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Avoid spending too much on landscaping for your backyard. Keep it simple and easy to maintain.

SUMMER UPDATE #1: THE BACKYARD

The return on your investment (ROI): Surprisingly, not so good.

Why not so good: It's not that you want to have crab grass or that part of the backyard should look like an area where lawn mowers and cars go to die. That's obviously going to scare buyers away and could lower the price.

But as Brendan DeSimone, a Realtor in the San Francisco area, observes, "Landscaping is variable and not utilitarian like a deck or kitchen or living room."

In other words, yes, flowers are pretty, but any buyer with a brown thumb knows that a few months under their care and that breathtaking garden you spent hundreds or thousands of dollars maintaining may wind up being worth about 30 cents.

What you should focus on with your landscaping: Concentrate on "keeping up with the Joneses, not beating them," suggests Sam Lai, a prominent Seattle real estate appraiser. "In beating them, you'd win bragging rights, but you'd lose money."

That said, Lai does favor spending a small fortune on your landscaping if it's important to you and your quality of life -- just not if you're looking to make the money back.

NEXT: SUMMER UPDATES #2 and #3: Life in the Great Outdoors >>