Landscaping Tips for a Vibrant Lawn
The lawn is a point of pride for many homeowners, but every homeowner may not have the experience of a landscape professional to maximize their property. Here are a few suggestions of things to incorporate into your landscaping for a vibrant and attention-grabbing lawn.
Landscape Lighting
Installing landscape lighting is an easy way to highlight your lawn and draw attention to your home. Pathway lights can guide visitors to your front door and add depth to ground cover. A perfectly angled light can spotlight a tree in bloom. Color changing landscape lights can even enhance a color scheme that matches your garden beds or adds color to a space in between flower blooms. Creating an attention-grabbing lawn is hard work, and landscape lighting can help show off your dedication in a fun and unique way.
Plan Seasonal Beds
When you think about a vibrant lawn, chances are colorful flowers are front and center in your mind. Flowers are a great way to make a visual statement with your lawn, but it’s important that you approach planting them with a solid plan that takes their flowering life and your region’s seasons into account. If you don’t, you could end up with large portions of your garden that bloom and wilt all at once, leaving you with bare patches of no color.
To plant seasonal flower beds that will add color and interest to your lawn year-round, be sure to choose at least two plants that will flower together and stagger their planting throughout the flower bed. You can also use containers to your advantage and plant annuals that are replaced once their flowering season is over. By mindfully planting flowers that look great and have overlapping blooming times, you can ensure your lawn consistently attracts attention year-round.
Plant Evergreens
Flowers are understandably a major draw when planning your lawn and garden layout, but it’s important to keep year-round color in mind when you’re browsing the local nursery. They might not produce pretty flowers, but evergreen shrubs and trees will provide your lawn with lasting color through every season. Evergreens are also a great “blank canvas” to build flower beds around, as they provide a lush background to contrast flowering plants against.
Short evergreen shrubs can be a great way to line a walkway. Evergreen trees that frame a porch can draw the eye to the front door and be a convenient place to string holiday lights when the snow flies. However you plan to use your evergreens, don’t be afraid to mix and match a few different species. Planting different shades of green together can be eye-catching all on its own.
Grass Maintenance
Lush, green grass is the pinnacle of lawn care. Healthy grass needs soil wetted to a depth of about 3-5 inches once or twice a week to maintain that fresh green grass look. Your lawn might be small enough to water with a few sprinklers, but for larger lawns, using a movable sprinkler might mean that some parts of your lawn don’t get enough water, leaving you with spotty patches of brown or yellow.
Installing an irrigation system can save you time, money, and provide the right amount of water to keep your lawn bright and green throughout the growing season. Instead of spending hours moving sprinklers around your yard, (and having to remember that you have a spigot turned on,) you can set your irrigation system to turn on at the optimal time and let the automation do the rest.
If you already have an irrigation system installed and you’re still not happy with the vibrancy of your grass, it might be time to check the sharpness of your lawnmower blade. A dull blade that does not cut cleanly through the grass can make your lawn appear yellow, brown, and ragged. It might even pull up portions of your lawn and leave behind patches of dirt. A simple sharpening job will greatly improve the appearance of your lawn, taking it from ragged to manicured in no time.
Landscaping is an art, and like all art, it takes time and dedication to perfect. Try a few of our landscaping tips this season and you’ll be well on your way to having a lawn that is the envy of your neighborhood.