Five Easy Ways Anyone Can Improve Their Green Space

No matter what the climate or situation, every homeowner can enjoy the environmental, economic and lifestyle benefits that come from caring from your lawn and landscape. Proper care of trees, grass and shrubs is surprisingly simple, and its rewards are numerous on both a personal and community level.

Here are five quick tips for maximizing the benefits of your green space:

1. Take care of your grass. While this may seem like an obvious piece of advice, it's often overlooked. Taking care of your own front yard is a good first step toward protecting and maintaining your green space. Lawns play a major role in protecting ground water by reducing runoff, thus preventing soil erosion, maintaining soil permeability and conserving water. Lawns also provide an extension of your overall living space, and for many families they become an enjoyable private oasis.

2. Choose flowers and plants that suit your area's climate. It's imperative to choose plants and flowers that tolerate your area's climate. Choosing the correct plants will ensure a beautiful garden year after year and make the job of caring for your plants much easier. Having a beautiful green space has also been known to lower blood pressure, reduce muscle tension, improve attention spans and reduce feelings of fear and aggression.

3. Prune, prune, prune. Pruning is important to maintain your flowers, plants and shrubs year after year, but it also needs to be done correctly. Improper pruning can actually be more harmful than neglecting to prune completely. Proper pruning will produce better blooms, maintain a plant's desired size, and can even rejuvenate an older shrub. Having well-maintained flowers and shrubs will not only make your green space more attractive, but it will also provide a protective habitat for birds and other creatures that serve to enhance the natural beauty of your outdoor living space.

4. Enrich your soil with a compost pile. Who knew those old coffee grounds, filters and dryer lint could be the golden ticket to creating a beautiful green space? These types of materials, combined with yard clippings, wood chips and leaves, regenerate your soil. The breakdown of these materials creates humus, which is a nutrient-filled material, helping the soil to retain moisture. Compost can also cut down on plant disease and repel pests that are damaging to your yard. Creating a compost pile will not only provide rich nutrients that your soil needs, but it also helps the environment by cutting back on landfill waste, thus extending the life of the landfill.

5. Plant a tree. Planting a tree is one of the most simple and effective activities you can perform to improve your green space. In areas of new construction, many neighborhoods start out virtually treeless. The results include high cooling costs, less oxygen and more pollutants. There are many trees that are inexpensive and fast-growing. In fact, some can grow up to 12' per year, quickly reversing the effects of new construction. Trees not only help to keep the heat out of the house, but they also cool the outside temperature around your home as well. A study in Huntsville, Ala. showed a 31-degree difference between the shaded and unshaded areas of a parking lot. By using trees to modify temperatures, the amount of fossil fuels used for cooling and heating is reduced.

6. Hire only a Professional to handle your yard needs. Remember to hire a Professional landscaper for your lawn care needs.  

Updating and maintaining your green spaces is easy! The environmental, economic and lifestyle benefits that trees, grass, shrubs and flowers provide are well worth the extra effort it takes to create and maintain a well-manicured landscape.

Provided info by http://www.projectevergreen.com/resources/five-easy-ways-anyone-can-improve-their-green-spac/

Having these resources on speed-dial will help solve any landscape faux pas, it's bound to happen at one point or another to all homeowners. You walk out of the house and notice brown spots popping up throughout your lawn, or that hundreds of dollars worth of beautiful plants and flowers appear to be dying before your eyes. These moments call for expert advice, and fast!

National non-profit organization Project EverGreen recommends five must-have resources to answer any lawn or landscape question:

1. Local extension office. Each state has at least one extension center as part of the Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service (CSREES), an agency within the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The CSREES funds state and local programs that research all topics relating to plants, flowers, insects, invasive species, diseases and so on.

If you need to know what growing zone you are in, how to eliminate a rodent that is invading your yard, or tips to keep your flowers looking beautiful, your local extension office is a great resource. Often, someone from the office will come out to inspect your problem and help you find the easiest and most cost-effective solution. To find the extension office nearest you, visit http://www.csrees.usda.gov/Extension/index.html.

2. Landscape professional. A landscape professional is like a Swiss Army knife for your yard - they have all the right tools to enhance your green space! Not only can they plant flowers, trees and shrubs, but they can also install underground sprinklers, build water features, seed or sod your yard, and most importantly, offer specific guidelines to care for your landscape.

This is especially important in new housing developments, as much landscaping work comes with a guarantee. If your newly laid sod or brand-new tree dies, they will come and replace it at no extra cost. When choosing a landscaper, be sure to ask about their guarantee, or negotiate a guarantee into their estimate. To locate a certified landscape professional near you, visit http://www.landcarenetwork.org/cms/home/homeowners.html.

3. Local lawn and garden center. If you have specific questions about a plant or tree, or want to do your own landscaping project, there's no better resource than your local lawn and garden center. The employees are trained experts in your area and can help you hand-pick flowers and shrubs that will grow properly based on factors such as the direction your house faces, the time of year you want blooms, and the space you have available for planting.

They can help you pick a tree that will flower, produce fruit or attract birds, depending on what you're looking for. Many offer free tree planting and a minimum one-year guarantee on the trees they sell. Best of all, the advice they have to offer is FREE.

4. Lawn care company. When mysterious brown spots or grubs begin overtaking your lawn, or crabgrass is growing out of control, a professional lawn care company should be the first call you make. Whether you want to hire the company to treat your lawn, or you simply want to know what problems are popping up in the area, these people are the experts. A lawn care company can put together a treatment plan for your lawn that usually consists of three to five treatments.

5. YOU. While expert advice is tremendously useful, it won't help unless you're dedicated to maintaining your outdoor living space. It's too easy to get wrapped up in daily activities and simply not notice your yard's little problems before they become big ones. Remember to regularly perform a thorough inspection of your lawn, trees and plants, noting any areas of concern. You'll end up saving yourself a great deal of time, money and frustration in the long run.

It's hard to be an expert on everything you should do for your lawn and the newest trends in landscape design, but these experts are there to help you. Updating and maintaining your green space provides many economic, environmental and lifestyle benefits. By understanding these benefits, you're greatly improving your life and helping to lower and maintain your energy use and costs.

There's a lot to know about creating and maintaining a beautiful landscape. This section of the Sunshine Landscaping site will provide you with information to help you. Like a patch of lawn with grubs or the wrong Ph, it's a little thin right now. But, it will grow over time.

• Benefits of landscaping
  Your landscape is the "frame" around your home or business, enhancing curb appeal or distracting and diminishing it. It can also decrease noise levels, aid in energy conservation, and create a more soothing, relaxed and inviting environment. A well-maintained landscape has many benefits, often including increased market value.
• Proper lawn watering
  It's more complicated than you might think. Read Proper Lawn Watering for some good ideas.
• Skunks excavating your lawn at night or unexplained patches of dead grass?
  Look for the underground enemy: grubs! Eating their way to adulthood, ruining your lawn, and providing sustenance for the skunks.
  
  If you could see them, you would destroy them. However, grubs live below the surface of your lawn feeding on the roots of grass plants. Because they're underground, grubs are difficult to control. Grubs hatch in August and feed through mid-October. Most lawns, when properly maintained, can tolerate some grub feeding.
  
  If you notice "dead spots" or thinning in areas of your lawn that aren't subjected to heavy foot traffic, you should inspect the grass plant roots. To do this remove several square feet of turf (2 to 3 inches deep). If you find more than a half dozen grubs - small fat, light colored worms with a dark head on one end - you should begin a control program. Call Sunshine for more detailed information on saving your lawn.
• Preparing for winter
  Winter in New England is as tough on landscapes as it is on people, but you can take steps to prepare your landscape so that it has the best opportunity to survive the season, and we can help you plan and take those steps to protect your yard - the lawn, walks, trees, and plantings.

Contact Sunshine...

We will be glad to stop by your property to look at it and discuss your needs with you. To set up an appointment or just to ask for more information, contact us at the phone numbers and address below, click on the "Contact Us" link, or send an e-mail to info@sunshinelandscapingco.com.

SUNSHINE
Landscaping Company
4 Sargent Street
Cherry Valley, MA 01611
(508) 892-3042