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How The Right Landscaping Renovation Boosts Curb Appeal And Increases Property Value
The landscaping of your yard affects the curb appeal and influences the value of your home, and the outside of your property is the first thing visitors and potential home buyers see. So how do you know if your home’s curb appeal could be improved with a landscape renovation? Look for these three telltale signs that your landscape is due for an overhaul. You spend too much time on maintenance. A carefully crafted landscape can be designed for minimal maintenance demands. If you find yourself constantly facing gardening annoyances like invasive weeds, overgrown shrubs that continually need pruning or having to spray plants to prevent pests and diseases, there’s a good chance your property – and you – could benefit from a properly-planned landscape renovation. Unwisely placed plants or deteriorating garden features are often the cause of such headaches and can easily be simplified, replaced and updated for a lower maintenance landscape design. Your landscape is past its prime. Just like houses that need to be updated and renovated on occasion, landscapes also benefit from a makeover and redesign. Industry standards say that most residential landscape last 15-20 years before plants begin to outgrow their placement and lose their vigor. It’s a misconception that plants never change. As they grow, they need to be pruned, thinned and divided. Proper landscaping is a delicate balancing act between how plants look when they’re planted and how they’ll look when fully grown. A garden is dynamic and goes through stages where it may require more maintenance. You need to boost your curb appeal. A good landscape design will maximize your yard’s attributes... read more
Combating Moisture Stress in Weathered-Out Plants
It’s no wonder that many plants in North Texas are struggling with the aftermath of the spring and summer weather that gave us more precipitation in four months than we had throughout all of 2014. High water tables and saturated soils during May and June contributed to an oxygen deficiency that caused stress and reduced growth to many plants and trees in the area, and now the same plants are distressed by the rapid jump in temperature over the last 8-9 weeks. At the beginning of the season, we enjoyed 74-degree highs; then it jumped to 98- then 104-degree days, and it happened within a relatively short time period. Many plants that usually thrive during Texas summers, such as Nellie R. Stevens hollies and magnolia and vitex trees, struggled this year. If you have plants whose leaves are turning brown at their leaf tips or edges, it’s an indication that they may be suffering from “moisture stress.” Just like a human body that can have circulatory problems pumping blood to the extremities, plant tissues that are the furthest away from plants’ roots, where water enters plants, are most vulnerable to not getting enough water. The problem also causes premature leaf drop. Inner and bottom leaves turn yellow, and then brown, and then they fall. It’s like autumn has arrived two months early. According to Neil Sperry, publisher of GARDENS Magazine, “moisture stress” has many possible causes. (a) the plant got too dry one or more times; (b) the plant has suffered some type of root loss and can’t take water up normally; (c) too much fertilizer was applied around... read more