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Lawn Aeration Explained: Benefits, Cost, and Timing

March 7, 2024March 28, 2023 by The Parke Company

Lawn aeration may not be something that you’re familiar with when it comes to maintaining your landscaping, but you absolutely should consider this beneficial practice for your lawn this year. Here’s everything you need to know about lawn aeration, from its many benefits to the cost and the best time of year to have it done.

What to Know About Lawn Aeration

What Is Lawn Aeration?

At its core, lawn aeration is a simple process aimed at bringing air to your lawn. The turf is pierced with small holes during the aeration process. These holes enable the soil to have better airflow, hydration, and nutrition if done properly. Your lawn’s health is determined by how well things are going inches beneath its surface. Healthy grass has deep roots that help secure it and provide proper hydration year-round. As time goes on, soil begins to compact and become denser. When that happens, it’s harder for grass roots to penetrate to the depths that they need, leaving you with a lawn that’s malnourished and unsightly. By perforating the ground with aeration, water and airflow help to encourage deeper root growth while also reducing the density of aerated soil.

Benefits of Lawn Aeration

The benefits of aerating your lawn are many, from the aesthetic to the practical. While greener, thicker, and healthier-looking grass are all desirable aeration outcomes, aeration can also help make sure your landscape remains durable and ready for whatever might come. Aerated lawns with deep grass roots are a lot less susceptible to flood damage, soil erosion, and pest problems. The deeper your roots go, the more secure your topsoil will be. During droughts or the wet season, that security is critical to keeping your lawn’s overall structure.

While it may sound simple enough, there’s a lot that needs to happen to ensure that aeration isn’t actually harming your landscaping. Lawn aeration is a process that needs to be planned for, and with Nashville weather being what it is, that’s sometimes pretty tricky. A landscaping company like The Parke Company has decades of experience in landscaping in this region, making sure your specific grass is properly aerated and overseeded properly and at the right time.

The Cost of Lawn Aeration

So how much does it cost to aerate a lawn? That price can vary based on a few factors. Overseeding is also often conducted during the aeration process—a lawn that is already growing is seeded to maximize new growth. The “over” aspect has two meanings: you’re seeding over existing grass and turf, and in the process applying more seed than is probably necessary in order to make the most of a lawn’s highest growth opportunity. Depending on the seed needed for your lawn, the total price of aeration may go up or down.

Aerating your lawn isn’t always going to run you the same amount of money depending on the size of your lawn, type of grass or grasses involved, and the time constraints a landscaper is working under. Lawn aeration cost is usually within the ballpark of $15-$17 per thousand square feet, but these figures can vary. The value you get as a homeowner far outweighs the relatively low cost of this lawn maintenance practice. Aeration is not expensive by any means, and it is an affordable way to help your lawn get the nutrition it needs. If you can’t afford a cutting-edge irrigation system or frequent pest mitigation, aerating your lawn is the best and most cost effective way to care for its health. That said, just because you have irrigation and are pest-free, don’t overlook the great benefits of aeration. If you’re invested in the overall health of your lawn and landscaping, seasonal aeration is a great option to explore.

When Should You Have Your Lawn Aerated?

So now that we know how aeration works and roughly how much it should cost, you might have more questions, including: what is the best time to aerate your lawn? This question is key, because aerating your lawn at the wrong time can actually open it up to damage. You’re making hundreds or thousands of holes in the soil, and in the wrong season or with the wrong grass, it can actually allow too much moisture or heat into the soil or give pests free access to your grass’s roots.

Seasons absolutely matter when aerating and overseeding, or just aerating on its own. But it’s not as simple as waiting for good weather or the right temperatures. Depending on the type of grass in your lawn, aeration might be good in the fall, spring, or even summer. For that reason, it’s important to opt for professional landscapers, rather than trying it yourself. Being able to properly identify the type of grass that makes up a lawn is a skill that not everyone has, but landscapers are well-versed in just that. Many Nashville lawns are composed of fescue grass, which is a hearty grass that can put up with extremes in temperature and varying degrees of drought. Fescue grass is best seeded in the fall—specifically in September and October, unless things prove milder for longer. Being able to see the future isn’t a talent many people have, but landscapers must do their best to make sure that the right weather conditions are on the horizon for maximum effectiveness.

But what if you have some other kind of grass? Bermuda grass, for instance, actually benefits from aeration in the spring or early summer, along with St. Augustine and buffalo grass, which are also popular in the south.

How Long Does It Take to See the Benefits of Aeration?

How quickly your lawn reaps the rewards of aeration can depend on a few factors. Most grass seed takes at least two weeks to fully germinate and grow, so don’t expect improvement overnight. With that said, you may be able to observe your lawn looking fuller by week 3, with the full results usually appearing in 6 to 8 weeks or less.

By now it should be clear that on the whole, lawn aeration is a beneficial, relatively inexpensive, and somewhat particular process in terms of timing. In other words, this is a best practice for your lawn that should always be overseen by landscaping professionals like The Parke Company.

Ready to schedule your free aeration consultation and get an estimate from the experts who have served Nashville for decades? Give The Parke Company a call today, and find out just when your lawn should be aerated and what to expect in terms of cost and its benefits for your landscape.

What Causes Trees to Rot and How to Prevent Rotting Trees on Your Property

March 7, 2024March 12, 2023 by The Parke Company

Trees are a huge time commitment for property owners and managers. If all goes well, they should outlive us and continue to provide shade for decades. Unfortunately, trees are susceptible to damage, disease, and rot like any other plant, and they’re not always equipped to give us obvious warning signs when rot does take hold. Let’s take a look at some of the causes of rot in trees and how you can prevent rotting trees on your property.

Rot and Tree Health

What causes tree rot? It’s well understood that a fungal infection is responsible for most types of tree rot. There are dozens of different types of fungi that can contribute to rot, and their warning signs aren’t always obvious. Some of the most common forms of tree rot include white rot, soft rot, heart rot, and root rot, but there are even more. Fungi feed on the cellulose and lignin in a tree’s wood. Basically, cellulose composes the softer but still sturdy wood you’re used to seeing in flexible saplings, whereas lignin constitutes the harder exterior and bark of a tree. No matter where these natural compounds are in or on a tree, they’re a perfect home to fungi. The fungus consumes the plant material within the tree and greatly weakens its structure. Rot can prevent water and nutrients from being transported within the tree, effectively starving it. Rot is not necessarily a death sentence for a tree, but prevention is the best method to keep your trees from dying prematurely.

Tree Maintenance

How do you stop a tree from rotting? Poor pruning and improper maintenance (or a full lack of maintenance) are huge factors in allowing trees to rot. Trees have natural defenses to fungal pathogens, but in nature, a certain population of trees is supposed to die. In a perfect world, without deforestation, natural diseases and infections like this would act to prune and balance the natural equilibrium. Trees do try to hold their own against rot, however. Their ‘immune’ systems work to isolate infections through a process called compartmentalization. This process essentially seals off an infected portion of a tree’s structure, preventing the fungus from traveling internally. But there are a lot of factors that can make a tree unable to properly protect itself. Compartmentalization works when the damaged areas are small, but if too much of a tree is damaged and exposed to fungal infection, it can kill itself by doing this. After hundreds of years of human influence on the environment, the odds are stacked against trees. That’s where we have to step in and help out. Here is how to prevent tree rot.

Pruning your trees yearly helps to prevent disease and further damage to the tree. By spotting and removing dying or dead limbs and branches before they’re allowed to fall, you give the tree a much better chance at healing properly. When a branch breaks free due to storm damage or rot, it leaves behind a wound that can allow fungal infections to enter through contact with other trees, birds, and insects. Even if a tree has already begun to rot, there are ways to stop or slow the effects of infection. This requires a proactive and watchful attitude on your part toward your trees.

How an Arborist Can Help

A rotting tree can hide its symptoms very effectively, because many external signs and symptoms don’t show up until it’s too late. Since fungi thrive on the interiors of trees far better than on the bark, it’s hard to spot rot without looking for it closely. That’s where the expertise of an arborist can make the difference between a dead tree and a healthy tree. An arborist is a trained tree technician who has unique knowledge and skills for effectively caring for trees. Arborists are tree experts who are skilled in planting, trimming, maintaining, and removing trees. While you might think you’re skilled enough to trim your trees on your own, consider that improper pruning can kill a tree if done poorly. Hiring an arborist is critical for protecting your landscaping and preserving the health and beauty of your trees. An arborist can look for signs of internal rot by analyzing the early, external signs that something is wrong. The early indications of issues include: wilting, spotty leaves, discolored leaves (out of season), and mildew coating leaves. A tree’s leaves are usually a good indicator of its health, but other factors like drought and heat can also cause leaves to dry out and yellow. That’s what makes it important to consult professionals at the first sign of an issue; the broad range of things that can go wrong extends beyond tree rot.

Other observable signs of rot in a tree are seen at the ground level or on the bark of a tree. Conks, or mushroom growths that develop like shelves on the outside of a tree, are obvious red flags for fungal infection. You’ve undoubtedly seen mushrooms on a tree’s exterior before, so it’s an easy thing to notice. Unfortunately, these kinds of symptoms are only visible after significant internal infection. Additionally, if root rot is occurring, you may observe mushrooms growing from the ground and trunk of the tree. This isn’t a sign that’s always noticeable, but if you see it, get help ASAP.

Once an arborist has identified rot in a tree, they will get right to developing a plan to treat the infection and prevent further damage. The best way to stop a fungal infection is by culling infected branches. If a fungus has infected the trunk of the tree, it’s not usually so simple. In some cases, arborists will recommend fully removing infected trees to prevent the fungus from spreading to nearby, healthier trees. Whether an arborist can cull branches or not, it’s important to note that the best option is prevention. The best defense is a good offense, so schedule yearly landscaping check-ins with a trusted arborist. If you’re in Nashville or the surrounding area, consider The Parke Company for your tree rot concerns. We have decades of experience in diagnosing, preventing, and treating wood rot of all kinds in a variety of local tree species.

Don’t let tree rot kill your trees and disrupt the beauty of your property’s natural landscape. Call the experts at The Parke Company today for a free estimate and consultation for comprehensive tree services.

Landscaping Municipal Services Your City Might Need Before Spring

March 7, 2024February 27, 2023 by The Parke Company

With spring fast approaching, cities need to start preparing their landscaping for the new season of renewal and regrowth. From maintenance to new installation, here are some of the landscaping municipal services your city might need before spring.

Why Winter is the Best Time to Prepare Landscaping

We still have some time in the winter to get everything ready for spring, and there are a variety of reasons why starting municipal landscaping services in the spring is too late. So what benefits does winter offer landscape maintenance? What season is best to do landscaping? Well, winter is perhaps the best bet. Let’s explore a few reasons why winter is a good time for landscaping services in your city.

Dormancy

For one, winter means that plants and trees are in their dormant stage. While dormant, plants and trees are easier to observe and trim. For arborists, being able to see the limbs of trees unobstructed by leaves is important. They can better assess the health of a tree and determine if there are limbs that call for removal or possible spots that disease or pests may have entered or may enter in the future.

So, what part of winter is best? It’s late winter, almost universally. Trimming trees too early can cause tree wounds to dry out rather than heal naturally, so making sure temperatures are low but not too low is important. Other plants (like many shrubs) should be covered during the coldest months, making midwinter too early for uncovering them. It’s also hard to plant (or plan to plant) new trees or plants when the ground is still frozen. In late winter, that frost has cleared up, making digging much easier.

Irrigation System Installation

Late winter is the perfect time to have an irrigation system maintained, or have a new one installed to support a municipal landscape. Moisture is important for plants and trees even in the winter, so cities may find themselves needing to use irrigation during the colder months if the area remains dry. Drought can happen anytime, even in the winter. A winterized, well-calibrated irrigation system can be ready for winter whenever to make sure that the proper moisture level is maintained to support local municipal services.

It’s also possible to install a sprinkler system in the winter, and it’s best to have it done before spring is in full swing. Waiting until the ground is easy to dig in is important, so late winter works best for installs as well. If there’s snow on the ground, cities are going to be waiting a bit longer for installation. City or not, earlier is better. Don’t hesitate to schedule an installation early, because when it comes down to the last minute, things get hectic! Get the jump on spring watering and install your sprinkler system this winter.

Winter Cleaning

Even the most skilled landscaper cannot pluck every dead leaf from a tree to make sure it doesn’t fall once fall cleanup is over. Stubborn trees like maples can sometimes hold onto leaves until well into winter, and it’s only then that you’ve got a second leaf cleanup ahead of you. That’s true for municipal spaces like parks as well. Leaf removal is a lot easier in the dry winter months than the wet spring season. Other landscaping services like brush clearing are a lot easier when the leaves aren’t there to get in the way and take up space. Having easier access to small trees and other bothersome weedy plants in need of clearing makes brush cleanup much simpler in the winter. It’s important to keep in mind when clearing brush and weeds that poison ivy can still cause a rash even without its leaves. It pays to have professional help, from the little things like brush clearing and mulching all the way up to tree removal.

Tree Inventories

Tree inventorying is a large part of any municipal landscaping services. Tree inventories start basic, with a count of trees and a breakdown of different types of trees, but things don’t stop there. Arborists can use tree inventories to determine optimal pollination positions, disease risk, opportunities for new trees, and a variety of other important landscape maintenance musts. Cutting down dead or diseased trees is also best done in the winter. Without leaves, trees can be cut down in segments much more easily. Rather than felling a tree whole, cutting a tree down in segments can be safer and much lower risk to the surrounding trees and vegetation, structures, or powerlines. Having an insured, experienced tree service remove your trees or dead limbs is critical for your safety and the safety of those around you. Damaged power lines and roofs can be fixed, but human lives are irreplaceable. There is a great deal of danger in cutting down trees, so leave it to the professionals.

Municipal Landscaping Quality for You

With all this knowledge of how municipal landscaping services get things done in the winter in preparation for spring, you might be wondering: how do I prepare my landscaping for spring? Well, if you live in the Nashville area, we can help. From sprawling multi-acre parks to a single backyard, our landscaping professionals at The Parke Company are skilled, efficient, and willing to go the extra mile. Whether you need a new irrigation system installed, a tree inventory of your own, or just re-mulching, we can help you this winter. Don’t try the hard stuff on your own, and know that the professionals you hire via the Parke Company have the ability to tackle even large-scale projects.

The Parke Company supports many local municipalities with landscaping maintenance and services all year round. The winter season is an important time for upkeep, cleaning, and even new work. City park or backyard, we’re here to help. If you’re ready to explore the comprehensive services we can offer, give The Parke Company a call today.

Top Reasons to Tackle Tree Pruning Before Winter is Over

March 7, 2024February 14, 2023 by The Parke Company

Trees are among the most important living things on Earth, providing oxygen, scrubbing carbon dioxide from the air, and keeping soil from eroding. Trees are also an invaluable component of landscaping, providing shade, aesthetic beauty, and a variety of benefits to the soil and surrounding fauna. But trees need help getting all of that done. Just like we humans benefit from routine grooming, trees are a lot better off if they lose some of their old, dead (or dying) branches and limbs. This process is known as pruning, and the winter is actually the best time to get it done, ensuring that you have a healthy tree year-round.

The Importance of Pruning

Pruning trees does a lot more than just maintain their natural beauty. Removing dead or dying branches is incredibly important for a tree’s health. While you may believe that you can prune your trees yourself, that’s not really a good idea. While pruning is necessary, there are many ways it can go wrong and actually introduce disease and rot into your trees. Knowing what trees need pruning, how to prune them, and when to prune them are all things best left to the arborists.

What does pruning do for trees, exactly? Pruning can help your trees in a variety of ways, and it can also give you peace of mind when there are strong winds or a winter storm. The primary focus of pruning is on dead or dying branches and limbs. By removing these unhealthy extensions, healthy growth is encouraged in other locations on the tree. Dead limbs create hazards for the trees and you and your property. Openings in dead limbs can let pests in and also enable diseases like Dutch elm disease to enter the tree, effectively killing it from the inside.

Removing dead limbs that could fall and cause damage to your landscaping and home, or even people in your yard, is also very important. Falling limbs can be far more than unsightly issues you have to deal with – they can have huge repercussions on your home if they damage the roof, siding, trim, or gutters.

Why Winter for Tree Pruning?

Pruning trees in winter might seem like a strange proposition. First of all, isn’t it much harder to see what limbs are dead without leaves? And can’t the cold air hurt the tree if it has wounds from pruning? Despite these concerns, rest assured that there are many reasons why winter pruning is perfect for most trees. When done correctly, pruning in the winter is hands-down the best way to protect a tree’s health. So why do you trim trees in the winter?

Winter Helps You See the Tree

Despite the fear that the absence of leaves won’t provide you with a good idea of a tree’s health, winter is actually the best time to analyze a tree’s structure. Without leaves, arborists can identify limbs that are dead using a variety of other signs. Another important benefit of a bare tree allows you to determine places where branches make frequent contact. Crossing branches can rub the bark from the branches they’re in contact with, allowing pests and diseases easy access to the tree’s stems. When a tree is bare, it’s much easier to see crossing branches and overly heavy branches that can be removed to protect its structure and provide better aesthetics.

Protecting Your Lawn

Winter tree pruning is best done in late winter, (February and March) because these plants are fully dormant – this is the best time to avoid traumatizing a tree. If the ground is frozen, even better! Frozen ground will better support the equipment used when trimming trees, meaning your lawn will be less disturbed and damaged by ladders and lifts.

Easier Clean-Up

By removing dead limbs in the winter, you’re reducing the number of dead branches that’ll be raining on your lawn when spring winds start. Spring cleaning benefits a lot from winter forethought. And when you leave tree pruning to the pros like The Parke Company, you can trust we’ll clean up after ourselves. If you’ve had a lot of limbs removed, they can even be mulched for use in garden beds in the spring! If you have dead trees to remove, winter is a great season for that as well. When a tree is rooted in soft ground and being felled, there is a slight risk of the roots pulling up. This can gouge out your lawn, leaving an unsightly hole after the tree is removed.

Creating Healthier Trees

When you prune trees before new growth starts, you ensure that your tree is devoting energy and nutrition only to healthy growth. When a plant is dormant, it has more energy to devote to healing than if it was trimmed during the spring or summer when growth is a much bigger priority. It’s not just a matter of removing dead limbs, however. Properly pruning a tree takes experience. The wrong cut can make it so your tree doesn’t properly heal. Trust us – it can get fairly complicated to make healthy cuts.

Winter Pruning Exceptions

There’s an exception to every rule, and that’s true for pruning. So, what trees should not be pruned in winter? While a majority of deciduous trees (trees that lose their leaves annually) are best trimmed in the winter, not every tree follows that rule. For instance, spring flowering trees like magnolias, redbuds, and cherry trees should not be trimmed until after they flower in the spring.

More Winter Pruning Advice

There is such a thing as too early when pruning trees this winter. If you’re too early and the wounds are exposed to extreme cold (which Nashville is no stranger to), they can dry up and not heal properly. Additionally, wet winter weather can allow waterborne diseases to easily access the stem of your trees.

Try to prune when it’s dry and relatively mild in terms of temperature. Since winter is unpredictable, that’s a much safer bet later in the season.

Set Up Your Trees for Success with Professional Winter Pruning

Winter is the perfect time to prune the majority of the trees we have in our region. At The Parke Company, our expertise is not limited to landscaping. Our trained arborists can help you year-round with maintenance plans geared toward tree pruning and protecting the health of your yard’s entire ecosystem. This winter, let the experts at The Parke Company tackle your tree pruning so you can have the healthiest trees come springtime. Give us a call today to explore our tree service options before winter comes to an end.

Winter Landscape Maintenance: What Services are Needed and Why it’s Important

March 7, 2024January 28, 2023 by The Parke Company

Though winter is upon us, landscaping work never goes into hibernation. Learn about what winter landscaping services you need and why they’re so important for maintaining healthy green spaces.

Winter Landscape Maintenance

Though winter feels long and arduous, spring somehow always seems to sneak up on us. Making sure your yard is ready for spring is critical for getting the best results from your landscaping in the warm months. Proactive landscape maintenance starts in the fall and carries on into the winter.

Cleaning

You’ve already raked and cleared leaves in the fall, but you’ll probably still catch stray leaves all winter long. Leaves can hang on for dear life on some trees, dropping much later than expected. When they’re high up in a tree, they don’t always look like much, but looks can be deceiving. When the winter winds pick up, they knock around loose branches and leaves alike, meaning winter maintenance is done more piecemeal than fall cleanup. Don’t worry about the leaf blower all that much – a rake should do the job just as well (if not better) when they’re spread out and among so many sticks.

Snow can be pretty for the holiday season, but it can be devastating for your flower beds and dormant annuals and perennials. If snow seems to be sticking around, it’s not a bad idea to gently clear it from places where more sensitive plants are, because it can deprive the soil of oxygen and nutrients. In areas where the roadway or other paved surfaces make contact with your yard, flush the soil with fresh water late in winter – this will help to remove built-up salt from plow trucks, which can be a huge detriment to plants growth this spring.

If you find yourself out of your depth when it comes to winter maintenance and clearing your yard this year, don’t hesitate to look for professional help. The Parke Company is committed to helping our customers keep their landscaping safe through the winter and with as little stress as possible. You have enough to worry about. Leave the cleanup to the professionals.

Winter Pruning

The winter months, especially as spring approaches, offer the best time for pruning and trimming your trees, shrubs, and plants. For starters, it’s much easier to see and access branches when they’re bare. And for many perennial plants, this dormant stage is the least traumatic time for pruning. By pruning the plants in preparation for spring, you leave cuts exposed for less time, making sure to encourage new growth as soon as the weather permits it. Pruning and trimming trees is also important, considering how snow and ice can break branches and leave things a mess. Broken branches that aren’t properly trimmed are more susceptible to disease in the spring, so having an arborist clear dead limbs can prevent further issues going forward.

Waiting too long to prune some plants can actually make their growth harder, so it’s important to consult professionals who have experience in pruning a wide variety of plants. If you’re not experienced in pruning, you are likely to cause more harm than good when you try it this winter. Some things are better left to seasoned landscapers, and The Parke Company offers year-round pruning and winter pruning as parts of our year-round landscaping maintenance plans for this reason.

Protect Against Winter Pests

In the winter, a variety of wild animals are forced to forage further and further from their homes in the woods, meaning they’re much more likely to end up in your yard. While a wandering deer might be a beautiful sight, they’re usually bad news for your trees and shrubbery. Deer can quickly move in and make quick work of tree bark, especially on younger trees. One way to counter this is to apply wire mesh to the base of your trees, especially those that are considered a tasty treat to white-tailed deer and other animals.

Deer can also munch on shrubs, so it’s not a bad idea to cover them in burlap. This practice can also help keep your features safe from other harsh winter elements like snow and ice. Other options for preventing deer include adding fencing, repellent products like ultrasonic deer repellents, and planting deer-resistant plants. Deer-resistant trees and plants don’t have sharp barbs or poison – rather, they’re just not what deer are looking for, meaning they’ll ignore your yard and move on to greener pastures.

But deer aren’t the only nuisance you might face this winter. While most pests like grubs, ants, and armyworms won’t be active during winter, they’re still burrowed in the soil. Chances are you already take steps to mitigate the damage in the spring and summer, but if you’re not, now is the time to consider it. Even before they have the opportunity to wake up and start eating roots and digging through the topsoil, these pests attract moles and other rodents. These varmints are active in the winter and can do a number on a yard digging for tasty little grubs and larvae that your lawn has been hiding.

There are repellents for rodents that you can use too, but the best defense is a good offense in this case. Making sure you’re treating your lawn for common insect pests in the warm months will reduce the odds of rodents moving in the following winter.

Why You Need Mulch

Mulch is huge in the landscaping game, and it’s no secret that it needs to be applied more often than once a year when you’re reinvigorating for spring. Re-mulching in the winter can help your trees and plants all year round for a variety of reasons. Nashville winters can be a long, wet slog of snow and melt, and all that change can start to erode your landscaping.

Mulch can help by retaining more water and maintaining soil temperature around the roots, keeping them safe from the up-and-down temperatures winter often brings with it. A 2-inch thick layer of mulch can provide your plants with the protection they need this winter, and you don’t have to splurge for the pretty stuff this time of year. Using pine needle mulch is cheaper than wood mulch, just as effective, and far more sustainable as needles are dropped naturally by trees. In the off months, use pine needle mulch and cover it in the spring with more aesthetically pleasing mulch to fit your landscape. You’ll need less when the time comes to re-mulch each season because you’re building on a solid base each time you apply it in the winter.

What to Do With Your Landscape in Winter

So, how do you take care of landscaping in the winter? It takes a lot of work, to tell the truth. It’s not always something you can manage on your own, and that’s where The Parke Company comes in. Ease your winter landscape maintenance woes with a 12-month contractual maintenance program guaranteed to leave your yard looking fresh and healthy year-round. Contact us today for a consultation on new landscaping or to learn more about our maintenance programs.