Category: Landscaping

The Importance of Professional Landscape Maintenance

If you have a beautifully-created landscape design on your property, it’s important that it be maintained. You don’t want all that effort and money to go to waste. Professional landscape maintenance is the best way to ensure your landscaping stays vibrant and healthy all year long.

1. Keeps Plants Healthy

Different climates and seasons may affect your landscape plants. Depending on where you live and what plants you have, some may need increasing watering or occasional protection from rain or heat. Landscaping contractors are knowledgeable about native plants and keep up with the weather patterns. They’ll adapt their services to cater to your landscaping. Additionally, different plants require different amounts of fertilizer and soil conditions in order to thrive. From watering and fertilizing to pruning and trimming, professional landscapers will ensure all of your plant species continue to grow and look perfect.

2. Provides Weed Control

Weeds not only look unpleasant, but they also take away water, nutrients, and sunlight away from your landscaping plants, affecting how they flourish. Without regular maintenance, weeds will eventually take over your property and ruin your landscape design.

3. Comes with Irrigation Maintenance

Irrigation is a part of landscape maintenance. Pipes and sprinklers can break, causing your plants to become underwatered or overwatered. Sprinkler heads also need occasional cleaning or require pressure changes. And if you live in an area with harsher winters, your sprinklers will need to be blown out. When you work with a professional landscaping company, your entire irrigation system is taken care of, from watering to repairs.

4. Helps the Environment

Maintaining your landscaping also helps the environment. Your shrubs, plants, and trees play an important role in cleaning the air around you and your yard also serves as a natural filtration to local waterways so it’s important to keep your yard healthy and flourishing.

5. Pest Control

Pests like beetles, grubs, chinch bugs, and aphids are known to destroy yards and plants. Landscaping contractors are experienced in lawn pests. They know how to identify if you have a pest problem and they’ll effectively treat lawns for pests without harming your plants.

Your landscaping is the central focus of your property and it should create curb appeal all year long. To help protect the investment you’ve made on your property and keep your landscape design looking beautiful, we recommend you work with an experienced landscaping company, like Grasshoppers. Our professional landscape maintenance services will keep your yard looking its best and keep you stress-free!

Landscape Maintenance

Common Landscape Design Mistakes

Are you looking to boost your curb appeal and install a landscaping design to your property? DIY landscaping design can be fun but it’s a lot more work than it seems. Read more to learn the common landscape design mistakes and how to avoid them.

1. Not Having a Landscape Plan

Not having a cohesive plan is likely the most overlooked step when creating a landscaping design. You want your landscaping to provide your property with curb appeal. Without a proper plan, certain elements may not complement each other and may just appear chaotic looking rather than unified and balanced. In addition to color and balance, you’ll want to consider functionality. Are you planting shrubs where your kids like to play or installing a flower bed where passersby frequent? Jot down what you want to do to your property, ensuring everyone’s needs are met. You may also want to consider how future homeowners may use the yard if you’re thinking of selling in the future.

2. Not Setting a Budget

A big part of the planning stage is knowing how much you can afford on your landscaping project. You want to be well-informed about how much each element in your project costs so you can plan accordingly. Research and write down what you absolutely must-have in your landscape design. If you’re planning to install hardscapes throughout your property, keep in mind those are more costly. And if you don’t have the budget you need right now to complete your dream design, you can always complete your landscape project in phases.

3. Not Having Appropriate Irrigation

If you don’t have proper irrigation installed on your property now, you may want to include it in your landscaping project. Each plant in your design may require different watering needs in addition to sun exposure — and you may not want to dig up all of your plants later to install new irrigation lines. By having your irrigation lines installed while your landscaping project is being performed, you can also creatively conceal those lines.

4. Not Having Enough Space Between Plants

One important fact to keep in mind with plants is when you’re installing them in your yard, they’re smaller than they will be in a few years. This is because they haven’t reached their full maturity. Give them enough space to grow and expand. With shrubs and trees, keep them at least four feet away from your home. If you plant them too close they could disrupt your home’s foundation or siding. This also includes sidewalks and hardscapes. If you’re planting roses or other thorny plants, keep them well away from sidewalks and other areas where people frequent that way they won’t brush against them as they walk passed.

5. Not Understanding Plants

When creating a landscaping design, it’s important that you have a basic understanding of plants so you know how each one will perform. You’ll want to know if your plants or perennials or annuals, if they need a lot of sun or very little, and when they bloom.

6. Overlooking Your Landscape Lighting

You may have performed your landscape design planning during the day, but don’t forget you want to showcase all that beauty at night too! Think about what plants, shrubs, or hardscapes you want to highlight and utilize exterior lighting.

Avoid the Mistakes, Hire a Landscaping Company

Your yard is an extension of your home, in fact, it’s the first thing a person sees when arriving at your property. If you’re looking to add a beautifully-curated landscape design to your property, you may want to consider hiring a professional landscaping company like Grasshoppers. At Grasshoppers, we use state-of-the-art technology to ensure every detail of your project is perfect. We also install irrigation and perform hardscape design.

Landscape Lighting for Your Home

A house with lighting at dusk in Orlando, FL

You spend a lot of time and effort making your home and yard look so good, why hide it all at night? Landscape lighting is a great way to showcase your home’s architecture, your beautifully-designed hardscape, and your gorgeous flower bed. In this blog post, we’ll explain the benefits of landscape lighting and why you may want to invest in it.

1. Curb Appeal

When properly installed, landscape lighting can highlight your home’s best features. Those french doors you just installed, the tall columns on your porch and your dormers can all be accentuated with exterior lighting. Water features, designed flower beds, trees, and other focal points can also come to life with strategically placed lighting.

2. Improved Security & Safety

In addition to visual appeal, exterior lighting also doubles as security. Strategically placed lights along pathways and steps will make your home safer by allowing for increased visibility. And lights placed around the perimeter of your home and garage will help deter break-in attempts.

3. Balance

Do you have a mother-in-law suite, detached garage or swimming pool? These often go overlooked. But you can create an overall look that works in harmony with your current exterior lighting. Soffit lighting can enhance the architecture of garage doors or any detached space. While pool lighting can create dramatic effects and colors.

4. Value

Regardless of how big or small, your home is, landscape lighting can highlight its best features, adding dimension and flair. A well-designed lighting plan can transform a dark and dull property into a look of elegance, providing a huge advantage when it comes to selling.

You work hard to keep your home looking great and it should be appreciated both day and night. If you’re considering landscape lighting for your property, let Grasshoppers help you. We are knowledgeable about Florida’s building codes for landscape lighting and energy conservation. We provide energy-efficient lighting, motion sensor lighting, and lighting with automatic timers.

Landscape lighting lighting