Archive for Lawn Care
6 Lawn Treatment Tips From The Experts
You’ve created the perfect lawn in your outdoor space. The soil is fertile, and the grass is ideal for your area. But to keep your lawn in peak condition, it needs regular care. The following are six lawn treatment tips recommended by landscaping experts.
- Mowing
What’s the perfect length for lawn grass? That depends on your preference. However, for easy maintenance, you should not allow the grass to grow more than 10 cm.
Experts recommend trimming only one-third of the grass’s length. Cutting the grass too short increases the chances of drying, weed infestation, and disease.
- Edging
A neat lawn has well-defined edges. Use a sharp pair of shears to stop grass from growing over your borders. Edging not only promotes neatness but also gives your lawn a satisfying finish.
If possible, install permanent edging – a border that grass cannot grow over or cross.
- Watering
Inadequate watering causes the grass to change color. Besides, well-watered grass has a spring; it doesn’t remain flat after walking on it.
How much and often you need to water your lawn is dependent on the weather. Remember, overwatering is just as bad as underwatering. Soggy soil discourages healthy growth of roots.
For best results, water your lawn early in the morning.
- Feeding
Want a greener, healthier lawn? Feed the grass.
Nitrogen is particularly essential for vibrant and green grass. A soil test will help you determine the amount of nitrogen your lawn needs. Other essential nutrients include phosphate and potash.
The typical lawn requires feeding twice a year. In the spring, apply a nitrogen-rich fertilizer. In fall, it is advisable to feed your grass with high levels of potash and phosphate.
Whichever lawn feed you choose, strictly follow the guidelines on the package.
- Weeding
Weeds prevent the healthy growth of grass. The best method of weeding is uprooting – pulling the weed together with the roots. You can weed manually or using a tool. But in cases of severe weed infestation, you might need to use a low-toxicity herbicide.
- Removing thatch
Thatch refers to the organic matter, made up of dead leaves, grass, and stems, that forms a layer above the soil. The buildup of thatch prevents water and other nutrients from penetrating the soil.
Methods of removing thatch include raking and scarification. You can find a good rake or scarifier at your local gardening store.
Keep your lawn lush, green, and healthy using the lawn treatment tips shared above.
Three Irrigation System Maintenance Tips To Grow Green Grass
It is always amazing to see your landscape thrive with green grass. However, the work that goes into ensuring that your landscape remains as healthy as you want it to be should never be ignored. Among the easily forgotten parts of landscaping is the maintenance of irrigation systems. Without enough care, a damaged irrigation system can result in your lawn getting excessively irrigated or failing to get enough water.
Here is how to maintain your irrigation system:
Perform Regular Checkups
You should inspect your irrigation system a couple of times each season. Ideally, the first check should be at the start of the season, with the next one somewhere in the middle. If possible, try checking the system each month. You should confirm that the controller is plugged in and functional, correct the date and time, ensure that the wires and connectors are still connected, and replace the backup batteries. Also, it might be ideal to turn on each individual green grass zone, checking for damage and leaks.
Flush The System Regularly
If left unattended, your irrigation system can become clogged. Clogging can arise from the accumulation of debris, as well as the use of contaminated water and regular wear and tear. Before the start of any season, flush your irrigation system to get rid of this accumulated debris.
This will allow water to flow smoothly through the pipes as well as the nozzles. Aside from flushing, take measures that increase the efficiency of the system’s filtration, install screens on every sprinkler head, and replace any clogged nozzles.
Take Care Of The Sprinkler Heads
Assuming that your irrigation system’s sprinkler heads are in splendid shape can be a mistake. Sprinkler heads go through wear and tear throughout their lifetime, which increases their chances of the sinking or the breaking of the heads.
Some of the key reasons behind wear and tear include damage from lawnmowers, improper installation, shifting of the soil, and regular wear and tear. For you to maintain them optimally, you should replace the missing or damaged heads before proceeding to water your lawn. It is better to install your irrigation system on swing pipes as there is a reduced chance of damage since they ‘float’ within the soil.
A damaged irrigation system might be the reason behind your grass having brown spots, or failing to grow healthily from being overwatered. Other than ensuring that you can enjoy green grass, maintaining your irrigation system also helps preserve water. For a better experience watering your lawn, consider purchasing smart irrigation systems. Contact us for more information.
Winter Gardening: How to Maintain a Healthy Garden during Winter
Winter can be a rough time for your garden. From heavy snow to frost forming on the soil, it might seem as if all odds are against your garden. The good thing is that growing a healthy garden during winter is easy as long as you know your way around during winter gardening. If you manage to keep your garden healthy throughout winter, the chances are that it will look even better when spring arrives.
Here are a few insights for caring for your garden throughout winter:
Water Wisely
You need to be careful with the time you water your garden during winter. If you water during the extra cold times of the day, the water might freeze, leading to frost damage. The best time to water your plants would be during the warm times of the day. Since plants tend to absorb water slower during the winter days, and the warmth helps ensure that it flows efficiently through the plant’s system.
Mulch Your Garden
Mulch can not only help to preserve the warmth of the soil but also keeping weeds away. By improving the warmth of the soil, you increase the pace at which water can be absorbed by the plants. It might be wise to use leaves to create mulch, especially after you let them rot since leaf mold discourages the development of weeds. Collect some fallen leaves and layer them over the soil.
Introduce Microclimates into Your Winter Gardening
During winter, you want your garden plants to receive sunlight, but not the cold. This is something that creating a microclimate can help you with. Ideally, this involves creating a greenhouse effect on a smaller scale, and using cold frames can be useful. This will require you to house your garden under a transparent material that will let in some sunlight, but it is hard enough to keep the cold temperature out. Of course, you can always keep these materials away during the hotter months.
Remove Unhealthy Plants
If left to reside alongside the rest of your plants, unhealthy plants can easily spread pests, fungi, and diseases to the rest of your garden. This is the last thing you want for your garden during winter. Get rid of the spent plants. As for any plant that is finished, but is disease-free, uproot it and bury it in your garden. Doing so will revolutionize your winter gardening by introducing organic matter to the soil and improving its general health.
Winter gardening requires a little bit more effort and attention to detail. Show your plants some love during this time, and you can expect them to blossom during the warmer months. Consider the winter gardening tips above to improve the health of your entire garden. Contact us for more gardening tips.
Inspiring Landscaping Ideas for your Front Yard
Every homeowner dreams of a lush and colorful garden in their front yard. While upgrading the front yard with striking landscaping ideas can boost the appeal of any home, it also needs a lot of inspiring ideas for skillful execution.
You can enhance the appeal by settling for the right edges, flowers, shrubs, and plants to complement the aesthetics of your home. Before beginning to design your front yard, create an inventory of the space available. Because there are numerous ideas, decide on the one that best suits your space.
1. Lighting
If you believe your home is a masterpiece, then your landscaping becomes the stage you want to proudly display in a luminous halo. Because every stage has its footlights, your front yard alike needs perfect illumination.
From scene stealing fixtures to subtle accent lighting and canopy to flood, you are sure to find the right option for every style. Inlaid lights for instance show off your landscaping ideas while antiquated lamp-style lighting direct your visitors to your front door after dark.
2. Accent Color Tree
An accent color tree can magically transform your yard by adding seasonal color, scale, shade, and overall structural interest. Choose a species that work for your climate, personal preference, and the design of your landscape.
Going for a small tree with bold colorsto offer your home strong visual appeal. A flowering cherry for example gives the best highlight during spring while a Japanese maple creates vibrant foliage color in autumn.
3. Urns
Classic urns go beyond holding flowers, cremated ashes, and wine, among others. Today, these curvaceous structures are used for many styles as decoration items especially in the front yard.
Large urns add carb appeal by popping color to the garden and serving as fountains. Whether you choose to fill them with plants or leave them empty, urns can be a powerful art element with endless textures, glazes, and forms.
4. Omit the Lawn
Even if you live in an evergreen environment, you can still omit the lawn to create a unique landscape. Avoiding a lawn means you will not spend too much time maintaining it. It means enjoying your outdoor living space in all seasons.
When planning your front yard landscaping, pay special attention to the entrance to ensure it is clear and inviting. Unique structures, plants, trellis to block the wind or rain can do the trick. Remember that every façade has a visual asset and liability. A properly and creatively done front yard goes to highlight the strong points and mask the unattractive ones. Take these landscaping ideas to give your home the highlight it deserves. Contact us for more information.
Shrubbery Like Boxwood, Lavender, and Camellia
Adding shrubbery to your home’s outdoor landscape is a wonderful way to frame your garden and border a winding path. One particularly popular way for doing both, or either, is with evergreen shrubs.
Benefits of Evergreen Shrubs
Evergreen shrubs are shrubs that can be a permanent fixture in your garden thanks to the fact that they will last all year.
In fact, evergreen shrubs like fatsia, lavender, and camellia can create beautiful flower displays and perfume-like scents throughout the year, even when everything else in your garden appears to have fallen dormant.
Evergreen shrubs will often be naturally variegated and create a colorful cascade of colors over your garden. Some shrubs are like trees and come with needled or broadleaf foliage.
Adding shrubs to your property will beautify the landscape all four seasons and provide a smooth transition between taller trees and the groundcover plants lining your walkway or garden.
Shrubs can be used for a number of different purposes beyond lining walkways and framing your garden as well.
Shrubbery can provide groundcover on slopes, buffer ambient noise from entering your home, and provide a breathtaking backdrop for your garden.
Boxwood Shrubs
One of the easiest-to-work-with types of evergreen shrub is boxwood shrubbery. Boxwood is hardy to zone 6, which essentially means that it will maintain its integrity no matter what nature throws at it.
Boxwood also fits most people’s initial idea of a shrub – boxwood has tiny, glossy foliage that can be hedged by Xeriscape’s landscaping experts into just about any desired shape.
Most homeowners like their boxwood shrubbery to be a few feet in diameter but, left to its own devices, boxwood can grow up to two dozen feet tall! This is a hardy shrub that will grow well in moderate sun and ligher shade.
Lavender
Lavender is a drought-tolerant plant that is a kissing cousin to mint, and each has a similar fragrance. Lavender, though, is a perennial shrub that has a lot of different size and color options to match your landscape.
There are actually four main types of lavender that homeowners in North America typically consider for their gardens: English lavender, Spanish lavender, Portuguese lavender, and lavandin.
English lavender owes its name to the English lavender trade of the 1700s and the fact that it smells so wonderful. English lavender can furnish homeowners with those variegated colors alluded to above: purples, violet, mauve, and mixtures of all three are afforded by English lavender.
Spanish lavender will come with pink and purple petals and have a unique pine scent. Portuguese lavender (a.k.a., Broadleafed lavender), on the other hand, will have paler purple leaves that are slightly larger.
Portuguese lavender can cross-pollinate with Engligh lavender, and both types are used in aromatherapy. The camphor in Portuguese lavender is good for attracting friendly insects into your garden and lending a sense of exotic variety and soothing color.
Lastly, lavandin might be a fancy name in this context since lavandin only means a cross between English lavender and Portuguese lavender. Lavandin produces sterile seeds but can grow in hot, arid climates and live through periods of sustained drought.
Camellia
Camellia is also a type of evergreen shrubbery, but the flowers of a blooming camellia are truly unique in certain species. There are more than 300 species of camellia, and approximately 3,000 hybrid species. Some camellia flowers are double.
Where does camellia work? Woodland gardens with dappled sunlight or gardens with slightly acidic soil are especially promising foundations for camellia.
Ask Xeriscape about the possibility of installing camellia shrubbery around your garden because the flowers come in a variety of beautifying colors: pinks, reds, yellows, and whites are common. Contact us for more information.
Discovering the Best Flower Bed Ideas for Your Home
Flower bed ideas are typically broken down one of two ways – by the color(s) that you’re going to be using and, secondly, by the kinds of materials you might use to bring your flower ideas to life (e.g., wheelbarrow flower beds).
Monochromatic Flower Beds
Monochromatic is a blend of two words – mono, which means one, and chromatic, which refers to color. Monochromatic flower beds are designed from blooms that are all the same color.
A monochromatic flower bed can add a splash of color to your outdoor landscape, and the thing to bear in mind is that, although everything will be one color, you can use various shades and textures to create a stunning effect.
Purples and yellows are very popular variations when it comes to monochromatic flower bed ideas.
With a purple monochromatic flower bed, you have a lot of beautiful flowers to choose from: lavender, sage, leather flower, hydrangea, and grape hyacinth. A walkway lined with lavender can be absolutely breathtaking.
A yellow color scheme is also a popular choice for monochromatic gardens. Yellow gardens let you blend in deep golden hues with paler flowers with an almost buttery accent.
The Denver Daisy – a.k.a., Black-eyed Susan – and marigolds are great for adding deeper shades of yellow to a backdrop of a more mellow flower like the annual nasturtium.
Keep in mind that blues, whites, and violet flowers will have a more calming effect in your garden whereas warmer colors like red and yellow can create instant excitment!
Dichromatic and Ombre Flower Bed Ideas
Dichromatic means two colors wheras ombre is a French word that means you’re going to be using a blend of colors that gradually blend in to each other.
If you only want to use two colors, with varying shades of each color, then you probably want to look into a dichromatic garden. You’ll also want to consider using contrasting yet complementery colors to create the most powerful aesthetic look.
If you’re feeling more adventurous, then an ombre flower bed might be the way to go. Ombre flower beds typically blend some of the cool hues and warm hues discussed above to gradually blend in flowers with a lighter hue with dark hues.
An ombre flower bed typically starts off with a walkway made of flowers of a cooler, softer hue so that the eye gradually gets more and more captivated with the darker tones at the back of the garden.
Wheelbarrow Flower Garden
Sometimes called wheelbarrow planters, a wheelbarrow flower garden can be made using a wheelbarrow that’s rusted-out, cracked, or has a broken wheel.
The wheelbarrow, though, should have holes in the bottom to allow excess water to drain out. The big benefit to a wheelbarrow flower garden is that you can move it to an area with more sunlight.
Walkway Flower Beds
As alluded to above, a walkway flower bed can be a wonderful segue into a captivating garden or a landscaping effect all its own.
Millions of homeowners have already beautified their homes with a walkway flower bed culminating with their front door.
Walkway flower beds actually touch on a difference with gardens in general – a walkway flower bed would be an example of a formal garden path with right angles and straight lines.
That said, a walkway flower bed could open up into an informal pathway kind of garden (the second type) where you would have a meandering or curved path. A crescent-moon type of garden in the front yard would be an example of this second type.
Which flower bed ideas appeal to you most? Contact us for more information.
Strategies for Getting Your Lawn Ready for Cooler Weather Ahead
Although the month of August is in what people call the dog days of summer, you have to realize that the first frost is right around the corner. The season’s first frost might well come at the end of August or early September.
When the first frost of the season hits, most of your annual plants will wilt and perennials will be sent into their dormant phase for the hardier winter months ahead.
While these effects can’t be avoided, there are a lot of steps that you can take to fortify your lawn for winter.
Keep Up Irrigation
Your lawn has a kind of wisdom all its own. In the fall, the grass will stop putting so much energy into growing new blades and put those resources into creating a resilient root system to survive the coolet months ahead.
The thing to realize is that you have the chance to significantly strengthen your grass’s root system by watering your lawn right now. Xeriscape is a landscaping and irrigation company that can give your yard the nourishment that it needs.
Your lawn will naturally grow less bounteously in the late summer and early fall. That said, your lawn will still benefit from giving it the three main ingredients that it needs to grow – nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorous. Xeriscape can help here as well.
Repair and Weed
There’s an expression that when you fail to prepare you actually prepare to fail. That might sound harsh but what’s undoubtedly true is that homeowners who have an eye towards the future usually have the best yards.
Think of late summer and early fall as your opportunity to create a lush landscape for spring next year. Xeriscape can help you fill in bald patches, or you could look into a grass repair kit that includes seed, fertilizer, and mulch.
After you’ve done the real heavy lifting by repairing bald spots, you might want to look into uprooting weeds so that everything can grow to its full potential.
The thing to bear in mind is that weeds can fortify themselves and regrow with renewed vigor in early spring next year if they’re not dealt with soon.
Rake Up Leaves
A lot of people are loathe to rake up their leaves because they have such a beautiful appearance in your yard.
That’s true – a defoliating maple tree, for instance, can be breathtaking….and, at the same time, be ruining your yard and actually jeopardizing your health!
Lawns have to breathe in the sense that leaves that are allowed to linger on your lawn will prevent sunlight and air from getting to your lawn, which will cause your grass to be less healthy than it otherwise would be had you raked right away.
Leaves also decompose very slowly so that, if you don’t rake leaves in the fall, you’ll have a layer of basically intact leaves over your yard all winter. Snow mold and brown patch are both serious possibilities if leaves are allowed to linger all winter.
Fungal infections and health problems could also crop up if you don’t rake away leaves. Xeriscape can help with all kinds of landscaping, including getting leaves off the property. Leaves that get matted now could prevent fresh grass from growing in the spring.
Use Leaves to Compost
All of those leaves that you’ll eventually rake up can be put towards composting in the spring. You might want to consider putting fallen leaves in a compost bin and allowing decomposition throughout the winter. Turn the compost over regularly to have consistent temperatures, or simply rely on Xeriscape for your lawn care needs! Contact us for more information.
Lawn Maintenance: The Importance of Lawn Treatments
If you love your lawn (which we are sure you do), then you know the importance of lawn care and that it goes beyond watering and mowing. Yes, these two are the foundation for a healthy lawn, but lawn maintenance is a complex science, involving feeding, aeration, and controlling insects and weeds.
Benefits of Lawn Treatment
Proper lawn care ensures that your lawn can withstand threats from lawn-damaging weeds and insects. It also ascertains that your flowers, grass, and shrubs can fight-off diseases. Furthermore, lawn care ensures your turf can survive unpredictable weather and guarantees your lawn is ever nutrient rich.
However, seeing as it is time-consuming and a difficult undertaking, we recommend you engage professionals. Here are five benefits of hiring experts.
- Expertise
You might be a proficient landscaper, but there is knowledge and services only professionals can provide. They understand the shrubs and trees better and know the different grass varieties. They can often tell what is ailing your greenery in an instant and prescribe the best treatment program. Moreover, seeing as they understand the local climate, and have years of experience, they will engage in preventive measures to ensure your lawn can ward off seasonal pests and diseases.
- Avoid Accidental Damage
64% of American believe that all grass should be fertilized during spring while another 57% believe a lawn is not healthy if it is not green. These are false believes that lead to damage by over-fertilizing and leading to a high accumulation of salts in the soil.
Lawn treatment services, on the other hand, avoid common mistakes know how to treat your plants.
- Cost Effective
It might sound counterintuitive, but engaging professionals is cost-effective. Think about it; you will have to invest in equipment such as mowers, aerators, and brush cutters, invest in chemicals, and fertilizers. Furthermore, given that there is a period of trial and error, there is a high likelihood that you will be paying to correct mistakes.
However, with professionals, you will not pay to correct mistakes, and you don’t have to invest in the equipment and chemicals.
- Property Value
If you are considering putting your house on the market, you can increase its value by proper lawn treatment. Lawn maintenance can increase the value of your property by up to 15%. Who wouldn’t like that?
Hiring lawn care experts is the only indisputable way to ensure that your lawn is always in pristine condition.
- Consistency
As a homeowner, there is a likelihood that work, plus maintaining your lawn can be overwhelming. It will be challenging to create let alone observe an effective lawn care routine.
However, lawn maintenance experts ensure that your greenery, is trimmed, fed, and watered consistently. They also handle far more, and the result is a healthy lawn, and one that you can enjoy.
Conclusion
Though it is a demanding task, lawn treatment is of utmost importance. It improves air quality while maintaining the aesthetics of your home. Engaging the services of a professional ensures that your lawn is ever impeccable, it saves you money, and keeps you from physical labor. You can contact us for all your lawn maintenance, repair, and landscape design needs.
Tips for Choosing Landscaping Shrubs
Shrubbery plays a great role of defining the visual space of your front yard and also guiding visitors to your doorstep. Since they come in variety in terms of color, shape, and size, the task is to pick shrubs that match your needs. The variety also gives you the freedom to ensure that your yard is as appealing as it can be. Consider the following tips when picking the right plants for your landscape.
Size of the shrubs
When it comes to choosing size, you need to be thorough. The secret here is to choose the ones that complement other trees and flowers in the landscape. Proximity to other plants is also a factor to consider. Their placement in the garden should be such that it is easy to care for them as well as other flowers and trees.
Where to plant and why
In most cases, the function of the bush determines where you should plant. As you may know, shrubs have different types of shrubs have different functionalities and hence you need to consider this before making a choice. For instance, long bushes are most suitable planted near the home as they will help control the climate during summer and winter. On the other hand, if you have a sloppy area that is susceptible to soil erosion, you should go for low growing plants. These will spread fast and within a few years you will have the slope completely covered.
Their closeness to other plants
Some bushes tend to grow tall and can shade other landscape plants from getting enough sunlight based on where they are planted. If you want them to be close to other plants, then you should consider planting the larger ones should fall on the northeast side. If you feel that the shrubs will interfere with the sun exposure to other plants, then the smaller ones are most suitable.
Color choice
Shrubs come in different colors and there is a color for each season. Since adding color to your landscape is one of the major reasons for having a shrubbery, you need to be keen when choosing the right colors. There are a variety of green shades to choose from, which help add interest to your landscape. The flowers is also another factor to consider when it comes to choosing the right bushes. Some common colors available include white, red, and blue. You can plant each color in between. There are also some plants that produce colorful berries which is a plus since they can feed birds in your garden.
Growing conditions
It is always wise to think about suitable climatic conditions for a particular plant before planting it. If you are in the south or southeast where the climate is a bit hot, you need to go for drought resistant shrubs. If you are in the north or northeast, consider cold resistant bushes. Another factor to consider in this category is the salinity. If you live near the beach where salt level are a bit high, choose plants that can withstand the condition.
When choosing shrubs for your landscape, always make sure you choose the ones that complements you yard in terms of color and size. The period the plant will last in your yard should also influence your choice. Contact us for more information.
Determining the Right Time to Mulch
DLaying mulch not only improves the appearance of your landscape but it also has several other benefits. It minimizes weed growth and helps moisture retention, hence making your plants stay strong and healthy. It also acts as a good insulator thus regulating temperatures depending on the season. You can also curb soil erosion and plant damage during mowing through mulching. As mulching material decay, it adds nutrients to the soil.
Right mulching time
Knowing the right time to mulch will help you enjoy all the benefits that comes with the exercise. Many people have the tendency of mulching as soon as the spring sets since it’s one way to improve the appearance of the landscape. However, mulching as soon as the warm season starts is not advisable. You need to give the soil some time to acquire warmth, hence making mid-to late spring the right mulching time. If you had laid winter mulch, pull it off gradually to help the plants adapt to the warmth. Pulling it all at one can subject the plants to late-season cold.
How much mulch should you lay?
It is advisable you start by laying a thin layer of mulching material so as to give your seedlings the space to grow. As the plants get established, you can increase mulching material accordingly. You should put more mulch during summer to help retain soil moisture and provide insulation from cold during winter.
Determining the right amount of mulching material can be tricky. This is because you don’t want to lay too little material that you leave the plants exposed or too much that it kills the plants. You can determine the right amount depending on the type of mulching material you want to use. If you are using a fine material, then 1 to 2 inch layer should be fine, when 3 to 4 inch should be fine when laying coarse material. If your intentions are to prevent anything from growing in an area, then you can lay as much material as you want.
Laying too much mulching material results in the plant roots growing with the material hence a shallow rooting system. This makes your plants susceptible to damage by drought and cold weather. You can avoid this by putting a moderate layer depending on the type of your crops. When mulching an area with trees, you need to leave a space between the tree trunks and stem so as to prevent them from rotting. Leaving space also ensures that pests such as slugs and mice don’t get a habitat or destroy your plants.
When putting mulch, you need to put in consideration the style of the area. For instance, if it is the pathway, a windy area, or a slope hence susceptible to erosion, you should put heavy mulching materials. The size of the mulching material should also help you determine the depth of the layer. If you are using big chunks, then the layer should be deep, but if you are using small material, then the layer should be shallow. Contact us for more information.
