3 Uses for Leaf Blowers

3 Uses for Leaf Blowers

Leaves

Of course, the most obvious use for leaf blowers is to corral fallen leaves into a pile. Whether the homeowner cleans them up every few days or waits until they are almost finished to put them in a pile is a matter of personal preference. It also depends on how many and what kind of trees are on the property. When leaves are ankle deep or higher, it is time to break out the leaf blower and put them into a section of the yard or a pile. Some municipalities will go through neighborhoods with a machine that sucks them up from curbside. Others leave it up to the homeowner on how to dispose of them. While autumn is the most prolific time of year for leaves to land in the yard, it is not the only time. Some types of trees, like river birches for example, lose their leaves year-round and cause a constant need to blow them away.

Grass Clippings

Weekly lawn maintenance requires mowing, trimming, edging and blowing. As professional landscaping companies have known for years, the yard looks better when all of the grass clippings, hedge trimmings and errant pine cones do not litter the front walk and driveway. Using a leaf blower to clean up the walkways and fence lines gives property a neat, clean and professional appearance. It also keeps the lawn healthy and prevents the debris from blocking sunlight on the grass.

Air Ball

All work and no play makes the outdoors more boring. For a little bit of extra fun when the yard work is done, grab a few neighbors, pull out the leaf blowers and play a game of air ball. Wad up a sheet of newspaper or even use an errant paper cup as a ball. Establish teams, boundaries and goals. Feel free to improvise, using lawn chairs, empty flower pots and bushes as goal posts. Use the leaf blowers to corral the ball between the goal posts, scoring a point for each goal. This is especially fun for landscaping crews, where everyone has a blower and all have skill.…

Backyard Landscaping Designs

Backyard Landscaping Designs

Mainly designed for entertainment purposes and for extended living areas, backyard landscaping designs can be as detailed as needed to gain the look desired. Taking time to draw out a design is important. This design should include plans for existing trees and shrubberies, retaining walls, fences and backyard structures. Backyard landscaping designs need to be well thought out and planned. Use and function of the layout should be the first designing step. Privacy issues with neighbors, pet issues, and stray animals need to be addressed when planning the landscape design. Play areas and entertainment areas need to be well planned for.

An ugly fence or chain linked fence can be covered up by a tree line or shrubbery line that will bank against it properly. Use this period of designing to think about planting for noise and privacy reasons. Most landscaping designs flow freely with no set structuring other than being pleasing to the eyes of the beholder. Existing patio areas and pools should be carefully designed around to keep entertainment value high. Crowding plants around in haphazard ways is not an option when it comes to seating arrangements. Boxy seating areas are not as pleasing to the eye as those that curve and curl around a seating area on two sides or more. Every corner should be taken into consideration by the height of plants needed for privacy. Proper walking paths can be scattered with pea gravel or set with occasional stepping stones winding through the landscaping design. Pavers are also ideal path material and can be used, as to avoid having to edge the landscaped area with edging material.

Often, a plant or shrub can be safely moved to be incorporated into the design. Large trees may take more planning. Talking with a local nursery about moving larger planted trees, like fruit trees, is recommended. Planning the move for existing plants should be done when they are in their dormant state to avoid any potential re-rooting problems. The design stage should also include a nearby water source for landscape watering, or a water irrigation design should be added. It is recommended that all waterlines, underground cable lines, electric line, phone lines and gas lines be well marked beforehand. Calling the local utility and power company is a good idea before ever digging up a yard.

Once the backyard landscaping designs are drawn and finished, plants, trees, water structures and pavers or stepping stones need to be bought. Plants, trees and shrubbery should be chosen for their beauty as well as their hardiness. Make sure the plants that are bought for the landscaping project are properly zoned for the area. A local nursery or landscaping magazine will have this information. Native plants should be used, not only for the existing wildlife species, but because invasive species tend to become aggressive and quickly take over the design, often killing off native species.

Water fountains and backyard water ponds lend artistic and architectural value to backyard landscaping designs. Plants that are known water species or tolerate wet soil conditions should be easy to find and establish in and around these water features. If fish are added to the water pond, a good investment would be a pond mesh covering to keep birds from fishing in the pond. Additional features to add around ponds and fountains are beautiful riverbed rocks and small landscaping boulders. Lights that light these features up at night can add even more interest to the landscape. Solar light kits are the most popular and most cost-effective to use.…

Sustainable Landscaping

Sustainable Landscaping

It would seem like an obvious first step for the sustainability movement, wouldn’t all landscaping companies want to show their green thumb and apply practices that protect the plants and lawns they work so hard to manicure and create? While you might think so it is actually an industry that is riddled with opportunities to apply green technology and sustainable practices, yet with fewer companies than expected jumping on board.

Perhaps it is the history of landscaping which is anchored by a strong need for gas powered engines to run everything from leaf blowers to lawn mowers. Perhaps it is the need to quickly and effectively work through a high quantity of jobs to maintain a consistent profit margin and stay in business. Or perhaps it is simply old habits keeping the adoption of newer practices from obtaining mainstream use… It is a new topic for many groundskeepers, landscapers and small business owners and many might be hesitant to adopt new practices and buy sometimes expensive equipment, not sure if it will work with the same efficiency expected.

Even simple and inexpensive practices such as planting native plants over imported or utilizing proper tree location to shade and allow heat to a house during the summer and winter months, though common knowledge to most, is not even always applied. One of the keys is simply the economics of the landscaping business, it is one in which high volume and low profit margins, thus quantity will win over quality more often than not. Now this is not to say that landscaping companies do not do good work or do not care about quality, they certainly do to still be in business. What it means is that with small profit margins per job they are forced to make cost saving decisions in order to profit on the job and give the client what they desire, which is a green lawn that the neighbors will be jealous of.

One of the largest areas for growth in the green and sustainable landscaping business will be pairing up with home energy auditors and providing an all-in-one service that incorporates the total home energy picture as whole and not just as many separate parts. As the energy auditor notices that one side of the house is heating up far more during certain winter months than the other side due to the trajectory of the sun in the sky, a landscaping specialist can be recommending tree types and planting locations that will maximize the amount of energy that nature already provides the homeowner.

This can go as far as to think of the house and yard as one and not as two separate entities as is commonly thought among appraisers. If the energy systems of the house are optimized to work best with the landscape of the yard around it we move one step closer to sustainability as we find a better balance with nature.

This is just one way in which sustainability and advances in green technology could be applied along the best basic of levels to obtain a meaningful and lasting impact on our world, one household at a time.…

Why You Need Concrete Landscaping And Stone Walls

Why You Need Concrete Landscaping And Stone Walls

When you hear the phrase concrete you might not believe that it would be something you desire in your garden but as a matter of fact, concrete landscaping has come along way in the last decade or so. Today concrete landscaping is all the rage and it is really pretty as well.

Stone walls are a favourable type of concrete landscaping that’s actually caught on like wildfire. The walls are what will border your whole garden. They can be built to a very high standard and steel railings could be used on top to add more beauty. There are several additional reasons why you should have concrete landscaping such as walls as well. These walls are ideal for preventing your pet from leaving your garden. If your dog is prone to head for the hills then check out these sort of landscaping. These walls are in addition to really good for keeping out intruders. The more difficult your house is to enter the less likely burglars will beA� bothering you. So check up on these type of landscaping and speak to a professional person about them.

Also you will be able to use concrete to hold your soil in place. If there is a region of your backyard that your are inclined to slipping on then you’ll be able to build a retention wall explicitly for this purpose. The greatest thing about concrete is that whilst it may be functional you are able to make it appear as though it is there just for looks. There is indeed very much that you’ll be able to do with concrete because it is easy to work with. You may use concrete landscaping bricks or you can employ concrete slabs or custom made concrete stones.…

The Basics of a Healthy Yard and a Healthy Mind

The Basics of a Healthy Yard and a Healthy Mind

Not everyone knows the importance of a well landscaped yard. Good landscaping, plays a bigger role in your mental health. It also helps to facilitate social networking in our neighborhoods. Your home is something to be proud of. When you come home to a beautiful yard, the mind gets uplifted and your happiness increases. Your neighbors will see your yard more than they will see you. This makes your yard an important part of your social image. With a well landscaped yard people will respect you more and have a higher opinion of you. Landscaping the yard gives you reason to be outside. In this time neighbors will talk to you and friendships can be formed.

With all the benefits of a well landscaped yard you many be thinking, “How do I achieve such a yard?” Here are some tips to make this reality.

The first step is to start with a good base. It is important to have rich top soil. This is one of the hardest steps. Rich soil is hard to buy. If you have rich soil to start with you are lucky. Good soil takes time but is worth it in the long run. Focus on key areas first, like the flower beds. Mixing compost into the soil gives the best results. For the lawn, have your local landscaper lime and fertilize once a year. It’s also important to plant with good ground-cover that will not remove nutrients from the soil. Although your plant will still grow in poor soil, it will take much longer for it to thrive and become established. However, good top soil will also help weeds, which will mean you’ll have to control the weeds.

The second tip is to keep weeds under control. It will be worth it because your plant will ultimately grow faster and stronger, thus eliminating the bare areas where weeds grow. Weeds that are left to grow will destroy your grass and make your flower beds look mess and wild. Lawn weeds are unsightly and spread to your neighbors lawn. Your neighbors will quickly lose respect for you, if you create more work for them. If your weeds get out of control, landscapers only have to options. Remove the old lawn and reseed or spend hours removing weeds manually. All this trouble can be avoided by taking a little time each week and remove weeds the show up.

The most important tip is to have a landscaper you can trust. Having someone to help with the big landscaping projects can take your yard to the next level of perfection.…

Great Ideas For Gorgeous Landscaping

Great Ideas For Gorgeous Landscaping

A wonderful landscape will leave all of the homeowner’s neighbors jealous of the rich scenery. In order to make the outward appearance of a home more pleasant, there are a handful of steps someone can take.

When a person first begins living in a new home, oftentimes there is already some basic yard work completed. While the design may not be exactly what the resident has in mind, some of it may be able to be used in his or her design. Usually, some of a previous landscape has the ability to be used as a basis of the new owner’s layout. Because of this, leaving the previous shrubbery in the initial stages may save money in the long run.

For yards with a substantial amount of space, it is a good idea to divide the planting into several different components. The average gardener may feel incredible overcome with the grand amount of area. Taking a project, no matter how large or small, into smaller sections will make the entire undertaking a lot less stressful. Also, larger yards will require more plants, thus taking everything one section at a time will be easier on a budget.

The time of the year in which every plant will bloom is more important than one might think. If Section A has plants which all bloom during fall, and Section B has plants which only bloom in the spring, then the entire yard will be constantly off balance. Providing seasonal continuity throughout the yard will make it much more beautiful.

Hard, stone or concrete foundations, such as walkways and rocks, must always be protected from roots. If these begin to plague surfaces, your garden will quickly become overran. In order to avoid this from happening, keep all trees at far intervals from such places.

Many gardens have an abundance of accessories such as bricks and stones. While these are typically expensive at the store, many demolition sites are overflowing with such things. Oftentimes, the site owners will give these to gardeners without charge.

If the homeowner has enough time on his or her hands, then he or she can do the gardening instead of hiring a landscaper. When working with professionals, everything, including the herbs, are much more expensive. Doing the gardening alone saves money.

The ability to be creative is essential to gorgeous landscaping. A beautiful product can only occur when the planter allows his or her personality to shimmer through the entire estate. With the time a gardener spends in the heat sowing the seeds, a piece of them is left behind which glistens throughout the yard.…

9 Tips You Must Know Before You Start Your Garden Landscaping Project

9 Tips You Must Know Before You Start Your Garden Landscaping Project

Nowadays, everyone wishes to spend his/her precious time with the beauty of nature. For this, most of the individuals love to have garden in their home. Landscaping and gardening are the two key points which must be considered in mind, if you are thinking to enjoy and entertain yourself with the loveliness of nature’s beauty. The attractiveness of garden can be easily enhanced with the help of landscaping.

Garden landscape design is dependent upon the type of garden you are seeking to create taking into account the person for whom it is required and the effect they seek to portray. There are several tips which must be considered before starting landscaping and gardening. The 9 tips to design a beautiful landscape are as follows:

1.Firstly clean the backyard by mowing the long grass, and then add chemicals or pesticides so as to keep it free from harmful bacteria’s and germs.

2.Grease in the cemented area of garden must be removed; it can be done with the help Lestoil or tri sodium phosphate.

3.The wooden deck in garden must also be cleaned with the help of detergent same as done with cemented area.

4. Planning

One of the most important points of garden landscape design is the planning process. Nothing is more frustrating than embarking upon a project without enough thought or deliberation, when realization creeps in that the desired effect has been overlooked.

5. Originality

Originality is shown by copying ideas from others that can be modified to produce a more personal effect. To duplicate the complete design of a neighbor’s garden shows lack of thought and consideration.

6. Spontaneity

Whereas the theme of your garden should have some form of ord er, arranging flowers or shrubs regimentally does not provide an overall serene effect. This is why spontaneity to some extent is required.

7. Color

Color, not only displayed in plants and shrubs, can also be prominent in accompanying features. For instance, dark stained railway sleepers as steps, terracotta pots strategically placed, stained rustic arches and even colored patio slabs can all enhance the overall effect of what you are attempting to achieve.

8. Balance

An element of balance is necessary, to experience the right feel and theme to be illustrated and in doing so, obtains an element of peace and tranquility enabling the daily rigors of life to be overcome. Similarly, there is no better feeling than being close to nature in the environment that has been designed and created by you.

9. Privacy

Although some people may not mind being overlooked, for the majority, privacy is of the utmost importance and is usually one of the most essential features of garden landscape design.…

Outdoor Garden Statues – Yard Decoration 101

Outdoor Garden Statues – Yard Decoration 101

A beautiful garden in the backyard adds so much enjoyment to a home life. You can relax walking leisurely on a soft path, smell the gentle and heady fragrances of various herbs and flowers, see a thousand different shades of green colors of the leaves, or hear the tranquil sound of a water fountain, or watch various birds flying in and out of a birdhouse or around a bird feeder. And of course you can decorate it with outdoor garden statues, which bring art form into a peaceful nature setting.

Statue Themes

Big hardware stores sell outdoor statues in the garden department. The selections may be limited. But they will give you ideas. For example, frog statues blend well in most situations so it’s easy to find a place for them in the garden. Boy or girl statues are popular also. Putting them near a bench will look like the garden has some constant visitors. Gnome statues attract the attention of children endlessly and will add a fairy-tale atmosphere to the garden for them. That is, if the garden is landscaped to have some hidden area like the maze, then it could be an amazing playground for them.

Adding statuary into a garden is an art project, like decorating a room or a house. At first it can be anything that looks interesting. Even a piece of rock can be a statue. You can select a rock that have unusual shape or colors, or just pile several pieces of ordinary rock together to form a pyramid. But it’s hard to make a rock statue look good. In Japan a rock garden is a form of spiritual discipline meant for concentration and reflection.

Start with a few simple and inexpensive outdoor statues and experiment with them. Put them here and there in the garden. Rearrange them. Maybe add a wind chime. Pretty soon you will have a garden with style!…

Want To Increase The Value Of Your Home? Implement A Good Landscape Design

Want To Increase The Value Of Your Home? Implement A Good Landscape Design

It is said that a greatly executed landscape design adds up to around 20% more value to one’s home. That is why a lot of people nowadays are looking into this to maximize the valuation of their home especially when they are thinking of selling it. However, as a homeowner, you should also be discerning when it comes to hiring a landscape design firm who will do the beautification job for you. Because you can never be too sure for some firms are out just to make money for themselves and not really concerned about the welfare of their clients and their homes.

In order to make sure that your landscape contractor is a legitimate one, check with the your local county to see if they have the necessary permits to operate a business in your area. If their papers are in order, then rest assured that you are dealing with a good one. The next thing you can do is to get feedback from their previous clients regarding the quality of their work. You can also research in online forums wherein people freely discuss the merits and demerits of these kinds of services. Also, make sure that you meet with the contractor personally so that you will be able to assess for yourself if this is indeed the kind of firm that you want to work with.

Getting the right contractor to do your landscape design and overhaul of your garden is important so that you will be able to fully maximize the profits given the additional value it imparts to your home when the project is completed. First of all, the items that they use in your yard should be of high quality standards that will last a long time. In the case of installing a sprinkler system, you may end up paying more for what you paid for because of the amount of water that it wastes. Your contractor should be able to get the right balance of the amount of water to put out so as not to lose it to evaporation because of over spraying. It might be best to check first the water plan your contractor plans to put into place in your garden for there are other methods of distributing water all throughout the entire area like the drip method. Those methods may be more economical for you in the long run.

Another pro point with signing up with the right contractor is that they will know which kind of plants to use given the present conditions of your area including the soil and the temperature and the amount of sunshine the place gets. These professionals don’t just place plants just because they look pretty especially when the blooms are in season. They would know how to utilize each kind of plant that will not just beautify your surroundings but also serve a purpose like repelling insects and other animals. This is important especially when you live in an area where your yard tends to become the playground of wild animals. Also you would be able to save on costs, as they would not be placing expensive plants that they know would not survive in environment that your place has.

These are just some pointers of how to go about in choosing the right landscape design contractor. Remember that getting the right one to work with you on this project will mean more savings and bigger profit. Visit the right industry website to point you to the right direction.…

Landscaping Maintenance Tips

Landscaping Maintenance Tips

Landscaping is a creative activity and provides an excellent platform for anyone overflowing with natural artistic juices. It is especially pleasing for those avid gardeners that truly want to display their inner talent and leave friends and family literally green with envy. Filling your garden with your own ideas and preferences can certainly work well after careful consideration and planning.

Magnificent blooms and healthy growth is one of the many rewards that nature provides for the conscientious gardener. A beautiful landscape does require a certain amount of maintenance on a regular basis to keep it looking attractive and inspirational.

The effort put into maintenance work certainly pays off very well. An overgrown garden filled with weeds and grasses is a sight for sore eyes. An unkempt lawn has about the same effect. A garden is in many instances an indication of how well your house is maintained. A lovely, well kept garden can make a visitor feel quite relaxed and at ease.

One of the worst gardening nightmares is to try and remove tough indigenous grass that has firmly established itself in between the flowerbeds, shrubs and groundcovers. Trying to pull them out seems to be a fruitless attempt as they simply grow back. The damage done to the beds in the process can leave one horrified. There is a solution to this problem. By carefully applying weed control solution directly onto the unwanted grass and weeds is the cure. Using rubber gloves dip your fingers into the herbicide and stroke it on to the blades and any other unwanted foliage. It is time consuming but it does work after a few applications done over a short period of time. The added advantage is that none of the good plants will be destroyed in the process and the invaders are well under control.

Lawn maintenance is another area that needs constant attention. One of the most valuable tips on having a luscious lawn is keep the cutting length at around five centimeters. This means that you will have to cut more often but the final outcome will be a healthy, thick stretch. It certainly helps to keep lawnmower blades sharp to prevent disease. Also refrain from cutting during the midday sun as this can do untold damage. Lawns require frequent watering and fertilizer to keep a tip top condition. An appropriate irrigation system complete with timer is a worthwhile investment if you have a large lawn area. It also takes out the guesswork of over or under watering an area.

This also applies to other parts of the garden. As some plants require more moisture than others it would be beneficial to group the thirsty ones together. Water is a valuable commodity and determining and using the required amounts for your garden can contribute to huge savings in the long run.

Using mulch in your beddings during the hot summer months keeps the soil moist. Mulch as well as compost helps the soil to maintain a good organic standard.…