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Tips to Prepare Your Garden for Winter Season

As winters arrive, plants start to succumb to the nip of heavy frosts. It’s that time of the year when most people quit gardening efforts and let nature take its course. This season slows down garden activities because it’s believed that gardening is a spring and summer project. However, winter is no excuse for ignoring your garden. In fact, unless heavy snow covers your landscape, you can do plenty of things to keep your garden blooming.

Your garden needs love and maintenance no matter the season. Since plants need soil, water, and sunshine to survive and thrive, maintaining your garden during winters can be challenging. But this doesn’t mean to leave your garden unattended during winter months. Winter garden maintenance is all about understanding your plants. Different plants have different kinds of adaptation to cold temperatures. But typically, winter gardening means minimal disturbance to plants as they are hibernating. During the colder months, their demand for water and fertilizers reduces. During early winter, simply removing dead parts and covering the soil with a blanket of mulch is sufficient.

Depending on what’s growing in your garden, make sure to continue your gardening efforts. With this in mind, here are some tips to prepare your garden for the winter season.

Mulching

There are multiple benefits of mulching. Firstly, mulching in winter will prevent weeds from growing in your garden. Secondly, it helps to keep the soil warm and moist. So, remove weeds from the soil and cover it up with some organic mulch like shredded leaves and bark. This will help in keeping the top-soil warm and protect the plant roots from frost damage. Winter, as you know, is a dry season than spring and summer. If you leave the soil bare, it will quickly lose water. To prevent this, you need mulching but avoid putting the mulch too close to the stem as it may rot the stem.

Grow Winter-Friendly Plants

When it comes to growing winter-friendly plants, you have a ton of options. Look for the plants and vegetables that are frost-tolerant plants and can survive in cold weather. You may consider planting veggies like lettuce, peas, broccoli, spinach, and onions. Also, when you visit the nursery, you’ll find plants that flower in winter. Growing winter plants can add color to your garden. You can also think of growing indoor herbs in pots like oregano and garlic. But make sure to start early so that your garden is winter-ready.

Relocate Plants

The plants in the pot can be placed in a warm, safer place. The plants which are sensitive to cold can be placed indoors during the winters. As winters arrive, relocate plants into the shade to avoid shedding. The tropical plants thrive in humidity, so take them indoors after the autumn season. Also, when the temperature drops, the plants in the garden can be covered with a protective piece of cloth or plastic. However, it’s important to take off the covering during the day or warmer periods to avoid overheating. If your region receives heavy rainfall during winters, relocating plants can help in avoiding over-watering that may cause root-rot.

How Can Landscaping Benefit Your Home

Having a landscape around your home is tempting and exciting. Those pretty flowers, big trees, green grass, amazingly sounding water fountains and relaxing outdoor furniture instantly add a great value to your home and life.

A beautifully designed landscape can make a world of difference for you. It creates pleasant aesthetics and relaxed outdoors. In short, your family can have good health and your customers a great property.

Well-managed landscapes offer amazing benefits. Keep reading to explore some of them –

Improves Air Quality

A healthy landscape acts as a barrier against all the pollutants and smoke in the air and purifies the air to make it breathable. Since air pollution has risen in recent times, the air quality has dropped to the worst levels. This has affected the humans inhaling such air and led to a number of health problems like heart disease, lung cancer, and respiratory diseases such as emphysema.

Creating a properly curated landscape generates great amounts of oxygen and also improves the quality of the air you breathe.

Supports Environment

Greenery acts as an air conditioner for the surrounding area. With a landscaped lawn, you can drastically reduce the temperature around your house and stay cooler in summer and warmer in winter. The grasses breaks down carbon dioxide into oxygen and even a small yard can produce enough oxygen for your family.

A healthy landscape also absorbs extra runoff that would otherwise lead to local flooding. It plays a tremendous role in reducing evaporation and soil degradation.

Rejuvenates Mind

Along with physical health, due attention should be paid to your mental health also. Since people today are more stressed than ever, they need better means to lower their stress levels and uplift their mood. Expert studies have shown how spending some quality time with Mother Nature can improve self-esteem and doing just a few minutes of ‘green exercise’ can increase levels of concentration and creativity in individuals.

Moreover, parks and tree canopies have proven to minimize noise pollution impressively and helped in curing so many health issues till date.

Offers Economic Benefits

Other than providing you with environmental and health benefits, a well-designed landscape has more to offer you. It boosts your curb appeal, improves its first impression, and generates positive feelings in the minds of the potential customers. After all, how your home looks from the outside will help the buyers decide whether they want to invest in or not.

Also, grass and trees act as natural coolants and cut down attic temperatures by as much as 40 degrees. This helps you with energy bill savings as the heating and air conditioning costs are reduced. Additionally, by investing in plants that require less water to thrive, you can save a lot on your water bills and hence, use nature to your advantage.

To get more information on the benefits of lawns and landscapes, get in touch with a professional landscape designer and create a perfect space to enhance your health and environment.

Advantages of Low Voltage Landscape Lighting

Do you have invested your time and money to maintain a splendid landscape? If so, you certainly don’t want to make your efforts vanish when the sun goes down. Your beautiful landscape that looks vibrant and mesmerizing during daylight becomes invisible at nightfall. But the best time to relax outdoor is at night in the cool breeze and under subtle moonlight. So, if you want to roll back the darkness and put your landscape on display, you need to invest in proper landscape lighting.

When it comes to installing landscape lighting, the best option is low voltage lighting. Proper lighting system helps in maintaining the beauty of your garden when it’s dark outside with just a flick of a switch. In fact, of all the important elements of landscape design, low voltage landscape lighting has the biggest impact on the look and ambiance of your yard. The low-voltage lighting displays architectural features of your home, as well as draws attention to luscious trees, vibrant flowers, and marvelous water feature. Now, you might be wondering what exactly low-voltage landscape lighting is and why you should consider installing it. So let’s take a look!

What is Low Voltage Landscape Lighting?

Low voltage lighting is a system that was originally developed to illuminate the landscape. However, over the years, low voltage lighting became popular for indoor lighting applications also due to its energy-efficiency. Low voltage lights are the best choice for landscape lighting because these energy efficient lights are powered by less than 30-volts of electricity. This means, as compared to line voltage lighting which uses 120 volts, low voltage lighting uses 12 volts instead of 120 volts of electricity.

Benefits of Low Voltage Landscape Lighting

Low voltage landscape lighting offers several benefits due to which these lights are today widely used in homes, as well as commercial and industrial buildings. Moreover, unlike conventional light bulbs, low voltage lights also last longer and LED is easier to install as compared to halogen. Consider the following amazing benefits of installing low voltage landscape lighting.

1. Cost-Saving

The low voltage lighting is both beautiful and practical option for landscape lighting. These lights are extremely energy efficient as compared to incandescent bulbs. This means low voltage lights can help you save a significant amount of money in your electricity bill because it consumes less energy. Moreover, in contrast to a 20-watt halogen bulb, LED low voltage bulbs can last 50 times longer which balances the initial cost of installing it.

2. Safety & Security

By installing low voltage landscape lighting, you can make your yard safe and secure in a cost-effective way. When it’s dark outside, it gets difficult to navigate through pathways and driveways. It might be easy for you to find stairs, slopes or way around but for your guests, a poorly-lit yard can be dangerous. Moreover, a dark exterior also makes the home vulnerable to theft and other security issues. A well-lit property is avoided by intruders and thus prevents criminal activities.

3. Enhances Beauty

The LED lights are popular not only because they are energy-efficient but also because it looks splendid. These low voltage lights can instantly transform your landscape into a romantic and delightful scene at night. You can enhance the overall beauty of your home by illuminating its striking textures and architectural features. Moreover, by strategically placing lights around the fountain or statue, you can impressively illuminate your outdoor landscape to welcomes and delight your guests.

4. Increase Value

These versatile and easy to install landscape lights can also increase the value of your property. Homes that look beautiful during the day, as well as night, attract potential buyers. In fact, according to a survey, more than 40% of home buyers consider landscape lighting an essential feature in the properties for sale. This means that by installing low voltage landscape lighting system, you can market your property in a better way and increase its sale value and rentals.

How Landscaping Can Increase the Value of Your Home

If you’re planning to sell your property, your biggest concern must be to increase its resale value. And to accomplish this goal, you might have started some home improvement projects within your home. It’s a good idea to invest in renovation or remodeling projects but while doing this the outside curb appeal must not be overlooked.

For attracting potential buyers, you need to have an aesthetically pleasing and inviting outside. In fact, the exterior of your home makes the first and lasting impression on the buyers which can ultimately impact their buying decision. So, to impress your potential buyers and enhance the curb appeal of your property, you need to invest at least 10 percent of the value of your home in landscaping.

According to real estate experts, a home that is for sale must have an aesthetically pleasing and inviting outside. If you have a well-maintained landscape, you may receive more offers and better rates. For homeowners who plan to sell their home in future, landscaping can add tens of thousands of dollars to the value of their property. The home improvement projects like interior décor or flooring may get outdated or damaged after a few years. But with a little care, your garden will bloom forever.

It is seen that homes with landscaping have price advantage ranging from 5.5 percent to 12 percent. However, landscaping is much more than simply planting some flowers and shrubs in your garden. So, if you’re looking to increase the resale value of your home, here are some tips to spruce up your yard.

Create Outdoor Living Space

These days, there is an increasing trend for outdoor living. People are transforming their yard to relax and enjoy outside by creating a patio or outdoor kitchen. In addition to building patio and decks, you may also create fire pits. Fire features are great for sitting around the fire at night and enjoying good company. If your budget allows, you may also add water features such as fountains or ponds to create a tranquil outdoor area. Another option that increases your home’s value is by adding fences. Installing a fence around your home is an economical way to ensure privacy and enhance the curb appeal of your property.

Landscape Lighting

Without proper lighting, the beauty and grandeur of your landscape will remain hidden during the night. By installing a proper landscape lighting system, your yard will look splendid even after the sunset. Moreover, it also makes the outside area safe for homeowners and visitors by illuminating the paths, slopes, and stairs. A well-lit landscape also deters thieves and criminal activities. Your potential home buyers will consider all these factors and this will boost the value of your property.

Maintain Your Garden

Your garden is the heart of your home so it must reflect this spirit. To keep your garden green and healthy throughout the year, you need to install a proper irrigation system. By installing drip irrigation and sprinkler system, it becomes easy to maintain your lawn. When buyers see that you have a proper system in place, it makes your home even more attractive to them. Also, you can grow combinations of seasonal plants so that your garden looks green and blooming in all seasons. To control the growth of weed, use mulch and keep the flowerbeds clean. Besides this, think about adding container plants as they can make your patios and doorways look fantastic and leave a lasting impression on buyers. Remember, planning and designing your landscape adds to the resale value of your home, so make it as much appealing as you can.

The Top 3 Benefits of Landscape Lighting

You might have a fantastic landscape that enhances the beauty of your home’s exterior. You have planted beautiful, vibrant flora and installed exquisite features. But do you have a proper lighting system to highlight all those amazing features of your landscape?

Most homeowners give priority to plants and irrigation system only and rely on moonlight to illuminate their garden at night. By doing this, their yard looks aesthetically pleasing during the day, but at night the grandeur of their landscape lurks in the darkness.

These days, homeowners take pride in maintaining a splendid landscape to create a great exterior of their home. And to highlight the beauty of this finely designed landscape, they’re investing in the latest lighting system. Proper lighting fixtures not only enhance the appearance of the house but also increase its safety and security. If you install a lighting system, it will highlight your marvelous stone walkway or majestic water features at all times of the day. In addition to this, homes with landscape lighting also have a higher market value because it becomes more appealing to prospective buyers.

Landscape lightings are available in numerous types and you can choose the design and style that matches your needs. There are no-wiring solar lights, as well as hardwired wall-mounted lights. For picking and install the right lighting, you need an expert to set up lights, electrical connections, and established lights post.

The low-voltage lighting fixtures within the landscape can illuminate every feature of your landscape. But if you’re still unconvinced to add landscape lighting system, here are some amazing benefits of doing it.

1. Enhance the Beauty of Your Home

The first and most obvious benefit of landscape lighting is beautification. You might have beautifully decorated the interior of your home but what about the exterior- the first impression of your house. By adding small and large lights, you can accentuate your home’s beauty even after the sun goes down. The right type of landscape lighting can also instantly improve the curb appeal of your home and increase its market value. So, if you’re looking to sell your property in the future, increasing the curb appeal of your home will increase its value. Your home will become more attractive by highlighting its outer features.

2. Improve Safety & Security

Dark or poorly-lit outdoor is responsible for causing injuries to your family and guests. But if you install lights at the right spots, your family members and visitors can clearly see and walk safely. Without proper lights, it’s not possible to spot water lying around or cracked sidewalks. Lighting is necessary near stairs, pools, driveway, walkways, and around tripping hazards to prevent a fall or other injury. Moreover, lighting will also protect your home from criminals. A well-lit home is avoided by burglars because of the fear of getting easily caught. A dark home, on the other hand, is the easy target of vandalism and burglary. If the surroundings of your house are enlightened, you can easily track the signs of unauthorized entry and catch up the criminal.

3. Greater Functionality

These days, people want to create a relaxing outdoor space to have barbeques and enjoy outdoors. So, if you’re looking to throw some great parties outdoor or spend some time outside, you need to illuminate the outdoor environment. Landscape lights not only make the exterior of your home more appealing but also expand the capabilities of your living space. You can enjoy outside in your garden even after the sun goes down to relax in the springtime breeze. These lights will make your outdoor spaces more livable by providing visibility and ambiance to your walkways and swimming pool area.

How to Keep Your Garden Green during Harsh Summer

It’s already summer- that time of the year when you need proper hydration and protection from harsh sunlight. You can find respite in AC and fresh fruits but what about your beloved garden? It’s not just you who suffer in the scorching heat; your plants take a lot more brunt of the harsh sunlight and rising temperatures than you do.

As summer arrives and you hear news about record high temperatures and wildfires, it’s time to think about your darling lawn. You need to plan how plants in your garden are going to survive and thrive in this season. You may think about replacing your Petunia, Cineraria, Calendula, and Chrysanthemum with Portulaca, Gomphrena, Calliopsis, and Lily but that’s not just enough.

You can’t turn the sun off but you can make sure that your plants receive proper hydration and care. And if you don’t want summer heat to take a toll on your lawn, it’s essential to follow some summer lawn care tips. So, to help you keep your garden green and dense, here are a few tips to keep your plants hydrated and flourishing this summer.

Pick Summer Plants

The first thing you need to do is to select native plants that are drought tolerant. The regional plants and crops can best adapt to your area’s weather and their root can go deep to suck in the water. The plants that bloom in summer can survive the rising temperature and don’t need any extra care all year round. You may also have succulents that require very little water. There are some vegetables such as cucumber, pumpkin, eggplant, and watermelon that are best to plant this season.

Proper Irrigation System

Your garden needs a proper watering system in all seasons but in summers it must be in top condition. As the weather gets warmer, you might need to water your plants more often. It’s best to have a drip irrigation system even if you have drought-tolerant plants. In this system, there is a drip line for every plant around its root zone which ensures that water reaches right into the root ball in the soil. The system not only waters the garden efficiently but also saves water by preventing any runoff. Another important consideration is when and how often to water the plants. You don’t need to water plants too frequently and the amount of water needed depends on your climate and the time of year. As far as timing is concerned, it’s highly recommended to water plants early in the morning to minimize evaporation.

Use Mulch

If you want to protect the soil from direct sun rays and reduce evaporation, add mulch on the soil. With the help of dried grass clippings or wood mulch, it is possible to shade the soil from sun exposure and keep it moist for longer. There are various types of mulch but for best result, choose light-colored mulch which can easily reflect the sunlight. Wood mulch is also a good option because it is organic and breaks down over time. When it decomposes, it will add compost to your soil. In addition to this, mulch is also useful to prevent the growth of weeds which take water away from the plants.

Provide Shade to Your Plants

For the regions that receive high temperature and scorching sunlight, gardening requires some extra efforts. At the time of planting shrubs and crops, you need to look for a shady area. You may even locate your garden in the yard with permanent shade. In addition to this, you can also use shade covers. If you don’t have a shade cover, you can use old window screens to cover the plants that are in direct sunlight. The right way to shade the plants is keeping the cover several inches above the plants to block around 50% of the sunlight.