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How to Turn Your Yard Into a Winter Wonderland This Holiday Season

November 22, 2024December 12, 2023 by The Parke Company

House with Christmas lights and decorations.

No matter how beautiful your landscaping is, there’s always room for improvement. Creating a beautiful and healthy yard is a year-round task, so here’s how to ensure your landscaping is a winter wonderland this holiday season.

Ways to Transforming Your Outdoor Space into a Winter Wonderland

Fall and Winter Maintenance

The best way to guarantee your lawn looks like a winter wonderland this holiday season is to keep it clean. It’s impossible to overstate the importance of a well-manicured yard, from an aesthetic standpoint and in terms of your lawn’s overall health. Fall and winter are the messiest times of year for lawns, with fallen sticks and leaves creating ugly, grass-smothering conditions. It’s important to note that leaves aren’t just a fall inconvenience — they can damage your lawn and other plants in your landscaping.

So, if you want your front yard to be a winter wonderland, fall and winter cleanup is critical. Staying on top of the rapidly falling leaves can be a challenge on your own, but performing regular raking or leaf blowing can help keep the leaf piles to a minimum. If you’re having trouble managing your fall and winter cleanup, landscaping companies like The Parke Company offer winter landscape maintenance services that include leaf and stick removal. Nobody loves spending their fall weekends raking, so why not get help from the experts? Besides having specialized tools that enable much more efficient leaf removal, The Parke Company landscapers can also perform other maintenance on your property.

Your landscaping depends on each component being healthy within the ecosystem, and your trees are especially important. It’s not easy to get your lawn looking like a winter wonderland, but one important aspect is tree pruning. Pruning trees and shrubs is critical to keeping your lawn looking its best, and your tree health can be greatly impacted by whether pruning is done, and how it’s done.

The best time of year to prune trees is the winter, for a few important reasons. Arborists, or tree surgeons, want to look at the tree in its full glory in order to assess for damaged limbs. Without leaves, a tree is laid bare and can be easily visually inspected. There is a wrong way to remove a branch or branches from a tree, and doing it incorrectly can actually harm a tree much more than help it. In the winter, trees are dormant, not expending their limited resources and energy on anything but surviving. Since pruning a tree is traumatic for trees, they need to have enough energy to devote to healing. Unlike in spring and summer, your trees are not using energy to grow new leaves and buds, so winter is the perfect time for them to focus on healing.

Well-manicured trees are more than just aesthetically pleasing — they’re also more prepared for winter weather. The weight from snow can cause fallen limbs and branches to clutter your yard or even damage vehicles and property. By removing these limbs before the winter weather can happen, you eliminate that concern.

If you have an irrigation system for your lawn, how you care for it can greatly impact its longevity. Each fall, as the weather cools, it’s important to perform several maintenance steps to winterize your irrigation system. Freezing temperatures can cause water in improperly drained sprinkler systems to freeze and expand, destroying sprinklers and pipes. Avoid costly repairs this spring to your irrigation system by ensuring it’s properly winterized.

Winter Hardscapes

Installing Christmas winter wonderland yard decorations can be a hassle without proper equipment and experience. From holiday lighting to lawn decor and a yard’s overall decoration design, things can get pretty complicated. Landscaping companies like The Parke Company can help more than you think, from planning to installing holiday lighting fixtures and decor.

But it’s not just lighting and holiday decor that create a wintry landscaping dream. Other hardscapes in your garden can be great for practical purposes as well. Why not install a fire pit for cozy gatherings by the fireside, or a pergola or gazebo for covered outdoor meeting places. Nashville winters are often mild, and spending some time outdoors in a warm and well-themed environment can be a great way to socialize or entertain. Wreaths, garlands, and other decor can also be provided and installed by a landscaping company, so don’t assume your landscaper is limited to more general-use decor and hardscapes. It’s always worth asking what they provide, or whether they can help to install the yard decorations for holidays you’ve purchased on your own. It’s much easier to put lights on a tree using a boom lift than a ladder — trust us.

Holiday Softscapes

Nothing says winter wonderland quite like evergreen trees. The pine tree has been a staple of Christmas decor for centuries, and its aesthetic value can be great year-round. The late fall is the perfect time to plant new trees in your landscaping, and evergreens are popular options for enhancing those holiday aesthetics. When every other tree and plant is bare, evergreens provide a pop of green that your lawn desperately needs.

Evergreens are an excellent choice for winter regardless of whether or not you celebrate Christmas, and their benefits don’t stop at aesthetics. Pine trees provide eco-friendly mulch in the form of their dropped needles. Pine needles can be used to mulch garden beds and around trees, making your lawn more self-sustaining. Evergreen shrubs are just as festive in their appearance as evergreen trees, and they can be pruned and shaped into festive designs by skilled topiarists.

Get in the Holiday Spirit With The Parke Company

No matter what you need to do this winter with your landscaping, The Parke Company has you covered. If you’re ready to begin your yard’s transformation into a winter wonderland, give us a call today for a free consultation and estimate for whatever winter services you need.

Tree Planting in Nashville: Fall Benefits

January 17, 2025November 25, 2023 by The Parke Company

As the days grow shorter and temperatures start to drop, you might be thinking that your work on your landscaping can take a nice long pause when the weather’s cold. While it might sound counter-intuitive, many arborists recommend planting trees in the late fall and early winter over any other time of year. Here are the primary reasons this season works best for planting trees in Nashville.

Why Tree Planting in Nashville, TN is Optimal in Late Fall and Early Winter

Soil Temperature

Optimal tree planting in Nashville is different from other regions in the country, and that’s important to note. Depending on the climate of an area, late fall might not be ideal for different areas. Here in Nashville, we don’t usually see a frost or a rare snowfall until winter is in full swing. Soil temperature during late fall into early winter in our region is ideal for planting trees. Soil temperatures take much longer to lower than outside air temperatures, and that’s especially true in lawns with healthy grass and turf. Soil holds onto heat much better than air, so it is usually warmer than the harshest winter days. As November rolls around, soil temperatures in Nashville are still a bit above that 50-degree threshold, meaning it’s almost perfect. The reasons for this temperature being ideal are many. For deciduous trees especially, newly implanted roots grow their best in temperate soil. Deciduous trees are trees that foliate and defoliate each year, meaning they lose their leaves each fall and grow new ones in the spring.

Can you plant trees in the winter? In Nashville, you can! But just because it’s early winter doesn’t mean it’s always the right time. We are no strangers to cold snaps that drop temperatures below the safe threshold for planting. If soil temperature is too low, new roots will not be able to move freely beneath the soil. Roots are tough, but their leading ends are small, making them weak against frozen soil. Not only does frost make expansion impossible — it can also kill premature roots that are just developing. When it comes to planting evergreen trees, you need to start the process a bit earlier, as these trees need a soil temperature of 60 degrees.

Not every tree is the same, and each has its own quirks. It’s important to research the types of trees you’re looking to plant before it’s too late so that they have the best odds of flourishing this spring. Working with a certified arborist is a great way to make sure you’re giving your tree the healthiest start this winter. The Parke Company can help, as we’ve been servicing Nashville clients with new trees and other landscaping services for years.

Moisture Levels

Winter and fall are usually considerably less wet than spring and summer in Nashville, and that’s a good thing for saplings. While trees do need water at all times, a little can go a long way when the temperatures are cooler. Planting trees in fall ensures that your tree is getting the moisture it needs, without a high risk of too much rainfall. While you can’t predict the weather, climate trends going back decades suggest that the optimal time to plant trees in Nashville is in the late fall and early winter. If a new tree gets too much water, it can actually become overhydrated, or even fail to take root entirely. In the spring, when rainfall is heaviest, the soil can become a breeding ground for fungal growth and other diseases in trees, both old and new.

Planting trees in winter is a safe way to prevent this issue, as lower temperatures keep fungal growth to a minimum, even in the soil which is considerably warmer than the air above it. Winter is a drier time of year, and new trees need that from their new homes.

Lower Stress

Trees experience stress a bit differently than people. While a tree doesn’t worry about taxes, they do need to contend with different levels of environmental factors that can cause them stress. In trees and other plants, stress refers to anything that can negatively impact growth. The act of transplanting a sapling is a very stressful act for a tree, so it needs to have as few external stressors as possible. So, not only can you plant trees in the winter — you also should for many reasons, stress reduction being chief among them.

A new tree needs to spread its roots out as quickly as possible in order to get the nutrients it needs and establish a sturdy foundation. Since winter is a dormant time of year for trees above the ground, they don’t need to focus nutritional resources on maintaining their foliage and growing new leaves. This gives the roots that much more energy and focus, which is what a new tree needs most. Pests and insects are other environmental stressors that can kill a new tree relatively easily. While mature trees have the ability to coexist with many native insects and animals, that isn’t the case for saplings. These young trees need to invest their energy and nutrients into establishing a solid root system before they can be expected to handle external stressors. That makes the winter a perfect time for a tree to get this done. Planting your trees when the weather is cool ensures almost no insects will bother them, as they are dormant during the winter. Animals are likewise stocking up or hibernating during the cold season, meaning they aren’t out in your yard looking for food – they already have it.

Time to Plant?

There are many reasons for late fall and early winter being the best time of year to plant a tree in Nashville, and the explanations outlined above are the key takeaways. It’s certainly a good idea to invest more time and research into optimal tree planting times, however, so give us a call at The Parke Company for a free consultation and estimate on your landscaping needs this fall.

Is Tree Removal Dangerous? Safety Tips You Need to Know

November 22, 2024November 13, 2023 by The Parke Company

Trees are the largest feature of any landscape, and while the trees on your property contribute to its beauty, they should also be taken seriously. When it comes to tree removal, the act of cutting it down needs to be conducted in a safe and professional manner. Read on to learn about the risks tree removal can pose, and how to prevent damage.

What to Know About Safe Tree Removal

The Dangers of Dead Trees and Fallen Limbs

While trees make excellent aesthetic additions to your landscaping, they can pose threats to you and your property. Healthy trees are typically nothing to worry about, even in relatively high winds. But how do you know a tree is healthy? Issues like disease, old age, pests, and storm damage can weaken trees to the point that they become fall risks. Sometimes the warning signs are clear, and other times it’s hard to notice. Periodically checking on your trees, or hiring a landscaper to check the trees on your property can ensure they are healthy and stay that way. Safe tree removal is critical to prevent your trees from causing damage.

What’s important is that you are proactive about the health of your trees, because it can save your property from damage and occupants from harm. Even when it’s obvious a tree needs to be removed, its issues can greatly complicate its removal.

So, what are the dangers of cutting down trees? Trees can weigh several tons, and reach heights that dwarf your home by the time they become mature. Their large mass becomes a formidable object against anything in your yard, including your home. Trees don’t usually die all at once. Branches and sections of a tree can die while other parts flourish, creating the illusion that the tree is healthy. As a result, trees don’t often fall all at once. Instead, limbs and sections of the tree die and decay until they fall. Sometimes it’s a result of high winds, but it can also happen when the weight becomes too much for the structure of a tree to bear.

Fallen limbs can be just as dangerous as full trees when it comes to property damage and bodily harm. If a root system dies, or the tree does die completely (which usually occurs in the trunk of the tree) a total collapse is possible. Falling trees can destroy homes, cars, block roads, and harm people or animals on your property. This is a serious risk, and it’s something a homeowner must take seriously if there are trees near the home. Tree removal is usually necessary to prevent damage from happening, but there is inherent risk in removing a tree as well.

Safe Tree Removal

Removing a tree does come with associated risks, including death. The safest way to remove a tree is to have it done by an arborist, or tree surgeon. Safe tree removal starts with a proper diagnosis of the issues.

How do you safely remove a tree? An experienced arborist is the best bet for safe tree removal. Arborists not only have experience and knowledge of trees that the average homeowners lack, but they also have the proper tools to get it done safely. The method of removing a tree piece by piece is generally the safest method, reducing a tree into smaller parts from the top down. It’s sometimes necessary to cut a tree down all at once, an act that’s called felling. Felling a tree involves using a chainsaw or ax to chop a tree down, and using ropes and other methods to guide its fall. An arborist can assist the tree in falling in a certain direction by cutting it in a particular way. This is an effective way to remove smaller trees that don’t pose the same level of risk, or are inaccessible to heavy machinery like lifts that enable removing a tree in pieces. You might be tempted to try this yourself if the tree is small or you’re worried about cost, but watching videos online won’t prepare you for the risks involved. Even smaller trees can fall in catastrophic ways. Consider the pressure that a trunk is under from the weight of a tree, even one that isn’t exceptionally large. Splintering wood as a tree breaks apart can cause cuts or harm your eyes if proper precautions aren’t taken.

Even if you cut the tree in a way that should cause it to fall in one direction, it can fall in the opposite. Things like internal decay, ground level, soil composition, and wind can all greatly change the trajectory of a fall. Besides the obvious risk of it falling on you or someone else, it can damage nearby property as well. Tree removal service is the safer option in every case. An arborist is your best bet for ensuring that your tree is removed safely and efficiently, and minimizing risk to yourself and others.

Getting Professional Assistance for Tree Removal

The Parke Company has been working with trees for years in the Nashville area, and our experienced arborists are all certified to perform tree inspections, limb removal, and total tree removal on your property. This is one area where cutting costs and doing things yourself can prove catastrophic, so it’s best not to attempt tree removal on your own. Tree removal near you can be affordable, and even if it’s more than you’d like to part with, the cost of peace of mind is much greater than the risks associated with doing it alone.

Tree removal is an incredibly risky proposition because nature is inherently unpredictable. If you’d like to learn more about what a qualified arborist from The Parke Company can do to help you with the trees on your property, from planting new trees to removing old ones safely, give us a call today.

Why Municipalities Must Invest in Leaf Removal and Pickup Services

March 7, 2024October 25, 2023 by The Parke Company

A man and a woman raking leaves and high-fiving.

Leaf removal is a huge issue for homeowners and cities alike. Here is why it’s important for municipalities to invest in leaf removal and pickup services and how The Parke Company can help.

What to Know About Fallen Leaves and Leaf Removal Services

What Fallen Leaves Do to a Lawn

In the United States, people have begun to question the necessity of leaf pickup services, claiming that the natural decomposition of fallen leaves benefits the ecosystem. While this is true in a forest, odds are your home isn’t directly in the middle of the woods. Gardens and lawns do indeed benefit from some leaf coverage, but chances are leaving it unchecked will do more harm than good. If mulched, fallen leaves can act as fertilizer for garden beds and lawns, helping promote growth once spring comes.

The reality is that there are far too many fallen leaves to simply let nature run its course. Think of a forest floor; it’s in an eternal state of decay and regrowth, and leaves, while biodegradable, don’t conveniently disappear every season. In fact, leaves can last for years. Leaf removal is important for both rural and urban properties because of the emphasis we place on gardens and lawns. Thick layers of leaves can cause a variety of issues for your lawn, garden, and even your trees. While the grass in your lawn, plants in your garden, and trees nearby go dormant in the winter, they don’t become invulnerable. They still need some sunlight, moisture, and air to properly rest.

When covered by leaves, grass and garden plants are deprived of necessary nutrients. Leaf piles are also incredibly good at trapping moisture, keeping water out of the soil and causing fungal growth at the surface. Trapped under leaves, grass roots can die, leaving bald spots in your lawn come spring that take time to regrow once the leaves are cleared. Decaying leaves also act as a good hiding place for garden pests and can spread diseases to trees. Clearing a lawn of leaves each fall is incredibly important to ensure its health in the spring.

How to Collect Fallen Leaves Yourself

There are many methods for conducting leaf pickup in your yard, and each has its pros and cons. The simplest and most timeless method for leaf removal is a good old-fashioned rake. It’s rare to find a person who enjoys raking, but it’s necessary, and with the right tools, it can be an effective way to remove leaves from your lawn. One indispensable tool for moving a great deal of leaves all at once is a large tarp. Prepare to get your hands dirty and spend a day (or more, depending on the size of your property) moving leaf piles with a tarp. Start by raking leaves into large but manageable piles that will fit on your tarp, then transfer them to the tarp. Drag the tarp laden with leaves to one location where you’ll pile or bag leaves for collection. Bagging tools can be useful if your town requires leaves to be bagged prior to collection. Leaf chutes and other devices can help to stabilize the bag as you fill it and can make this job more bearable.

If you’re looking to get more high-tech, leaf blowers and lawnmowers are both effective ways to remove leaves. For an even easier time, they make lawn vacuums for collecting leaves, though they do come with a higher cost. Bagging systems for riding lawnmowers are slightly more affordable if you already have a riding mower. If you can’t quite afford that, investing in a powerful leaf blower is going to make a huge difference from raking alone. Battery-powered leaf blowers are usually the weakest fare, with the electric plug-in option being the next most powerful. Gas-powered blowers are the strongest but also the most expensive and noisiest option. It’s all about knowing your own needs and experimenting with different devices that are available. Borrow a neighbor’s blower to see if it really makes a difference for your yard, and you might just decide that a rake is enough.

Why Municipalities Must Invest in Leaf Removal

Hopefully now you have a better understanding of why you need to get out there and rake the lawn or hire a landscaping company to clear the leaves for you. But without a city’s intervention, no amount of work on the part of a homeowner is going to be enough. Once their leaves are cleaned up, where are they going to go? This is where the municipality and city government must invest taxpayer money into leaf removal services.

Smaller cities simply cannot afford expensive leaf removal machinery, which can be very hard to acquire. That’s where landscaping companies come in. Contracting with a landscaping company for city leaf removal is a cost-effective way for cities to deal with leaves without breaking the bank. Leaves, much like trash or recycling, can be collected on a schedule, enabling homeowners to plan the removal for a time and date that suits their needs. Landscape services take the collected leaves and can use them to create fertilizer and mulch, which can then be used by the city to maintain garden beds and public parks. Another major reason to remove leaves from the city is to prevent damage to infrastructure. Leaves getting into the drainage system can cause problems because they quickly cause blockages. These blockages make surface roads flood and back up sewers. Additionally, roadways and sidewalks that are buried under leaves become dangerous, resulting in accidents and potential injuries. There are plenty of reasons to want leaves out of your city, and landscaping companies can help.

Getting Some Help

If you’re in or near Nashville, TN, The Parke Company offers leaf removal service near you. If doing it yourself just won’t work due to time constraints, physical limitations, or the size of your lawn, we can help. Leaf removal provided by The Parke Company is a comprehensive service that includes the removal of leaves from the property if municipal services aren’t available. We can also provide mulch created from leaves for an additional charge to help give your garden a boost when spring arrives.

It’s not just homeowners who can benefit from fall leaf cleanup provided by a landscaping company. Don’t get caught in winter with the leaves still piling up on your lawn. Give us a call for a free consultation and estimate on leaf removal services.

Irrigation Winterization: When and Why to Do It and What It Entails

September 11, 2024October 12, 2023 by The Parke Company

With winter fast approaching, it’s never too early to start winterizing your lawn’s irrigation system this fall. But where do you start, and what does the process entail? Read on for all that information and more so that your irrigation system is ready for even the coldest winter.

What Is Irrigation Winterization?

Winterization is the process of preparing something for winter weather. While it sounds pretty straightforward, you must consider all the potential problems winter brings. Irrigation winterization is a multi-step process that requires a good deal of know-how and forethought. While the winter air is often drier, winters in Nashville are usually very wet. This extra precipitation can bog down irrigation systems that aren’t shut off or otherwise properly winterized, leading to flooded lawns and soil erosion. Flooded lawns can lose nutrients that your grass and plants will need in the spring, resulting in fungal blooms, mold, and less than adequate growth.

The Benefits of Winterization

The biggest reason to winterize your irrigation system is to ensure its longevity. Even here in Nashville, winter can get pretty cold. That cold weather can wreak havoc on an irrigation system that isn’t properly winterized. In the winter, even water underground can freeze. When it freezes, it expands, potentially cracking pipes and sprinklers alike in your irrigation system. These repairs are costly. Rather than risking damage, having a qualified landscaper inspect your system and winterize it will guarantee that this kind of damage doesn’t happen. A properly winterized system can last a lot longer than a system that’s left to chance each winter. Your lawn relies on proper irrigation in the dry spring and summer months, and without it, it suffers. Without a green lawn, your landscaping is going to suffer. Landscapers at The Parke Company can help make sure your irrigation system is in peak condition all year. Get peace of mind by contracting with us for a year-round irrigation maintenance plan that includes winterization, inspection and testing, repairs, and spring startup. There’s no reason to have to worry when the first frost warning comes through this winter if your system is winterized. Being prepared is critical for your lawn to thrive, and we can help.

Now that you know what winterization is and what it can do for your property, let’s explore the steps the process includes.

How to Winterize Your Irrigation System

The first major step in winterizing irrigation systems is to shut them down. Leaving a system running can result in floods or other issues that you might not notice immediately. Turning off the electrical pumping system and water supply are your primary goals in this step. The electrical components of irrigation systems can be nuanced, with older systems being on simple switches and some modern systems having more complex procedures for shutdown. Every irrigation system is a bit different, and each home’s uniqueness complicates that. Some water shut-offs are housed inside a home, while others are in an outdoor location like a shed or the exterior of the home. An irrigation system has two different water-controlling valves, and both should be shut off in a specific order. The first is called the backflow device. This valve prevents water in the irrigation pipes from flowing back into your home’s pipes in the event of an issue. This is highly important and prevents dirt and other contaminants from entering the home. Shutting this off prevents the flow of water in either direction, so you can safely flush the system out later. Next, you’ll shut off the main water supply to the irrigation system. This is usually indoors and is a valve or lever on the pipe leading to the system. Turning this off prevents more water from flowing into the pipes.

The next step is the most important. Draining your irrigation system ensures that no water remains in the pipes. This step is best left to the experts. A qualified irrigation system technician can properly and safely perform each of the steps outlined above and complete an inspection of your entire system. This ensures that your irrigation is fully winterized and ready for its long dormancy this winter. Looking for irrigation winterization near you? Leave it to the experts at The Parke Company. There are many reasons to let the professionals handle your irrigation system, but one of the best reasons is cost. It’s not an expensive task to have a contractor inspect and winterize your irrigation system, but it can be costly to neglect it or do it incorrectly. Repairs cost a lot more, and improperly handling your system can result in less than stellar growth come spring, as well as complete failure in the dry months.

The Parke Company has been installing and servicing irrigation systems for decades, and we’re ready to assist you with winterizing yours. Ready to learn more about the winterization process and how we can help? Give us a call today!