|
||
When it comes to keeping your lawn and landscaping in peak condition, the odds are that you find yourself using a lot of water. Watering your yard can be an expensive proposition both in terms of the environment and your wallet, and most people do not realize that they could save a lot of time, hassle, and water by following some basic watering tips.
In terms of watering equipment, there are a variety of methods to employ when it comes to your yard. If you have the money, you might want to opt for an automatic sprinkling system that operates on a timer. These are expensive and they can also be complicated to figure out, especially for a large yard which will require a lot of hoses. Keep in mind that underground sprinklers have been known to erode ground and in some areas they may be banned by city ordinance because of the hazard of creating sinkholes.
There are also a lot of choices when it comes to manual sprinklers. The three most popular models are the traditional back-and-forth sprinkler, the rotating sprinkler, and rotor heads. Each of these models comes with its advantages and disadvantages. Back-and-forth models are great for coverage, but they can also be very hard to adjust. Rotating sprinklers are easier to adjust than the back-and-forth models, but they are usually pretty flimsy. They also don't provide for the coverage of a large area due to their proximity to the ground. Rotor heads ensure the maximum coverage of an area due to their reset cycle, but they too can be difficult to adjust and usually will not adequately water the area around their base.
Drip lines are ideal for watering your landscaping ground plants. Excessive sprinkling can actually damage your plants by having the water fall on leaves instead of the ground, which might result in some decay or mold. Drip lines eliminate this problem by applying the water directly to the ground underneath of the plants, where it will soak in to the roots.
Various hose attachments are also useful in watering your lawn in the most efficient way possible. The best attachments are spray heads with various settings, such as the stream or mist settings. These setting will come in extra handy at the beginning of the season when new plants are too tender to be directly sprayed and need the gentle application of the mist.
Hoses can be a huge source of water wastage when it comes to watering your lawn. Make sure that the threads on your hose attach well to the tap, in order to eliminate leaks. Hoses should be properly stored over the winter by draining them thoroughly to prevent any water accumulation from freezing and causing minute or large cracks in the plastic, and the hoses coiled and hung up when stored.
Finally, don't overdo your watering. There is really no point in watering during the day, especially on really hot days. Most of the water will end up evaporating instead of being soaked into the ground. Wait until the evening, when the temperature begins to cool. Dusk and dark are ideal times to water and will ensure that the ground soaks up the more water than is evaporated. Remember that you do not have to leave your sprinkler on one are for very long; fifteen minutes is usually more than sufficient for lawns, and landscaped areas will probably require even less.
Professional landscape maintenance is the systematic growth management of the organic synergy of your property. All vegetation ultimately works together to both the foundation for and keynote elements of every traditional-style landscape. What you pay good money to install continues to develop after the landscape designer leaves, and it needs professional landscaping maintenance to grow in a healthy and aesthetically pleasing direction. If maintained professionally, vegetation on all levels will literally evolve the landscape before your very eyes. If shortcuts are taken with DIY maintenance attempts, or if vegetation care is turned over to amateurs, the landscape will lose its value.
Understanding what professional landscape maintenance truly entails will help you better make an informed decision about what to invest in, and in whom to invest your money.
Gardens
Expensive gardens require professional landscape maintenance that will ensure their continued vitality and intended aesthetic function. All share a common need for the basics of plant maintenance that include the essentials of trimming, fertilizer, and water. While these may appear at face value to be very simple tasks, they can become very complicated in direct proportion to the style of the garden and the type of plants that are growing in it.
This is due to the fact that specialty gardens may feature unusual plant species that cannot be maintained with generic methods. One species may benefit from a certain cultivation or fertilization technique, while a species growing right next to it can wither and die from the very same treatment. Investing in a professional landscaping maintenance agreement that retains the original landscaper as the “gardener on call,” so to speak, ensures that your investment in that special French garden, Italian landscape, or Renaissance-style knot garden will continue to beautify your yard beyond the first few seasons of its planting.
Parterre gardens,
Parterre gardens rely on shrubbery for border and basic form. This shrubbery has to be trimmed from the perspective of the big picture of the garden and not just the individual plant. Additionally, the gravel foundation of parterre gardens functions as a drainage system for the plant life it surrounds. This gravel has to be turned over periodically to prevent standing water from forming that can damage the plant life in the garden. Professional landscaping maintenance agreements help ensure that both the aesthetic and functional elements of the parterre garden remain true to form and viable in expression throughout the year.
Knot Gardens
Knot gardens go hand in hand with a passion for flowers and a love for herbs. The first knot gardens, in fact, were fragrant herb gardens carefully planted to mimic Elizabethan embroidery designs and pre-Roman Celtic symbols. As such, this type of garden has always relied on a blend of very diverse plant material arranged to encourage the intention of intertwining different species into a new synthesis of organic expression. Maintaining such a blend of vegetation without knowledge of each interdependent species is virtually impossible from the perspective of generic yard services. Professional landscaping maintenance is an absolute must for preserving the vitality and ensuring the continued growth of a classic knot garden or any of its many modern derivatives.
Turning amateurs lose on your trees is the equivalent of evolving your landscape in reverse. A big tree looks virtually indestructible when you stand underneath it. It is easy to assume that pruning the tree, landscaping around it, and lighting it is a simple task that anyone with a ladder, a pair of gloves, and a few basic tools can do.
This is a great way to kill a tree by cutting off too many limbs or severing a vital root. Damage to bark, as insignificant as it may seem, leaves the tree vulnerable to parasites and bacteria that can kill it with infestation and disease. Never trust people who mow lawns to sculpt the pillars of your landscape. Such people may assist in tree removal after a hurricane blows one down, but asking them to maintain the vitality of a tree often takes the tree down before the hurricane has a chance to arrive.
Instead, hire a professional landscaper for any and all tree maintenance, including installation of any garden or flower bed around the base and root system of the trunk. Never try to install tree lights yourself or let a freelance “tree lighting contractor” around your favorite oak. Let a professional landscaping maintenance contractor find you an outdoor lighting design company who will safely light the tree without damaging it.
Shrubbery
Maintaining shrubbery involves more than trimming the top of shrubs. Many shrubs are sculpted to resemble other forms and need an artistic touch beyond simple pruning. As resilient as the shrubbery itself may be to amateur attempts at maintaining it, its form and function as a design element can be significantly damaged to the point it no longer works with the landscape. Professional landscapers should always be brought in to handle any trimming that needs to be performed to maintain the appearance of garden or perimeter shrubbery. They should also be called anytime there is an anticipated hard freeze during the winter or a particularly violent windstorm brewing on the horizon. Professionals can cover your bushes and shrubs to protect them from severe elements and give them a better chance at surviving harsh weather in a form that continues to work with your landscape.
Written Agreements
Professional maintenance can be obtained from a reputable, established landscaping company anytime you recognize a need for it. However, pay as you go services can quickly add up to considerable costs if you think only of short term investment and immediate gain. Exterior Worlds is always willing to work with any client to establish a written landscaping maintenance agreement that allows the homeowner to invest in ongoing services at a reasonable price with expected intervals of service and consistently satisfactory outcomes.