Tag: landscaping

4 Ways Hardscaping Can Improve Your Business

Beautiful paved walkway. Grasshoppers talks about the benefits of hardscaping for commercial properties in Orlando FL

You have a lush green lawn and colorful flowers accentuating your property, but what about hardscaping? Hardscaping like paved walkways, retaining walls, and water features can add curb appeal and bring more clientele to your business. Read more to learn how hardscaping can benefit your business.

Provides a Professional Appearance

The exterior of your building can be the determining factor whether a potential customer decides to walk in or not. So, make a good first impression with a welcoming hardscaping design. A well-groomed property inside and out will also leave a lasting impression on anyone who visits.

Increases Safety

Adding hardscape features like retaining walls and paved walkways to your commercial property add beauty and provide a function. Walkways, for example, level the ground, reducing the risk of people tripping. They also help direct traffic. Retaining walls can help protect areas from unauthorized people– which helps show a company’s commitment to defining boundaries from employees and customers.

Provides Landscape Management

If you don’t have a professional landscaping company taking care of your property, you may find that parts of your current landscape are not cooperating as well as others, whether it be from sunlight or vegetation. Adding hardscape features to your property can help. They help eliminate soil erosion, they’re naturally low maintenance, and they complement your organic landscaping perfectly.

Helps Increase Property Value

Whether you plan on staying at your current property or are relocating in the near future, adding hardscaping to your property will help improve your property value and the surrounding area as well.

Whether you’re adding to your existing landscaping or have a new property, there are a variety of hardscaping features to choose from including water fountains, patios, walkways, boulder features, and retaining walls.

In order to make your new hardscaping feature seamless, it’s important to work with a licensed professional, like Grasshoppers. Most landscaping contractors will look at your existing property, provide you with some ideas, and install your new hardscaping making it beautiful and functional.

Lawn-Damaging Insects in Florida

Patches of brown on lawn. Grasshoppers talks about common lawn-damaging insects in the Orlando, Fl area

Does your lawn have dead patches despite all the care you provide it? You may have insects calling your lawn, “home.” In this blog, we’ll talk about lawn-damaging insects and the signs you may have them.

Insects That Damage Your Lawn

Billbugs

Billbugs have become more of a problem in recent years for Floridians with the most damage occurring during the spring and fall seasons. Billbugs lay their eggs in lawns during spring. Then when their grubs hatch, they’ll feed on your grass, hollowing out the stems. They might also eat the grass roots. It is often difficult for a homeowner to determine whether or not they have a billbug problem. Grubs are extremely small and live deep in the thatch layer of your lawn.

Southern Chinch Bug

These tiny pests live in the thatch layer of your lawn. Chinch Bugs feed in groups and will suck fluids from your grass’ stolons, stems, and crowns creating widespread damage to your lawn. People in Florida often see damage from Chinch Bugs anywhere from March to November.

Fall Armyworms and Cutworms

These pests are big caterpillars that love to feed on blades of grass. They are not typically a big problem unless you have a high population of them. This is because they feed at the same location at the same time. These pests are most common during the spring, summer, and fall. You’ll be able to determine if you have these insects if you have dead, circular spots of grass or depressed spots on your lawn.

Tropical Sod Webworm

When larvae, these pests will come out at night and feed on your lawn. While these pests are highly destructive during the warm, summer months, their damage is often not noticed until winter, when the grass is dormant.

White Grubs

White Grubs are the larvae of scarab beetles. These pests lay their eggs in the spring and when they hatch, the larvae feed on grass roots through the rest of fall. Their feeding cuts off the ability for your grass to soak up water from the soil, so it eventually dies. You’ll be able to determine if you have these insects if your lawn has brown patches or pulls up easily like a rug.

Other common insects in Florida lawns include Fire Ants, Grasshoppers, Ground Pearls, Mole Crickets, and Spittlebugs.

Hire a Professional for Lawn Pests Control

You work hard to keep your lawn lush and green, don’t let a small insect ruin all that hard work. Your first instinct may be to apply a pesticide on your lawn, but that will just kill it. So if you have an insect infestation on your property, you may want to contact a professional landscaping company. They have contractors who are knowledgable about all things “lawn care.” They’ll be able to identify which type of insect problem you have and properly take care of it without ruining your grass.

landscaping Lawn Pest Control

What You Need to Know About Lawn Fertilizer

Beautiful grass and plants. Grasshoppers provides professional fertilizing services to homes and businesses in Orlando, FL

Want a beautiful, green, lush lawn and fewer weeds? Consider adding fertilizer to it! Just like you need nutrients and water, so does your lawn. Read more to learn how fertilizer can bring back life to your lawn.

What is Fertilizer?

Fertilizer is comprised of three nutrients:

Nitrogen (N): Nitrogen is a protein in every plant. Nitrogen helps your lawn grow and provides it with that lush green color.

Phosphorous (P): Phosphorous helps seeds sprout and stimulates root growth. If you have new grass, you may want a fertilizer high in phosphorous to stimulate growth.

Potassium (K): Potassium helps grass hold its color and shape. It keeps it healthy-looking. It also helps plants to resist drought and disease.

Fertilizers are all different. You can tell how much of a nutrient is in a bag of fertilizer by a code referred to as the fertilizer grade.

For example, if it says 24-8-16, 24 is the amount of Nitrogen it has, while 8 is the amount of Phosphorous, and 16, the amount of Potassium. They are always read in that order, (NPK).

Types of Lawn Fertilizer

There are an array of options when it comes to lawn fertilizer.

Organic: compost, manure
Water-soluble: provide quick release
Granular: are slow-releasing, you can wait longer between applications

What is the Best Fertilizer for My Lawn?

Here in Florida, we have warm-season grasses including Bermuda, Zoysia, Bahia, Buffalo, Centipede, and St. Augustine. These types of grass go dormant in the winter. If you live further up north, Bentgrass and Kentucky Bluegrass are common. These types of grasses typically remain green year-round and will grow up until winter.

When Should You Fertilize Your Lawn?

If you live in Florida where you have warm-season grass, we recommend having your lawn fertilized in early spring when your grass begins to grow, then again in late spring, and once more in late summer. People with cool-season grass are suggested to fertilize their lawn in the spring and twice during fall.

Can You Over Fertilize Your Lawn?

As with anything else, too much of a good thing can be bad. If too much fertilizer is applied to your lawn, the salt and nitrogen levels in your soil will increase and potentially kill or grass. This is called fertilizer burn. Below are the signs of fertilizer burn.

Patches of dead grass
Browning or yellowing of grass
Withering of grass

A lot of factors come into play when it comes to lawn fertilizer, but choosing the right one and applying it correctly will leave you with a beautiful, thick and green lawn that will have your neighbors green with envy. That’s why it’s important to hire a landscaping company to take care of it all for you. Landscaping contractors know grass, understand the local area, and have the equipment to properly apply your fertilizer. They will also work with you to come up with a schedule so you don’t have to remember when to fertilize your lawn again.

Fertilizer landscaping

Improve Your Commercial Image With Landscape Design

Palm trees and flowers around building. Grasshoppers talks about improving your commercial image with landscape design in Orlando FL

As a business owner, you pay very close attention to detail when it comes to your brand from logos to brochures and advertising to interior decor. But what about the exterior of your business? The outside of your business, including your landscaping, is just as important. This is the first thing a potential customer sees. In this article, we’ll talk about ways the right landscaping can boost your commercial image.

Landscape Design Can Attract Customers

A great first impression starts outside of your business. If your exterior looks old and rundown, a passerby may not even give a second glance at your location. Adding a beautiful landscape design outside will not only create a more inviting atmosphere but it will also help provide potential customers, tenants or investors with a taste of your company’s values.

Beautiful Landscaping Creates a Safe and Fun Environment

With the right plants, trees, palms, and shrubs your outdoor landscaping will also promote social interaction. Your employees may want to take a break from being inside and enjoy the wonderful weather. Florida isn’t called “The Sunshine State” for nothing.

For clients or customers, they may find a bench or shady spot to lay down and read a book, sip on coffee or just relax and unwind.

Incorporating pathway lighting, natural barriers, and strategically placed bushes will help to improve security. This not only helps make the area safer, but it also aids in deterring criminals and thus lowers crime in the area.

Landscaping Sets a Final Impression

In addition to a first impression, the right landscaping can also provide customers with a final, lasting impression that will keep them returning for more of your services.

Landscaping Can Increase Your Property Value

When you add landscape design to your commercial property, you are helping it look its best. Well-Maintained landscaping has a significant price advantage to another that has no landscaping and is an added feature potential tenants are drawn to. Your increased property value can also help encourage improvement in the vicinity or neighborhood of your business.

What If I Already Have Landscaping?

Maybe you have a couple of plants and pavers outside of your property now. Landscape design like any other industry is continually changing, so it’s important to keep up with the trends and not remain stagnant. The right plants, trees, palms, and shrubs can mean the world of difference to your current landscaping.

Professionals in Commercial Landscape Design

Landscaping involves a lot more than just planting a couple of flowers and shrubs here and there. Landscaping is a well thought out design concept that incorporates science and art. Different flowers and plants require different amounts of sunlight, shade, and water. Flowers also bloom in different seasons. During the initial phases of working with a landscape design professional, they will take environment, weather, and elevation aspects into consideration as well as create an aesthetically pleasing and inviting first impression to someone walking or driving by.

We understand you already spend a great deal of time with your business and that last thing you may want to worry about is landscape maintenance and lawn care. At Grasshoppers, our designs are second to none. We’ll not only professionally design your landscaping according to your needs, but we’ll also regularly maintain it. This includes lawn care, irrigation, tree trimming, pruning, and other maintenance services. So if you’re interested in boosting your business with a new landscape design, contact us today, we’d love to help!

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