaces, making your yard look more consolidated.

Redo pathways. If you have paths with pavers laid out in a hodgepodge manner, pick up the stones and reconfigure them. Make the space between steppingstones comfortable for someone about 5 feet, 6 inches tall (as most adults are somewhere between 5 and 6 feet tall). Take away stones or get extra ones, depending on your needs. Make sure to fix rocking ankle busters with sand or gravel or more mulch.

Don’t go nutty. Spending a small fortune now is not smart. If you plan on selling your home next year, getting some major plants going now and next fall can have a big effect. But if you’re hitting the market in just a few weeks, it’s better to spend your money on healthy, blooming plants, and nothing too exotic or too costly.

Buy some color. Maybe just a flat or two of annual flowers is all you’ll need. Avoid the ones that are ubiquitous. Impatiens, petunias and snapdragons are going to be at every other house with a for-sale sign hanging out front. Lobelias are a better choice, or monkeyflowers. Just one color of flower, rather than the full-spectrum effect, will probably work better for your home.

Remember: You are trying to make your house stand apart from the others on the market. And who knows? You might like your new look so much that you won’t care if it sells.