Landscaping enhances property value, creates a comfortable outdoor living space, and adds to the overall visual appeal of your home. It also provides a healthy environment for plants and animals.
Good garden landscaping requires time, patience and care to achieve a lush, beautiful lawn. It is important to consider the many aspects of your landscape design before starting. Contact Greensboro Landscaping for professional help.
A lush lawn is one of the key elements to a beautiful landscape. When establishing a new lawn, homeowners typically choose to either seed or sod their property. Both methods require care and attention to thrive. The decision to sod or seed is based on numerous factors, including soil type and climate, desired look, and the amount of maintenance that is wanted or required.
Sod is a thick layer of pre-grown grass that is installed on top of prepared soil. It is often used as an instant lawn for new construction or bare spots in existing yards, but it is also frequently installed on slopes to prevent erosion. Sod is more expensive than seeding, but it provides a much quicker alternative to growing grass from scratch. It requires professional installation, and the proper soil preparation is critical to ensure success.
Choosing the right sod for your yard is important because different types of sod grow better in various temperatures and conditions. For example, Bahia sod is a warm season grass that can withstand the heat of summer in our area. It is more resistant to insects and droughts than most other varieties of sod. St Augustine is another warm season grass that has great heat resistance. It’s a good option for homes with shaded areas because it spreads by rhizomes and stolons and isn’t dependent on sunlight to grow.
Artificial turf is a great choice for homeowners that want an easy-to-maintain landscape without the hassle of growing grass seeds. Turf can be installed on a new or existing lawn, as a putting green, around a pool, and even as pet grass. Turf has several benefits, including being durable, staying cool in direct sunlight, and eliminating mud or puddles after rainstorms.
Hardscaping
Hardscaping is the use of non-plant materials in a landscape design. This includes features like paving, driveways, walls, and outdoor structures like patios and pergolas. These elements contrast and complement the horticultural features of the garden, making them an important aspect of any landscaping project.
Adding hardscape features to your garden will add a new dimension of style and function. It will also reduce your maintenance needs, as they require less attention than traditional lawns and plants. For example, a gravel garden will need much less water and weeding than a flower bed filled with annuals. In addition, many hardscape components can help protect your property from weather damage. A retaining wall, for example, will stabilize slopes and prevent erosion, while a fence or trellis can provide privacy and security.
However, it’s essential to balance hardscaping and softscaping in your garden design. A garden without softscape elements will look barren and lifeless, while too much hardscaping can be sterile and unattractive. Ideally, the hardscape elements should be installed first and then beautified with softscaping, like flowers and trees, to create harmony in your garden.
Whether you are considering an extensive renovation or simple garden upgrades, it is worth thinking about how you plan to use your garden and what you want to get out of it. You will then be able to choose the right features for your garden, making it a space that is unique and reflects you and your lifestyle. It’s also important to consider how your garden will impact your home value, as many potential buyers appreciate the idea of low-maintenance gardens and yards. This means you can spend more time enjoying your garden with family and friends, and less time on upkeep tasks.
Softscaping
Softscaping is the living component of your landscape design, comprised of grass, trees, shrubs, flowers and groundcovers. When used strategically, softscaping adds texture and depth to your yard while also supporting biodiversity and enhancing environmental health.
Unlike hardscaping, softscape elements can be changed or replaced with different plants as your tastes and preferences change. This flexibility, combined with the added appeal of color from annual flowers and the unique form of perennial bushes, gives you the option to rework the look of your landscaping year after year without touching the hardscape features that define your outdoor spaces.
The structure and function of your softscape is determined by the base layers, which include low-lying plants like lawn grass, flower beds, or rows of shrubs and bushes. Accents are the most energetic components, ranging from colorful seasonal flowers to uniquely shaped trees that stand out in your landscaping. The final layer is the groundcover, which helps stabilize soil and suppress weeds.
The right combination of hardscaping and softscaping can create the ultimate relaxing outdoor space to unwind, entertain friends, or even start a garden. Our skilled team at Intu Nature can help you find the balance between these two elements to design a yard that will elevate your property and make it a place you love spending time in. Contact us today to discuss your landscape goals! We offer complimentary consultations.
Irrigation
For the most stunning landscape, your grass needs to be well-hydrated on a regular basis. Irrigation systems deliver water to your landscape at the correct time of day and ensure that all your greenery is receiving adequate moisture. The result is healthy grass that resists drought and disease and bounces back more quickly when impacted by harsh weather.
The history of irrigation spans nearly as long as humans have been cultivating plants. It’s likely that the first “irrigation” method was simply people carrying buckets of water to their fields to pour over their crops, and while that may still be a popular option for many homeowners, modern technology has created more efficient, mechanized methods of irrigation that reduce environmental impact and increase efficiency.
There are several factors to consider when selecting an irrigation system for your property, including the type of soil, climate conditions and local regulations. For example, if your region experiences hot and dry weather patterns, it may be best to choose a system with adjustable settings that take into account weather forecasts. Also, depending on your soil permeability and drainage characteristics, you may want to select an irrigation system that sprays water in a way that is consistent and evenly distributed to promote root growth and minimize the risk of over-watering.
Additionally, if your property is located in an area with low annual precipitation, you may want to choose a system that irrigates using reclaimed water. Reclaimed water is treated and used for irrigation purposes after it has been diverted from its source, so it’s important to understand the chemical content of your reclaimed water to make sure that you’re not damaging your trees and other vegetation with harmful chemicals.
Xeriscaping
With the droughts and water restrictions across our region, commercial landscapes are increasingly embracing xeriscaping. The xeriscape concept is all about making your commercial property’s landscape more efficient by reducing the amount of turf grass and using plants that require less water to thrive. It’s all about utilizing the right plants, and the right locations, to minimize your commercial properties’ need for supplemental irrigation.
Pronounced “ZEER-uh-scape,” the word xeriscaping is a combination of the words xeros (dry) and scape (view). It was originally coined by Denver Water in 1981 to describe this type of landscaping that relies on native, drought-tolerant plants. Xeriscaping is also known as water-conserving landscaping, drought-tolerant landscaping, and smart scaping.
Oftentimes, areas of lawn are transformed into flower beds or hardscapes when they’re xeriscaped. This is because it takes a lot of water, fertilizer and fuel to keep large expanses of lawn green. Xeriscaping can cut down on your commercial properties’ energy costs while enhancing the overall look and feel of your outdoor spaces.
One key to a thriving xeriscape is to group plants with similar water needs together. This helps prevent over-watering less needy plants and allows the more thirsty ones to get the water they need without wasting water or resources. Keeping up with regular weed removal, pruning and mulching is crucial to your xeriscape’s success, as well as ensuring that any new plantings are properly spaced to avoid overcrowding.
When done correctly, a well-executed xeriscape can be beautiful, lush and colorful with the added benefit of reduced water usage and maintenance costs. Using plants that are native to our area is especially helpful, as they are already adapted to our climate and typically need very little human-supplied water.
