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The Benefits of a Healthy Landscape

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A healthy landscape is more than grass. It is a space that gives you peace. It also provides an aesthetic environment and can even make your home more valuable. Are you looking to improve the health of your lawn? There are many benefits of a healthy landscape. This article will give you some tips on how to create a beautiful healthy landscape in your yard!

The Environmental Benefits of Healthy a Landscape

  • Natural Air Conditioning – Grass is cooler than asphalt and cement. It serves as a “air conditioner” for the surroundings by lowering air temperatures. Lawns can be 31 degrees colder than asphalt and 20 degrees colder than bare soil. But there’s more: trees that shade houses may lower attic temperatures by up to 40 degrees Fahrenheit.
  • Sound Barriers – Lawns and plants are effective in reducing noise pollution. In fact, they can reduce noise levels by 20% to 30% over hard surfaces like concrete and pavement.
  • Turfgrass is another solution. It prevents runoff from reaching bodies of water. It does this by slowing and absorbing it into its root system.
  • Air Purifiers – Grasses take up carbon dioxide and break it down into oxygen and carbon. A 50’x50′ lawn, for example, is capable of producing enough oxygen for a family of four.
  • Water Protectors – Healthy lawns remove noxious runoff before it has a chance to filter into bodies of water.
  • Environmental Cleaners – Grasses serve as a filter for dust, smoke particles, and other pollutants while also producing oxygen.

Even in areas where water restrictions are in place and drought is present, grasses and gardens must be maintained as a viable component of healthy communities. There are several sustainable techniques for cultivated lawns and gardens that help to reduce water consumption while also providing important environmental benefits.

The Many Benefits of Commercial Landscapes

Humans’ interactions with plants, trees, and grass have also been researched and documented. People experience stress relief and healing when interacting with nature or watching it from a window, according to research. When children with ADHD are outside, they appear to concentrate better (Harvard Health Publications). Workers become more efficient when working in areas with plants.

However, what people intuitively feel about the plants and green spaces in their lives–that they improve their lives and that they wish to make an effort to include it into their routines–goes beyond what science has to say.

“63 percent of respondents reported being willing to pay more for an apartment or home in a neighborhood with great green spaces, compared to 34% who were willing to pay more for a place with good shopping and 33% who were ready to pay more for a location with nice cultural attractions,” according to the Husqvarna Global Garden Report 2012.

According to Love Your Landscape, there are many organizations researching and documenting the affect of plants and green spaces on the environment and on our lives including:

  • University of Washington, Center for Urban Forestry
  • Nature Sacred
  • Project Evergreen
  • Green Plants for Green Buildings
  • American Society of Landscape Architects
  • The Lawn Institute
  • Nebraska Agricultural Extension Station Research Bulletin
  • Department of Interior
  • National Park Service

For more information or to schedule and appointment, contact Paradise Landscape and Hardscape today. We have decades of experience discuss the benefits of a healthy landscape.

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Growing Grass in Tough Situations

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We know that you’re like most other homeowners around Annapolis. You want your lawn to be healthy, thick, and even thriving. When your yard and its grass aren’t growing well, you feel as bad as your yard looks. You might take it personally, but the trust is that some conditions make it hard to grow grass. The article below explains about Lawn Problem Areas: Growing Grass In Tough Situations.

Whether it’s having dogs in your yard, trying to grow under shade, or growing in a wet space, there are things you can do.

Learn the Schedule

Every kind of grass needs some level of nutrition, irrigation, and light. Determine the direction that your lawn faces to ascertain sunlight exposure.

Poor Soil

If your routine lawn care duties have you failing to succeed with getting your grass more healthy, then it might have to do with what’s happening underneath. No matter what you buy at the lawn and garden store, you can’t fix bad soil. Lawn aeration might be something to consider if your soil isn’t conducive to grass growth. Compost might also be helpful to microbial life inside your soil structure.

Study Your Soil

When was your last soil test? If it’s been a few years, then you should have an updated one done. Knowing what your soil needs is necessary to actually giving it the right addendums.

A Shady Situation

Having too much shade is another factor that might make growing grass difficult to accomplish. Even the kinds of grass known for their tolerance of shade need some sunlight. Tree pruning that thins out the canopy is a possible answer that lets more sunlight filter down to your lawn.

Pull Your Weeds

Weeds can be a nuisance in the middle of summer, but they can also overrun shady areas anytime of year. Rid your yard of them before you seed what you really want in your yard.

Overseed

When you do spring and autumn seeding, do overseeding in trouble areas. Make sure they get enough water, but also make sure there is enough drainage. Soil that is too wet, too long will be susceptible to mold, fungus, and root rot. Don’t let this happen.

Summertime Sadness

Having a hard time growing grass in Annapolis, MD summers? Drought conditions or just long periods of heat can be a problem, even if you think the grass should be growing well during such stretches of time. For that matter, the one thing that might be growing well is weeds among dry weather stressing your grass.

Know Your Zone

The USDA has a plant hardiness zone map listing various Koppen climate classifications. There are several around Annapolis, and knowing your specific type helps you pick the best grass to thrive in your yard.

Dog Days

Protect your lawn and take back the porch with Paradise Landscape and Hardscape. It’s time to say goodbye to dirt, pee burns, runaway dog collars, wild plants choking up their roots, lawn furnishings sinking in sodden grass… at least outside of your homestead! We can’t promise that you won’t have any garden invaders or pee incidents indoors – after all they’re called dogs for a reason- but we will end any surprises come summertime by gardening both inside (yes!) and out (they deserve it)! Dogs that love digging are another issue, but training is still a potential answer.

Chat Up Your Neighbors

The fellow homeowners living up and down your block will probably be all too happy to hear about how great their yard looks. Compliment them when appropriate, and see if they’ll tell you the kinds of turf that they are using.

Sloped Terrain

Some homeowners call us for lawn care services because they don’t like pushing and pulling lawnmowers up and down banked terrain. We’ve also learned just how different it is to grow grass here. There are times that grass on a bank gets more sun than other spots. That sounds great, but it looks different than the rest of the yard. Also, if it gets less sunlight, then that spot needs some extra TLC. Fortunately, most of the time, just giving a slope additional attention can get it looking the rest of the yard.

Wet Spots

Low spots on your property might need more lawn care in Annapolis, MD than the rest of your yard. Grass might struggle if it has soaked roots starving from oxygen deprivation. Soggy grass might indicated that you need better drainage in that part of your property.

Mossy Areas

If you wind up dealing with a double whammy of wet soil and shade, then you might see moss taking over. This usually happens during really wet seasons, but compacted soil that doesn’t drain well can also be susceptible to it. Our lawn maintenance services can be an effective answer to this specific situation.

Don’t Mow Low

Consider raising the deck on your mower up to about 3 inches. Leaving the blades on your grass longer will obviously make the grass look longer because it is. It also leaves more of the plant above the surface to capture rainwater and sunlight. That all adds up to more nutrition and health for the overall plant structure thanks to longer blades. At a minimum, trouble spots should be mowed with a deck height of half an inch higher than the rest of the yard.

Do You Need Landscape Services in Annapolis, MD?

Hopefully, all these various tips help you with growing grass in your yard. If you have Lawn Problem Areas: Growing Grass in Tough Situations , we can help. However, if they don’t, or you just don’t like handling lawn care on your own, then you need lawn maintenance services provided by professionals. Whether it’s landscape drainage solutions or any other lawn care services, contact us today at Paradise Landscape and Hardscape, LLC so we can help you out.

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