A few easy-to-do quick updates can make your garden amazing. Implement at least 5 of these quickies for an awesome garden!

1. Place planted containers at your front door, on steps, and empty corners. Adding potted plants at your front door is a friendly gesture. Healthy potted plants, especially those with fragrance, are so welcoming to guests. Lavender plants are calming fragrance and often used in therapy to keep people calm and level headed.

2. Prune or trim over grown trees and shrubs. Remove the dead and damaged branches and then trim to provide shape.

3. Remove last year's annuals, other dead plants and trash. This is one quick fix that provides the most change. Even the garden needs the trash to be taken out.

4. Create a wildflower garden or mini meadow. Large areas planted with naturalized plants are a relief. No mowing to be done here!

5. Mulch to provide nutrients for plants, cover bald garden areas and to add fresh scent.

6. Add fencing sections (available at most hardware stores) for visual separation and privacy. Use sections only where they will be most effective. A few will go a long way and don't forget to provide some plants around them so they don't look like they fell from the sky.

7. Clean or wash patio furniture. Sitting areas should be clean.

8. Install a water feature such as a small fountain to help to mask noises outside the garden. And, don't forget to add some still water for visiting birds. Get creative - birds love large shallow bowls.

9. Add path lighting - excellent solar lighting is now available. So...no more cables to trip over!

10. Plant a small butterfly garden. Invite the butterflies over...to stay. Providing plants for hosting and nectar will keep them home.

11. Add an arbor or trellis with climbing vines to add height to your garden. Fast climbing plants like clematis, virginia creeper, honeysuckle and climbing hydrangeas are great candidates.

12. Edge walkways, driveways and patios. Line and define these areas with lowing growers like the Bath's Pink Dianthus. 

13. Patch the lawn or go for a lawn-free landscape.

14. Add birdhouses - on posts, attach to fences or trees, place on tables.

15. Window boxes are not just for under windows any more. Use them between windows, on fences or walls. 

16. Plant long flowering perennials and ornamental grasses for the most color and to keep die back to a minimum. 

17. Plant for cut flowers. Plants like peonies, lavender, daylilies and roses are choice for indoor bouquets. 

18. Build a raised bed or two for vegetables and annual herbs. 

19. Fertilize lawn areas and plants (if you don't mulch) with balanced slow release formula fertilize.

20. Plant herbs and other fragrant shrubs and perennials near sitting areas and pathways to stimulate the olfactory system. Use plants like lavender, rosemary, viburnums, roses, peonies, pineapple sage, and mints (always contain in pots).