Having a well-designed landscape requires a small amount of investment. If you want an outdoor space that complements your home’s architecture and style, where everything has a purpose and nothing looks out of place, you have to hire professionals to handle the design and implementation work.
Once your property is landscaped, the last thing you want to happen is for it to lose its appeal and let it fall into ruin. Maintaining your professionally landscaped outdoor space, therefore, is crucial in protecting your investment and keeping a beautiful home inside and out.
Maintaining Your Landscape
Providers of landscaping services in Potomac, Maryland say that you can maintain and improve the look and condition of your outdoor space by avoiding some common mistakes in the ways you look after it.
Below are the five common landscape maintenance mistakes you have to avoid if you want to keep an eye-appealing and lush outdoor space all the time:
Not cutting the grass properly.
With grass making up a large part of your landscape, you can’t afford to be lax with maintaining them. Moreover, you have to know how to take care of them correctly.
One particular mistake that you have to avoid when maintaining your turf is scalping it. When you cut the blades too low, you expose the grass stem, which is brown. As a result, your landscape will feature areas (or all of it) with a brown hue instead of green, making the lawn look unhealthy and unappealing.
Additionally, when you scalp the grass, you make it hard for them to survive and thrive. This is because without the blades, they won’t be able to absorb energy from the sun and start the process of photosynthesis. This, in turn, will prevent them from getting and storing energy, which they need for future growth.
To maintain a green lawn, cut only a third of the grass blades whenever you mow. Also, make sure your mower blades are always sharp since dull ones can rip the leaves off, making the turf susceptible to diseases.
Failing to prune and trim your shrubs correctly.
Whether you use bushes as privacy hedges, backdrops, or foundation plantings, you want to see them look vibrant and colorful once or twice a year. You won’t be able to witness this when you prune and trim them at the wrong time.
To have shrubs that boost your landscape’s appeal even temporarily, do this gardening chore at the right time. Bushes that bloom in the spring, such as forsythia, are best pruned after they bloom.
If you have bushes that bloom in the summer, prune them in early spring. These plants need new wood for the buds to grow. Examples of these shrubs include beautyberry and bluebeard.
Another mistake you might make in maintaining your shrubs is not trimming them regularly.
When you don’t trim your bushes routinely, you let them grow out of control. As a result, they won’t maintain their shape and look untidy, which won’t do anything good for your landscape.
To avoid having difficulties with your shrubs, trim them on a regular basis. And while doing this, check for weeds and other plants growing inside or near the bushes. If you don’t remove them, they may end up damaging the root system as they start to develop.
Overwatering.
All plants need water to grow, stay healthy, and look amazing. However, they do not need to be overhydrated.
Overwatered plants are more prone to diseases and can die easily. As such, even if you are free to water them twice or thrice a week, avoid doing so unless during the extremely dry times of the year.
The best practice for hydrating your plants is to water them deeply once or twice a week. Doing so allows the roots to get more moisture and develop better. This, in turn, helps them healthy and green even during long droughts.
If you have a sprinkler and want to be sure your plants are getting the right amount of water, after it has stopped watering, dig a spade into the soil and remove a wedge to see how far underneath the ground is moistened. If it has reached four to six inches, your lawn is being hydrated properly.
Take note of how long the soil can retain moisture and create a watering schedule that ensures your plants are hydrated sufficiently.
Improper use of mulch.
Mulch helps the soil retain moisture and control the temperature. It is also often used in landscaping since it provides color and texture to the lawn.
However, applying mulch incorrectly can cause more problems than benefits to your landscape. As such, you have to avoid some common mistakes in using them.
One of these top mistakes is piling on too mulch around plants that you end up creating mulch volcanoes. When you do, you end up depriving the roots of oxygen and water, which can cause them to die.
A good rule of thumb to remember when applying mulch is to spread it out in a two to three inches thick layer evenly.
Also, avoid mulching too early in the season. This bad practice prevents the natural cooling and heating processes of the soil, which will be detrimental to the plants.
If you want to ensure your landscape and all its natural elements are getting the most benefits from mulch, consider hiring a professional provider of lawn treatments in Bethesda, Maryland to handle the application.
Adding more plants the wrong way.
Lastly, maintaining and enhancing your landscape also means growing more plants, whether they are the same varieties you already have or new ones.
If you want to cultivate a new variety, resist the temptation to buy one without reading anything about it, even only the biggest size it can reach. If you don’t, you may end up growing a plant that will outgrow its space and cause you headaches and extra work.
Moreover, you may be putting in plenty of effort growing a plant that may not even grow in your area or soil conditions.
To avoid this problem, research the plant you want to add to your landscape. Know which condition it best grows in. Also, find out if its mature size matches the area where you want to grow it.
Also, if you want to grow more plants, avoid sticking only with evergreens. When you do, you will give your landscape a monochromatic look that will look plain and boring.
To mix things up in your landscape and make it more eye-catching, add different perennials that bloom in various seasons to have colorful features in your lawn all year round.
When you make avoiding these mistakes your priority, your landscape will continue to be a valuable asset of your property. You will have fewer headaches in maintaining it as well.
