You can be successful installing your own new landscape project with professional help. We have two landscape design services for do-it-yourselfers. One service requires you to take pictures and measurements, bring them to our store and a designer will work with you there. The other service is where a designer goes to your house/landscape site to help you with a small project. Designers will provide you with a working sketch that you can follow to assure a proper design and installation.

If you would like a designer to come to your house please call 513-984-8733 to set up an appointment.

As homeowners we usually can’t see the future of what our landscape will look like, we have to trust the ideas and designs of a landscape designer. I’ve preached before about planning before planting, preparing for the future growth of plants, planting depth and we can never forget the location location, location. The last and final thing is the sauce.

Just like a great meal which has many ingredients all mixed together to create that masterpiece dish, we have to prepare the right sauce for our plants. O.K. sauce you say, well the soil our plants grow in is what I mean. If we don’t prepare our soil properly, then we shouldn’t expect the plants to thrive.

99% of us have clay and there’s not a whole lot we can do about it. The majority of the problem is we tend to really want to help the soil and put too much good stuff in. Just an extra pinch of this and an extra pinch of that won’t hurt anything right? I’m no culinary expert, but it doesn’t take much to ruin a recipe just because we think “Just a little bit more of this and YUCK!”

As a general rule of thumb, you do not amend planting beds any more that 20% by volume of bed space. Forget about amending trees. Once the tree gets beyond the planting hole, it has to grow in the clay anyway.

The best products for amending soil are Pine Bark Fines, compost such as Numus , Posy Power and a little dash of Peat Moss. Again remembering the rule of no more than 20% along with the right planting depth, you will be rewarded with wonderful gardens.

You may wonder why I might take such a simple topic, which for the most part should be common sense, and take up space on our news letter. Well, over the years, I’ve seen a lot of mistakes covered up by mulch. When a landscape project is complete, it may look great, but do you really know what went into the sauce?

It could be several years later (after the warranty has expired) that plants begin to decline. Only then, do you discover that either no amending what so ever was done or you have a quagmire of black gunk that the plants have been sitting in. Unfortunately by then, it is too late.

When planning a landscape renovation project, get involved and know what’s in that SAUCE!