Landscaping Tips and Tricks for Beginners
If you've just purchased your first home, then no doubt you want the landscaping to always look its best, but if you've never cared for a lawn and flowerbeds before, you may struggle with where to begin and how to keep things healthy outdoors. Your neighbors may all have lush and green lawns while yours seems to struggle, and you may wonder if you need all the products you see at the gardening supply center when you visit. Note a few landscaping tips and tricks for beginners that you might want to consider to keep your outdoor space looking its best.
1. Watering
Deciding when and how to water your lawn isn't always difficult, but you don't want to simply set out sprinklers in the middle of the day and assume you'll soon have a lush lawn. For one thing, you want to ensure that all areas of the lawn are being watered without soaking any one area. Use a sprinkler hose, which is like a garden hose with holes, that you snake through your lawn for even watering. Ensure that any other type of sprinkler you use reaches the far corners of your lawn and doesn't just overwater the middle areas. Avoid watering when the sun is directly overhead, as the water may simply evaporate in the heat and not be absorbed into your lawn.
2. Treating dry soil
If your soil seems to be dry, you may have soil erosion or runoff. This is when the soil cannot hold moisture as it should. You can fix this problem with matting, a layer of material that you put on top of the soil or just under the topsoil. Matting is made from wood chips and other natural materials and is like a very loose, open net. The matting holds in moisture while allowing vegetation to grow between its loops. It simply degrades away over the years so you can then replace it, but it will keep your lawn and landscaping watered and protected.
3. Soil testing
It's good to get your soil tested or to perform your own test at least once per year so you know if you need to include additives. Your soil may have a high pH level and, in turn, cannot support healthy plants. This can be addressed by adding lime. If it has a low pH level, you can add fertilizer instead. Testing kits are available from most stores that sell landscaping supplies, and they're a very inexpensive way to figure out the overall health of your soil.