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Kid and Pet-Friendly Pest Control for Your Lawn and Garden

March 7, 2024October 7, 2019 by The Parke Company

Maintaining a lawn and/or garden is a bit of a balancing act, requiring a delicate touch. That tightrope becomes even harder to walk when you have children and pets to worry about. A good number of traditional pesticides and pest control methods contain chemicals that can lead to acute or chronic illnesses in humans and domesticated animals. So, how can you keep your greenery lush and healthy without harming the ones you love by accident?

The answer: utilize kid- and pet-friendly pest control options for your lawn and garden. You may be surprised by all the different ways you can keep unwanted actors away from your property while maintaining the safety of your kids and pets. Let’s go over some of the best options for proper garden and lawn maintenance.

Safest Ways for Lawn Pest Control

Horticultural Oils and Soaps/Sprays

Though they might sound like cleaning products or perfumes, horticultural soaps and oils are actually plant-derived formulas designed to target small pests like aphids and mites. The best part about these products is that they don’t harm beneficial insects, humans, or pets. Insecticidal soaps can also be made from home materials like vegetable oil, pure dishwasher soap, and warm water. Just be sure to do your research and test your formula on a plant before using it on your entire garden.

Diatomaceous Earth

This naturally-occurring pesticide often comes in the form of a dust or powder made from fossilized diatoms, which are microscopic aquatic lifeforms. The tiny particles kill harmful pests by sucking away moisture and fat from their exoskeletons. Researchers remain hard at work looking for potential negative effects diatomaceous earth may have on pets and humans, but so far there is no compelling evidence. In fact, versions of this material are often used as flea medications for cats and dogs.

Organic Insect Killers (Pet- and Kid-Safe)

Not all store-bought pesticides are toxic to humans and pets. In fact, more and more insecticide manufacturers are now creating safer products, knowing that people care about the safety of their kids and pets. EcoSMART is one such brand creating effective solutions that are safe, environmentally-friendly, chemical-free, and made in the U.S. Look for products that are useful for all sizes of lawns and gardens.

Mulch with Straw or Compost

Some lawn problems can be solved without the use of pesticides. At the very least, using the right kind of mulch can mitigate the number of pests and weeds that enter your green spaces. Mulching with compost or straw is just one way to protect your lawn, garden, and family. Many landscape services offer these mulching options.

Plant Certain Species to allow Predatory Pests

Another way to keep bad bugs away is to cultivate a good environment for “good” bugs. That is to say, if you can stomach it, it’s not a bad idea to create a home for some predatory pests, as they will gladly take care of a great number of other, smaller pests. Setting up this little ecosystem requires much patience and knowledge, so you may want to seek help from lawn services that specialize in this form of natural pest control.
Keeping your lawn or garden pest-free doesn’t mean you need to risk harming your children or pets. If you’re looking for more solutions and advice on maintaining your home’s green spaces, The Parke Company has the resources, knowledge, and experience you need. We offer a wide range of landscaping and tree services, including lawn aeration, irrigation, tree removal, mulching, and so much more. Give us a call today at (615)-350-6033.

Lawn Mowing and Landscaping: Recommended Mowing Height

October 30, 2025October 4, 2019 by The Parke Company

When you consider what it takes to keep your lawn and landscaping beautiful and verdant, a few things might come to mind: ensuring everything gets the right amount of sun, weed and tree removal where necessary, and a proper irrigation system, to name a few.

What you may not have realized is that proper lawn mowing can be the key to circumventing serious lawn problems and ensuring that your entire landscape lives up to your design dreams. Here is what you need to know about recommended mowing height for expert lawn mowing and landscaping.

What to Know About Mowing Height

The Basics

In general, the “rule of thumb” for optimal lawn height is that grass should be about 2½ inches. It is believed that you should cut off about one third of the blade of grass when you mow. Doing a little math, that means you’ll probably want to cut your lawn when it’s around 3 ⅔ inches high.

Season and Climate

While the 2½ inches rule works well in the cooler months, you may want to let it grow even longer in the hotter months as water is less and less available.

Conversely, if you live in an area of high moisture, or if the winter months are coming soon, a low cut of grass can be much more beneficial in the long run.

Tall grasses trapped under piles of snow can ultimately lead to the infiltration of mold and fungus. It can also be a place that rodents burrow during the winter to seek refuge from frigid temperatures.

Cutting your lawn to a shorter length right before it is covered in snow can be immensely beneficial for avoiding some potential damage.

Hydration

If you want to keep your lawn lush and hydrated, consider letting it grow a little longer. According to the home and garden efficianados at The Spruce, a lawn that grows longer has more surface area on every blade of grass and therefore has more moisture reserves, protecting your lawn during periods of drought or when you want to take a little extra time between watering. These longer blades of grass retain water longer down to the roots and can self-sustain until the next rainfall much more efficiently that shorter lawns.

These longer blades also result in more extensive root systems that capitalize on photosynthesis more than shorter blades, fostering more expansive growth.

Tips and Tricks

One of the simplest (and most clever) tricks for making sure you’re cutting your lawn to the appropriate height is also from the brilliant folks over at The Spruce. They suggest marking the wheels on your lawn mower with the desired height.

Using a paint marker, draw a line indicating the height you want for your lawn and use that as a guide when you mow. (Just be sure to include arrows so you know which is the top and bottom of your line!)

While maintaining a healthy lawn isn’t rocket science, it can still be a tricky task. These tips can be a helpful guide to lawn maintenance, but sometimes the best route is to hire lawn services.

The experienced professionals at The Parke Company can help you assess your lawn and landscape to ensure that your lawn maintenance caters to your property’s unique needs.

Whether its tree removal, landscape design, or lawn care, give us a call (615-350-6033) or contact us online today to see how The Parke Company difference can work for you.

Preparing Your Home for Sale? Don’t Forget Your Lawn and Garden

March 7, 2024September 26, 2019 by The Parke Company

Freshly mowed lawn in front of house for sale

When selling your home, there are a million different things going through your mind. You need to finish up that retiling project you started a year ago. You need to finally clean out the attic and shed. You need to repaint the walls your kids scribbled over as toddlers.

While the laundry list of tasks to complete before your house is ready to go on the market may seem endless, there’s one important step you may have overlooked: preparing your lawn and garden.

The importance of curb appeal truly cannot be emphasized enough. Having a well-maintained landscape could mean the difference between a flood of offers and a complete dry spell. Prospective buyers won’t get a chance to see the beautiful job you’ve done renovating your home if they never make it past the brown patches in your lawn.

When you’re preparing your home for sale, don’t forget your lawn and garden. Here are a few things worth knowing.

Make Sure This is Done Before Selling a Home

Lawn

Not only is your lawn one of the first things that a prospective buyer will notice, it is also the largest feature of your landscape. If your lawn is unhealthy, tending to it is a much larger task than simply pulling a few dead plants.

Prospective buyers may be deterred by an unhealthy lawn because it foretells a massive undertaking to revitalize the entire square footage of your property.

If your lawn is in a sorry state and you’re preparing for a home sale, you have a few different options for mitigating this issue.

Installing an irrigation system is a simple way to ensure that your lawn will be nurtured back to health. Irrigation systems like in-ground sprinkling can be programmed so that you don’t have to worry about keeping the lawn watered while you’re juggling everything else you need to do before putting your house on the market. You can rest assured that your lawn will be a lush, attractive landscape in time for showings.

If all else fails and you’re quickly nearing house-showings, you may also want to consider sodding to replace the parts of your lawn that are beyond repair.

Trees

While the lawn of your property takes up the most square footage, your trees are the features that often stand out the most to a prospective buyer.

When someone looks at a home, they’ll be sure to consider whether or not they’ll have an expensive tree removal project on their hands in the near future.

Take inventory of the trees on your property. By hiring a certified arborist, you can ensure that your trees are properly evaluated so that any tree removal (or tree planting, possibly!) can be handled before a potential buyer lays eyes on your property.

Tending to the trees on your property helps reduce the risk that your landscape deters a potential buyer.

Garden

First and foremost, it is vital that you conduct a thorough sweep through any garden beds to remove unsightly brush and dead plants. Aside from the obvious aesthetic issues, a flower bed gone grey might lead a potential buyer to believe that there are issues with the soil or that you, the current homeowner, aren’t responsible enough to tend to the details of your property. If it doesn’t completely turn away a buyer, it may give them cause to low-ball an offer.

By wowing your prospective buyers with vibrant colors and tidy shrubbery, the first impression they have of your home is one of beauty and organization. Start off on the right foot with your potential buyers. It may even lead them to view the rest of your home in a positive light.

Preparing to sell a home is a highly emotional experience. You deal with the stress of paperwork, numbers, and the myriad of little to-dos that creep up along the way. All of this is compounded by the fact that leaving a beloved home can be incredibly painful, even if you’re moving on to bigger and better things.

As difficult as the moving process is, ensuring that your physical home is sufficiently prepared isn’t a task you should have to accomplish alone. The experienced professionals at The Parke Company are skilled and available to aid in the process of preparing your home for sale.

Give us a call (615-350-6033) or contact us online today to see how The Parke Company difference can work for you.

Landscaping and Gardening: Is Your Lawn Right for a Home Garden?

March 7, 2024August 26, 2019 by The Parke Company

The Parke Company Nashville Treecare landscape services

A beautiful garden can be one of the most notable and enjoyable features of your property. Aside from gardening being a fun and rewarding discipline, it can also add invaluable curb appeal to your home. But even if you feel ready to begin the process of starting a garden on your property, there are a few things you need to consider in order to save yourself from a frustrating (and pricey) failure.

Here are some things you should consider to determine whether or not your lawn is right for a home garden.

How to Determine if Your Lawn Right for a Home Garden

Tree Placement

If you haven’t conducted a tree inventory yet, you’ll want to do so before you think of putting in a garden. Conducting a survey like a tree inventory will give you an informed perspective on the status and location of other plant life on your property.

In most cases, if you haven’t lived on your property for very long, chances are good that you didn’t plant your trees and that their level of health may be beyond your knowledge. If you have a large, sprawling property, it’s even possible that you don’t know about all the trees on your land.

It is vital to have a keen awareness of all of the plant life that is already part of your landscape so that you know how that could interact with or interfere with a garden.

In most cases, a tree or two won’t hinder the growth of a new garden, but it’s important to consider whether or not plants already on your property may attract pests that could harm a dainty crop like what is often planted in a home garden.

Shade Coverage

In accordance with an awareness of trees on your property, be aware of the amount of shade they provide to certain areas of your landscape. If a set of trees offers too much shade in the area you wish to plant a garden, you may want to consider tree trimming or tree removal. Too much sun could blister vegetation that isn’t hardy, but too much shade could also stunt their growth.

If there is a particular area you’ve dreamed of placing your garden, be sure that it isn’t overshadowed by other trees or structures.

Drainage

As anyone with even the smallest amount of garden knowledge can tell you, watering plants is important.

When you care for your lawn, you ensure to water it properly and to make sure that it doesn’t get flooded. The same is true for a home garden. Check with your landscape professional to see if the plants you’re seeking for your home garden require a similar level of water to that of your lawn.

If you have an irrigation system that automatically waters your lawn, you could capitalize on this and use that same system to tend to a garden. However, if the lawn’s need for water and the garden’s need for water are not compatible, you will need to adjust accordingly.

Garden Vision

Finally, it’s important to know what exactly you want in your garden. Growing a bed of flowers is drastically different from growing tomato plants or corn. There is a strong chance that a vegetable garden, especially one with a wide variety of produce, is going to require much more attention to detail than a lawn. In this case, you will want to seriously reconsider your irrigation options. It may not be practical to cluster together a number of different plants with vastly different needs. In this case, consider whether or not using planters or pots outdoors could help you achieve a similarly beautiful (or maybe even more beautiful!) look for your garden.

Regardless of the route you take, it is vital that you speak with a professional to properly assess the unique needs of your property. Go to the knowledgeable arborists and landscape designers at The Parke Company to ensure that your property is in the best hands.

Give us a call (615-350-6033) or contact us online today to see how The Parke Company difference can work for you.

Can You Plan Landscaping to Avoid Tree Damage to Your Home?

March 7, 2024August 7, 2019 by The Parke Company

Damaged house landscape maintenance in Nashville

Sprawling green lawns and trees that reach up toward the sky can be magnificent features of your home’s landscape design. However, with Nashville’s unpredictable weather, there is a chance you might experience a powerful storm from time to time.

It’s important that your landscape design protects against major damage that can be done in the event that a tree falls during inclement weather.

Here is what you need to know about protecting your house against tree damage through a carefully planned landscape.

How to Avoid Tree Damage with Landscaping

Strategic Planning

It goes without saying that where you plant your trees is important. If you have the option, never place trees so close to your home that a storm could send them through your house.

In some situations, you may not have the capability of controlling where trees are planted. In this case, you would benefit tremendously from calling a certified professional to evaluate your trees. They will be particularly qualified to determine whether or not the locations of your trees are a potential issue.

Aside from location of trees, it is also important to consider what breed of tree is on your property.

There are many types of trees like willows and sycamores that do not fare well in the wind. If you live in an area where high winds are an issue, avoid trees such as these in favor of a hardier breed like oaks or maples.

Conduct a Tree Inventory

A tree inventory might not seem necessary on a private property, but it could mean the difference between a fallen tree on your house and a safe, healthy landscape.

Tree inventories are careful evaluations of your landscape that pay close attention to the locations of your tree. Perhaps two trees have begun growing too close to one another and risk causing damage to your home if you don’t conduct proper tree trimming or tree removal.

Tree inventories are also a great way to check up on the health of your trees. Far too often, we don’t consider whether or not our trees are healthy until branches are decaying or fruit stops growing.

At that point, it may be too late and you could be running a high risk of your house suffering damage in the event of an unexpected storm.

By conducting a tree inventory, you can strategize about how to handle trees that may be sickly either through improving their health or hiring a certified arborist to remove them from your property.

Care for Roots

What many people might not consider is that the roots can be the determining factor for whether a tree stays in the ground or not during a storm. While branches may be ripped off a tree singularly during a storm, the real damage occurs when trees are uprooted and strike a home.

Be sure to plan your tree planting to ensure that your trees’ roots will have the proper room to grow and that root-health is a top priority of your landscape maintenance practices.

Ultimately, trees are a massive feature of your home and they deserve massive care. This isn’t a job for guess work and mediocrity. The best way to keep your home and family safe is through contacting the experienced professionals at The Parke Company to see how they can care for your landscape’s specific needs.
Give us a call (615-350-6033) or contact us online today to see how The Parke Company difference can work for you.