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Is Your Nashville Lawn Ready for a Fountain?

fountain

Water features like ponds, waterfalls, and fountains are exceptionally popular additions to Nashville landscapes. And why wouldn’t they be? Water, specifically the sound of moving water, has always been associated with relaxation and calmness.

Most families view their lawns as an oasis. A place to get away from the hubbub of modern life and enjoy what nature gives us without requiring a Wi-Fi connection. The look and sound of water hardscapes can create that oasis, but they can come with challenges as well.

As a leading Nashville landscaping service with more than 30 years of experience, The Parke Company has installed many water features, both large and small, for customers in Nashville, Belle Mead, Green Hills, Oak Hills and other communities. Often times these hardscapes are the central feature of the landscaping due to their size and unique qualities. If you want the sound of a burbling brook but don’t want to take up the space a pond or waterfall might occupy, we recommend a fountain.

Fountains – The Pocket Size Oasis

When we talk fountains, we are not talking about something that looks like it was stolen from Vatican City sprouting up in the center of your lawn. Fountains come in all sizes and shapes. When deciding on one, scale should be foremost in your mind. In fact, scale is one of the several advantages that fountains have over other water features. For example:

  • Scale. If you are an urban dweller with limited space to play with, a small fountain can bring the same relaxing sounds as an elaborate waterfall. If you have a large space but you want to carve out a niche for meditation, reading, or just relaxing, a small fountain can be the perfect centerpiece. A tasteful planting of shrubs or hedge can delineate the space, and an urn or statuary fountain provides the soundscape.
  • No Standing Water. Ponds and waterfalls, by definition, include standing water. Even though the water is recirculated, a waterscape faces the same problems a swimming pool does. They are subject to bacterial growth and algae meaning your lawn maintenance tasks will have to include cleaning the pond. In addition, your pond is often viewed as a personal spa for your four-legged family member who uses it for a fast cool down on a hot summer day.
  • Better than a Bird Bath.  With the exception of a bird feeder, nothing will attract birds to your lawn faster than a fountain. Birds love them. You don’t have to be an Audubon fanatic to appreciate the foliage and chirping of Tennessee’s birdlife. In addition, some of those birds find fleas and ticks to be tasty tidbits helping you to control that unwanted population.

Fountains make sense on so many levels. If you need help designing a space or choosing a fountain that fits, give us a call at The Parke Company. We do so much more than tree trimming, lawn mowing, and resolving lawn problems. Our professional landscape designers can turn your entire lawn, or just a corner, into a little piece of heaven.

Give us a call today!

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5 Landscaping Tips for a Nashville Winter

landscaping and irrigation

Taking care of your landscaping may be the last thing on your mind during our Nashville winters, but there are preventive and maintenance steps that you should be aware of. The Parke Company, Nashville’s premiere landscaping service and tree service, has five easy tips to get your spring lawn off to a great start.

This winter has been a doozy so far, with temperatures in January fluctuating from 21 degrees to 64 degrees. However, just because there may be frost or snow on the ground does not mean that your landscaping will take care of itself until the real spring thaw.

Winter is Not the Time to Ignore Your Landscaping

With that in mind, we would like to offer up five tips to help your lawn make it through the winter unscathed:

 Discourage people from walking on the grass when there is frost or snow on the ground. Grass, particularly young grass blades, can break from the weight. While typically the grass will recover in spring, we still recommend traffic be kept to a minimum. Make sure your walkways are cleared of snow to discourage people from taking a shortcut across the lawn.

Protect plants from cold, dry winter winds. Frost and dry winds can damage trees, cracking bark and limbs. Needles on evergreen shrubs can be severely damaged and turn an ugly brown. Of special concern are plants with roots near or exposed to the surface. Cover the base of the plant with mulch to provide protection from the wind.

Winter is actually a great time to add to your landscape. The deciduous transplant season begins right after the first hard freeze and continues until the first leaves appear in spring. Transplanting after the plant has gone dormant for the winter provides more time for it to acclimate to its new bed because it’s not pushing new growth.

Do you have crepe myrtles, liriope (monkey grass), or boxwoods? Winter is a good time for pruning these. In fact, you can only prune them while they are dormant. Now is also a good time to put down pre-emergent herbicide to hold down the weeds. In Nashville, we unfortunately have a variety of weeds that thrive during the winter.

Spend some time doing what we do for our clients during the winter season planning. When the warmer weather of spring hits and you feel like anything is possible now that you have survived winter – in other words, you’re on an emotional high – it is the wrong time to order additions to your landscaping. You’ll be happier if you plan out your spring flower additions, tree services, hardscape additions, and any other landscape issues when you have the down time of winter to work with.With a little luck, Nashville will get a thaw in late March and our landscapes will turn green again. Make sure your lawn and plants wake up from the winter snooze in good condition by caring for them during the cold season.

 

Need help planning for spring? Feel free to give us a call and we’ll be happy to discuss the latest landscaping trends with you.