Denny's Soapbox

There’s a lot of do’s planted in our landscapes that might be growing a lot better if the planning came first.

There’s not much that a homeowner can physically do to their home landscape in January. It can be so wet this month that just a walk across the lawn is difficult. In fact, keep foot traffic on the lawn to a minimum either while it’s extremely wet or frozen. Both conditions can cause permanent lawn damage that will appear later in the spring. So, we’ll all agree that you can’t plant this month, but you can take this opportunity to plan.

Is the basic landscape planting around your house starting to show it’s age? The landscape can date your house just like the kitchen and bathroom inside your home. Is the only seasonal color you have during the spring and summer caused by summer blooming annuals? There are many new perennials and flowering shrubs that can give you tremendous seasonal color and they only have to be planted once and continue to grow in size and beauty. Does your existing landscape cause you to spend more time maintaining than enjoying? There are many, many low maintenance plants, from annuals to trees that are available. I can’t afford to re-landscape my entire home? Re-landscaping can be done by sections, over a 3 to 5 year period by having a plan to work from.

There’s that word plan again. You plan a vacation. You plan a party. A new or remodeled home is constructed from a plan and so it should be with your landscape. You say “Hey, I’m not a landscape designer” and you don’t have to be. That job can be done by any of the fine landscape designers who, for the most part, are not very busy this month or next, same holds true for you do-it-yourselfers. There are many great year round garden centers and nursery stores that have some very talented people just dusting the shelves. Take advantage of this time of year to get professional planning done so when spring arrives, you’re ready to go and not standing in a line at the garden center waiting for someone to assist you or waiting 2 to 3 weeks for that professional landscape designer to show up at your home and then find out your project can’t be done for 5 or 6 weeks.

Call now or stop in. You will find that you’ve accomplished two things.

1. A landscape that has the right plants in the right location.

2. A landscape design that is very colorful and a total complement to the home.