Flower Bed Renovation

Earlier this week we were called to cleanup a flowerbed that had been neglected. The grass was taking over and the trees that were there had outgrown the spot they were intended for. When I met with the client she had no idea what to do and I offered a complete over haul. Let's remove the unwanted vegetation in beds, unwanted trees and shrubs and also replace the existing edging.

The first step was to rip everything out of the flowerbeds and prepare the beds for mulch. When doing this you'll want to get as much of the roots as possible. We installed new edging and then added the landscape fabric. You'll want to use a landscape fabric as a weed barrier vs plastic because plastic is nonporous and can create puddles. Puddles are very bad because they create a breeding area for mosquitos.

Once your satisfied with the beds and have leveled the beds so there are no dips or hills its time for a weed barrier. Although not 100% effective it does help significantly in unwanted growth of weeds.

Once you have covered the flowerbeds with the landscape fabric its time for mulch. At this point you could also add plants prior to the mulch but the client was still undecided on which plants she wanted so we moved forward with the mulch.

Now we have clean beds and are ready for plants. I randomly placed rocks that we found in beds just to break up the monotony of the beds prior to plant installation, which could be a couple weeks.

We presented a plan and an estimate.

A few of the things we concentrated on was to focus on low maintenance, also we didn't want to hide the house with plants but still wanted curb appeal and we wanted to keep foliage year round. In the plan we also focused on not blocking the view from inside the house once the plants have reached full maturity so we chose plants that were dwarf in variety. Once we received the green light we got to work

The finished beds

Crepe Murder and Trimming Liriope

Spring time is the best time to cut back your Liriope and Crepe Myrtles. You want to do the trimming of liriope in the late winter/ early spring prior to any growth so that you have clean edges of the plant while it grows for the remainder of the season, otherwise if you wait to late the plant will have jagged edges for the season.

In regards to Crepes there is a proper way and an improper way to trim Crepe Myrtles. What I have seen around town is that homeowners and or businesses will chop them off and they look horrible until the new growth emerges. This is referred to as Crepe Murder.

They have these nubs at the tips that look like they have been doing this for years. If properly trimmed a Crepe is beautiful almost sculpture like in a yard. I see this on many commercial accounts because of improper planting of the tree. The owners did not take into account the height of the tree when planting and when it blocks the view of a window or seems obtrusive this seems to be the easy solution. The proper way is to only cut the tips or nothing thicker than a pencil. Also trim dead branches and broken branches. This will allow the tree to breath, for lack of a better word, and grow into a healthier fuller tree.

It is better to not trim if you're going to chop them off in my opinion.