Gardening with CherylGardening Tips and Ideas For Your Yard

Follow these easy spring garden maintenance tips and you will be enjoying your yard. Even after one weekend of spring garden cleaning you can have leaves raked, trees and shrubs pruned and ground ready for planting new plants. A little spring garden maintenance means less yard work in summer.

Arm yourself with a rake, weed eater or heavy shears, a tool belt, apron with pockets, basket, or pail, filled with clippers, gardening scissors, gardening gloves, old cloths, trash bags and, if available, a small garden saw. Start on one side of your property or garden and work across the yard and then clockwise around your house and other out buildings beginning with the front/main entrance. The point is to be able to go over all areas of your landscape so that you don’t miss plants.

Always begin an area by tackling the larger growing plants, whether trees or shrubs. First cut or saw out all branches that are dead, broken, touching or crossing. Then, if necessary, trim for shape. From the larger trees and shrubs, move onto smaller growing plants, such as ornamental grasses (which you will be cutting to the ground with either the weed eater or heavy shears), roses, evergreen herbs, perennials, ground covers, etc. Remember, if you haven’t pulled out the annuals that were planted last year, it is time to remove them now.

Once all plants have been pruned, shaped and otherwise cleaned up in an area, rake the clippings into the trash bag and move onto the next. By cleaning up an area completely, if you have to stop that day before finishing, you can begin with a new area the next time and you don’t have to back track. I find it easier to make sandwiches the night before to lunch on so I don’t have to completely stop my gardening. This way I am only taking a break and don’t lose focus on what I’m doing.

Once the weather warms and decks, patios and porches are back in use, queries begin coming in requesting assistance in landscaping these areas. So, I thought it would be a good idea to offer these suggestions to all of our readers. The first task is to sit on your patio, porch or deck and actually look out (away from the exterior walls). What do you see? Do you see an open never ending lawn or, maybe it’s a small enclosed area? What could you see as a focal point in your view? How do you feel about your deck? Is it quiet and cozy or more of an open space where you would prefer more privacy? The answers to these questions will dictate how you landscape around your outdoor living area.

Let’s discuss patios and low level decks and porches first. Your point of view from sitting in your chair should give you looking into (not onto) the lawn area. Basically, the lawn becomes an extension of that outdoor space. Low level sitting areas take more advantage of the opening. Colors and textures can be used effectively from the immediate areas on to the outlying regions. The view will be complete from the tree tops all the way down to ground cover. So, be sure to add in lots of colorful perennials and shrubs into the outlying landscape.

Now, in landscaping around the perimeter of your low level deck (patio or porch), you will want to select plants with that in mind. If your outside living space is large and extends out considerably from the house, consider placing ornamental trees or other decorative plants. The following is a great listing of plants for this purpose.

Japanese red maple
Sky rocket juniper
Blue point juniper
Emerald green arborvitae
Crape myrtle trees
Kousa dogwood
Kwanzan cherry
Sourwood trees
Red bud
Sweetbay magnolia
Clumping bamboo
Nishiki willow

Remember to allow for stepping stones or other access to the outlying areas. In planting along the edges, select low growing plants so as to not block the outward view. Staying in the 3 ½ foot range and below should work quite well, especially with taller plants in that range that are airy at the tops such as ornamental grasses.
The following list you will find excellent plants for bordering gardens.

Barberry crimson pygmy
Crape myrtle Chickasaw
Crape myrtle Pocomoke
Coreopsis
Astilbe
Gaillardia
Heucheras
Lemon princess spiraea
Hydrangeas (Cityline series)
Hostas
Chamaecyparis pisifera compacta
Nandina dwarf firepower
Nandina dwarf harbor
Saliva
Russian sage little spire
Weigela
Liriope
Grass, Acorus Ogon
Grass, Sporobolus h. Prairie Dropseed
Grass, pennisetum Karley Rose
Grass, Pennisetum Hameln
Grass, Phalaris a. Strawberries and Cream
Verbena-low growing
Lantana-low growing
Rosemary
Lavender
Sage

When planning your landscape around high level decks and balconies, remember that you will be looking down onto the plants immediately around the perimeter and only seeing the top portions of the plants in the outlying areas. High level areas truly take on a different view of the lawn than low level areas and should be landscaped accordingly. High level decks are considered to be (roughly) 5 and 6 feet and higher off the ground. Plant for fragrance, long blooming periods, lots of texture and slightly away from the deck so you are fully able to enjoy the plants. This list of plants works nicely in such situations.

White birch
Dogwoods
Serviceberry
Magnolias
Tulip poplar
Lilacs
Crape myrtles-tall growing varieties
Heptacodium, Seven son
Oakleaf hydrangeas
Magnolia Jane
Red bud
Flowering cherry
Flowering peach
Flowering pear
Sourwood
Laurels
Rhododendrons
Holly

Armed with this information, you can now confidently plan the landscape around your multi leveled outdoor living spaces.

Cheryl D. Jones, co-owner of Greenwood Nursery, McMinnville, TN, shares tips and information on gardening and landscaping through her blog, newsletters and nursery website. Visit Greenwood Nursery for a full line of trees, shrubs, perennials, ornamental grasses and ground covers. Join the Greenwood Gardeners Club free to receive the nursery’s weekly newsletter, access to the members sales page, seasonal promotions and 10% off your first order.

So you’ve decided to plant a couple of trees in your landscape this weekend. What’s the worst thing that could happen? An aching back? Blistered hands? Or maybe pulling back the lever on your rented Bobcat and realizing you’ve just ruptured a gas line or torn up a buried electrical cable?

It’s safe to say that any of those could pretty much ruin your weekend. You would also earn the wrath of your neighbors whose utilities were cut off until crews could repair your damage, and it’s likely you’d be responsible for the cost of repairs and possibly even open to legal consequences.

You might think that the hole you are digging for that new tree isn’t deep enough to cause a problem, but that can be a dangerous assumption. For one thing, some underground utilities might be closer to the surface than you imagine.

Additionally, you have to remember that tree roots can go deep and wide as the tree matures, and planting over or close to underground utilities is like burying a green time bomb that can dislodge and break lines many years in the future.

Fortunately, this is a problem that has a very simple (and free) solution.

All you have to do – BEFORE you dig – is call a this 3-digit phone number: 811. When you call 811 from anywhere in the country, your call will be routed to your local One Call Center. Local One Call Center operators will ask you for the location of your digging job and route your call to affected utility companies. Your utility companies will then send a professional locator to your location to mark your lines within a few days.

Utility companies have offered this service for many years, but with so many companies with so many phone numbers spread across the country, there was a lot of confusion and misunderstanding. Hence the start of a national one-call service and a unique phone number, 811.

Some homeowners believe the 811 service is solely for contractors but that is incorrect. Utility companies are just as happy to mark their lines for your DIY projects as for professional excavation jobs.

I should add that, even if you hire professional contractors to build that new deck or fence on your property, don’t assume they will call 811 before they begin work. I recommend that you ask the contractor if they have already done so, or you can simply call 811 yourself and tell your contractor that you’ve made the call.

Within a few days, you’ll see some little colored flags or lines of colored paint criss-crossing your land, indicating what lies beneath. Here’s what the colors indicate:

Red – Electric Orange – Communications, Telephone/CATV Blue – Potable Water Green – Sewer/Drainage Yellow – Gas/Petroleum Pipe Line Purple – Reclaimed Water White – Premark site of intended excavation

As you can see, white paint or flags are used to indicate where you or your contractors are planning to dig. It’s a very good idea to mark the dig location before the utility locator teams come out. But be sure you use only WHITE markers to avoid any confusion!

While the marker teams are looking down, you should take a few moments to look up. Overhead power and telephone lines are so much part of our lives that they almost become invisible to us.

But a tree planted under or close to an overhead power line can be a major problem. Before you plant a tree anywhere near overhead lines, double-check the possible mature height and canopy spread, and if necessary err on the side of caution and plant it a little further away.

More than 256,000 underground utility lines are struck each year in the U.S. If you’d rather not be part of that statistic, simply call 811 so you’ll know what’s below before you dig.

Check out Greenwood Nursery for more information on home maintenance and landscaping.