3 Ways to Take the Hard Work Out of Home Landscaping

Green plants in a garden

With spring around the corner, it’s time to get serious about your spring and summer gardening plans. If you have never gardened before (or if you have not enjoyed previous attempts), it’s important to learn some methods that can save you a lot of time and energy, while yielding excellent results. Gardening may be a labor of love, but the labor doesn’t have to be grueling. Follow these three tips, courtesy of the Parke Company, and you’ll have much better results come spring (without throwing out your back).

Irrigation – We can’t stress enough how great irrigation can be. With a simple drip hose installed around your thirsty plants, all you have to do every day is turn on your garden hose, and the miracle of modern plumbing will do the rest. Watering with a regular gardening can may not seem like a burden, but it’s hard to make time for it every day. This is especially true when the sun is scorching – the time when your plants need water the most! The Parke Company can help you install a simple drip line that reduces your watering time to seconds, and serves without maintenance for several seasons to come.

Mulch. Mulch is such a normal fixture in American flower beds that we sometimes forget what it is for. Mulching serves a number of purposes. It reduces weeds, by choking them out from light and air. It keeps moisture in the ground from evaporating during the hottest days of the year. It slowly decomposes, allowing new nutrients to flow into the ground. It also protects plants during the winter, like a natural blanket against cold temperatures that could damage roots. You can mulch with woodchips, leaves, pine needles, compost, coffee grounds, or manure (depending on the situation). Pro Tip: at the end of the summer, put down sheets of cardboard over open garden soil, then cover with regular mulch. Over the winter, the cardboard will kill weed seeds, then break down into soil for next spring’s planting!

Fertilize. The Parke Company knows a thing or two about fertilization. It’s the difference between plants that thrive and plants that die. You can fertilize year round. Chemical fertilizers should be used according to manufacturer directions. There are plenty of natural soil additives that can improve your soil likewise. Compost and manure are ideal, though any organic material on the way towards decomposition will work nicely. Depending on the plants you’re growing, additives like bone meal and fish emulsion can get incredible results. It’s hard for soil to be “too fertile”. When in doubt, try to achieve soil that is very dark and fluffy, with worms and other critters living in it. Plants tend to like this kind of growing medium.
The Parke Company wants you to have an amazing bounty when it comes time to harvest time in Nashville, with plenty of beautiful green growth along the way. Even if you’ve had a hard time with gardening projects in the past, these simple techniques should help you find new enjoyment in the hobby.