As temperatures rise and the days get longer, it’s time to renew your outdoor space with transformative summer landscaping improvements. Whether you have a sprawling backyard or a cozy urban balcony, the possibilities for enhancing your landscape are endless. Continue scrolling to learn how to unleash your potential and let your garden flourish with these inspiring summer landscaping projects.
1. Install New Garden Beds
A garden bed is a vital landscape supply that plays a significant role in your garden’s overall health and aesthetic appeal. It creates a designated space for the plants to grow. During summer, a garden bed gives you better garden organization and easy maintenance, especially when it comes to water conservation. Another critical importance of garden beds is that it enhances soil quality and drainage.
It’s common for most homeowners to lose their garden plants due to soil erosion. Apart from depriving the vegetation soil, soil erosion also makes the garden uneven and unattractive. If you want to stop soil erosion and improve drainage in your home’s lawn, you need a garden bed. It will also limit the proliferation of weeds by indicating a clear demarcation between the cultivated plants and the surrounding areas.
Finally, if you want a strategic arrangement of plants, colors, and texture in your home, garden beds will do a fantastic job. Whether it’s a small raised bed or a sprawling flower border, garden beds are the foundation for a thriving and visually appealing garden, making them an essential element in any landscape design.
2. Get Professional Landscaping Services
When it comes to summer landscaping improvements, you can either do it yourself or employ a professional landscaping service. Hiring professional landscapers is an excellent way to create a well-kept yard. Professional landscaping companies usually follow theories, experiences, rules, and regulations to ensure your yard meets the desired aesthetics and becomes more useful to you and your family members.
If you plan to sell your home, adding professional landscaping services in the pre-listing phase will contribute to a 15% increase in your home’s value. There is a clear correlation between the size, variety, and arrangement of your landscape plants and the value people assign to your property. Expert landscapers create a custom landscaping plan that meets your demands and looks great.
When designing a location, they take into account things like how much sun will hit it, who will be using it, and the weather patterns in the area to produce something that is both beautiful and practical. They also set up the essential buildings and irrigation systems for your yard, saving customers time and energy in the long run.
Professional landscape designers know exactly what kinds of trees and plants will thrive in your area, given the weather and soil conditions. Their guidance will keep you from selecting high-maintenance vegetation that may not grow or demand excessive care. You may save a few coins making summer landscaping improvements yourself, but let the landscaping experts take care of the backbreaking work so you can relax and enjoy your outside space.
3. Control Ticks and Mosquitos
If ticks can find a warm host or a hiding place to feed on, they can make it through the winter. When temperatures are around 45 degrees Fahrenheit (summer), adult ticks can still be a problem. The flea is another incredibly tough pest with a convoluted life cycle. It can even endure very low temperatures.
Reducing or cutting off conditions that favor pest reproduction is essential to creating a pest-free zone. You can accomplish this by eliminating litter from your outdoor areas, keeping up with landscape pest maintenance, and draining any pools of water. Mosquitoes and other biting insects breed in stagnant water; poorly trimmed plants also encourage these pests. You will reduce the number of these unwanted pests on your property by avoiding such issues.
In addition to all of the aforementioned methods, there are more preventative actions you can do to reduce further the number of mosquitoes and ticks surrounding your space. Mosquito dunks, which are dissolvable tablets containing bacteria that kill mosquito larvae, should be used in situations where standing water cannot be eliminated.
Applicable insect repellents are a viable option for quick protection from mosquito and tick bites. Choose an EPA-approved repellent with tried and true chemicals like DEET and Picaridin. When applied properly, DEET and Picaridin can keep mosquitoes and ticks away for 12 hours. Other choices, such as lemon eucalyptus oil, offer protection for 6-8 hours. Permethrin is an insecticide that can be applied to clothing to deter ticks. It stops ticks from biting and destroys them within seconds.
4. Fertilize Your Favorite Plants
Fertilizer is important to help your plant grow better and strong. However, timing and planning are essential when fertilizing the plants in your home landscape. Adding fertilizer at the incorrect time might harm your plants.
Climate, plant type, and soil variety all have a role in determining when fertilization is most effective. Fertilizer application is best done for established plants in the spring and fall. Still, it may be necessary to regularly fertilize seedlings, annuals, and plants in containers throughout the growing season, not only when making summer landscaping improvements.
Choosing a bag of fertilizer beneficial to your plants is not easy. Therefore, whether you go for organic or artificial fertilizers, it’s important to remember that organic fertilizers provide nutrients directly to plants, while synthetic ones enrich the soil. This is also true, an overabundance of a nutrient negatively affects your favorite plants. For this reason, it is crucial to conduct a soil test before fertilizer application.
5. Install an Irrigation System
Water conversation in summer is important for proper lawn care and maintenance. That is why you need to install an irrigation system to enjoy a beautiful, flourishing lawn and garden. In the past, homeowners had to water their lawns and gardens manually, but with the advent of autonomous watering systems, this time-consuming chore is now unnecessary.
Regulated water distribution slows the growth of unwanted weeds while encouraging the expansion of desired plants in your lawn or garden. Excessive watering, on the other hand, can lead to the loss of vital nutrients, which stunts the development of plants and lawns. Your grass will thrive with an irrigation system because you can control the water going to specific places. Finally, you can increase your home’s value with an irrigation system. A healthy, green lawn is a selling point for any home, and an irrigation system is a major factor in accomplishing that goal.
6. Add Fresh Mulch to Existing Beds
Mulch can be defined as any material that is spread over the soil to provide a protective layer. The idea of mulching in summer landscaping improvements is to simulate the effect of natural processes, such as the decomposition of plant matter and the layering of leaves on the ground, which occurs naturally.
Overall, adding fresh mulch to existing beds is a great way to improve the health of the soil in your garden or landscape by preventing water loss, soil erosion, temperature fluctuations, and limiting weed growth. The aesthetic value of your yard will rise dramatically as a result.
There are two types of mulch that you can request from a bulk organic mulch supplier: organic mulch, which consists of living or once-living components, and inorganic mulch, which consists of artificial minerals or manufactured items. Remember that the mulch you choose for your garden should reflect the climate where you live, the soil characteristics, and your personal taste in landscaping.
As you apply mulch for summer landscaping improvements, some options to consider are compost, bark, leaves, and manure. Compost is the byproduct of the high-temperature decomposition of organic matter, such as trimmings of grass and food remains. When done well, compost should be nutrient-rich and free of weed seeds. Mulching with compost returns beneficial microbes and organic matter to impoverished soils.
7. Add Outdoor Decorations
There are several important things to remember while decorating the exterior of your home for summer. To begin, think about merging interior and outdoor areas by incorporating patio furniture and lighting with internal components such as string lights. The result is a laid-back vibe that’s perfect for celebrating summer. It’s also possible to make a fashion statement with pots and a brightly colored front door. Adding an outdoor bar and outdoor stone decorations to your backyard is another easy method to make it look more presentable.
Many people also like to decorate their homes with nautical elements, such as blue and white striped pillows or antiques in the shape of boats. Tablescapes that use bright accent dishes, tablecloths, and an impromptu bar stocked with bottles and glasses are perfect for summer dinner parties.
Make your home feel more summery by letting in as much natural light as possible by opening windows and doors, removing thick drapes, and clearing out any dark or cluttered furnishings. Putting together a photo album of your travels is a great way to share stories and strike up a conversation with friends and family back home.
Accents that evoke the sea, such as nautical art or beachy decor, may make any room feel like a relaxing getaway. Finally, make the most of the summer by decorating your patio, improving your front porch, and setting up multipurpose outdoor seating space.
8. Reclaim Extra Yard Space
Assessing your yard’s current arrangement is the first step in recovering missed space and enhancing the summer landscaping improvements. Think about how you can improve the space in its entirety. Empty or underutilized areas are examples. Once you’ve found these spots, think about how you might maximize their potential. If there are huge stumps within your lawn, you can hire a stump removal company and reclaim an extra grad space.
Installing a deck or patio in an otherwise useless space, you may turn unused space into a usable outdoor living area. There would be room for lounging, amusement, and mealtimes. Another option is to turn an underutilized section of the backyard into a vegetable garden or a playground for the kids.
The next step is to create a strategy for efficient change implementation. Think of constraints like money, time, and supplies. Find out what you’ll need to do the project and how long it will take you. If you feel overwhelmed by the magnitude of the endeavor, consider hiring a landscaper or contractor to help with the planning and execution stages.
9. Trim Overgrown Trees
Regular tree trimming should be a priority to improve the landscape’s health and appearance. Overgrown trees can’t maintain their attractiveness without regular cutting. It promotes new growth, aids in canopy maintenance, and strengthens the tree.
In addition to improving your landscape’s visual appeal, regular tree pruning makes your property safer and reduces the risk of injury from falling branches. For advice on how to trim your trees safely and successfully, speaking with an arborist or other professional tree trimming companies may be worthwhile.
10. Get Your Trees Checked for Diseases
If you care about the health and vitality of the surroundings, you must have your trees inspected for illnesses regularly as part of your summer landscaping improvements. Pathogens such as fungi, bacteria, viruses, and others can cause a wide range of symptoms in trees.
Early detection and treatment of these diseases are crucial for minimizing tree loss and accidents due to falling branches. A certified tree maintenance company will evaluate your trees and look for disease symptoms, including leaf discoloration, wilting, cankers, or strange growth patterns.
Finding a qualified expert who can inspect your trees for illnesses and effectively cure them is crucial. The arborist will look at the tree, make a diagnosis based on the symptoms, and run any necessary tests. They will also collect tissue samples to analyze in the lab to determine what kind of sickness it is and how bad it is. It is possible to prescribe fungicides, remove diseased branches, or undertake cultural techniques to boost tree health based on the results of the diagnosis.
Summer landscaping improvements offer a great opportunity to transform your outdoor spaces. Overall, if you want a beautiful yard that increases the value of your home, hire landscapers.