There's a terrible affliction that hits nearly everyone this time of year. However, it seems to manifest differently in different people, and the levels of severity vary. The virus is Spring fever, and symptoms include:Blowing off work to hang out outdoors.
Making spur-of-the-moment purchases like convertibles.
Frenzied bouts of cleaning that lead to throwing away things you'll soon need. Another Spring fever symptom is plant installations that homeowners haven't yet taken the time to think through. The eventual outcome may be a broken heart. But what better to monitor potential heart problems than EKG? Today we want to help you make good landscape installation decisions. So we'll give you our advice on plant installations in Chesterfield. Plan Before You Plant If there's one piece of advice that generalizes into nearly every aspect of landscaping and the rest of your life, it's when possible, spend time planning! Life is full of surprises, and landscapes can be too, but when you take the time to learn about what you're doing and plan it through, you can better meet those surprises head-on. Here are some of what we suggest our landscaping customers consider. Time to Maturation How much time have you got? If you want a landscape that will stun your neighbors this year, you have to think differently than if you plan for the future. Some plants take time to mature. Likewise, when planting a tree, you shouldn't just pick on one that looks good today. Instead, you need to consider how high it will grow and if you want something that sizes in five, ten, or twenty years. Maintenance We all love how a new landscape installation looks - fresh, beautiful flowers surrounded by mulch that helps them stand out. But plants tend to grow, and if you don't keep up with all that changing, soon your flowers won't look so fresh. In addition, some plants and installations need more landscape maintenance than others to stay looking their best; that's why you must consider carefully before buying or planting.How much time are you able to spend on your landscape? Or how often do you want professional landscapers like EKG working on your property maintenance? For some, maintenance is a significant factor in their plant selection. Interactions and Contraindications Gardeners and flower lovers may wish they had infinite space to plant everything they could find, but to modify a crude saying, you can wish in one hand and pour fertilizer in the other and see which fills first! Because space is limited, we must always consider what effect our plant installation will have on the plants already present and vice versa. For example, a tall shade tree can destroy one flower garden but create space for a shade garden. If you take time to plan it well, you can end up with something beautiful. Design Before You Buy Beyond the basics of keeping your plants alive and maintained, you need it all to jive aesthetically. So before buying your plants, create a layout. EKG always offers landscape design as part of our landscaping packages. We'll consider how everything harmonizes, contrasts, and factors in all the landscape design fundamentals like color, height, and texture. Preparation Once you know what you need and create a landscape design, there is still one more step (or a series of small ones that make up a process). That's landscape preparation. Right Nutrients In the research stage of planning your landscape, you should have figured out what nutrients your plants need. Now you need to check your soil to see if it has them. If it doesn't, you must amend the soil with proper nutrients through fertilizer. Dig Dig Dig While you won't know the exact size of what you're planting until you have it in hand, you will have a general idea of how much space a particular flower, shrub, or tree will take. And since transplanting is the most dangerous time for a plant, you should do your best to minimize its time out of the ground. That means having the ground ready for it when it arrives. Plant Installation Once you purchase your plants and bring them home, it's time to plant them. Soak the ground before planting to ensure the plant will get plenty of water immediately. Then place the plant in the ground and cover it with an appropriate amount of mulch. In most cases, you should water the plants again to minimize the possibility of drying out or shock. There's A Lot to Landscape Installation Plant installation is a multi-step process; every plant has different dos and don'ts. Your best vet is to hire professionals who've seen it all before. EKG gets to the heart of your landscaping to create something you'll love. Then we care for it, so all you have to do is enjoy it.