Water and Your Landscaping

Landscape Maintenance

In this month’s blog, we’ll discuss how to deal with the water conditions of your property: having not enough and having too much.

Dealing with Drought

If it hasn’t rained for a while, look for signs that your landscaping is experiencing water stress—plants with stunted growth or brown or yellow leaves, trees dropping leaves and have some dead branches, plants in the garden may not have flowers or start to seed early, and your lawn may start to show footprints or can’t “bounce back” after you walk on it or may even begin to show brown spots in some areas.

If a drought is coming, there are steps you can take immediately to minimize the damage:

  • Add mulch to garden areas and bare spots. Mulch keeps areas cool and traps moisture.
  • Don’t add any new plants; instead, focus your watering efforts to your existing landscape.
  • Don’t fertilize your plants or lawn. If you must fertilize, cut the amount of fertilization by half. Your lawn and plants are trying to survive, not grow. Fertilization is not needed at this time.
  • Pruning is not necessary, but remove dead branches and leaves, stalks, etc.
  • If plants look like they are going to die, remove them. Try not to waste water on something that will not make it through the drought.
  • Pull weeds. Eliminating weeds will cut down on unnecessary water usage, and your landscaping will look better.

When mowing your lawn, don’t mow too short. Keeping the blades long will shade the soil, reduce evaporation, and minimize any heat damage that may happen during the drought. Consider leaving the clippings on the lawn to help protect it and return nutrients to the soil.

If the drought is really bad and it looks like it will continue, consider letting your lawn go dormant; most grass is drought resistant and will recover when a steady supply of rain returns.

If you have ornamental plants around your yard, consider how long is left in the season. If it’s an annual, is it worth keeping them alive? If the season is almost over, it might be easier to let them die. If you’ve planted shrubs and trees in the past one or two years, they are more susceptible to being lost. Focus your watering efforts on new plantings, those plantings that are expensive to replace, or anything that you’ve planted that has sentimental value.

How to Water During a Drought

Once a drought is firmly established, soil will begin to harden and get impacted. Add water slowly so it gets absorbed instead of running off. A good way to make sure water gets absorbed well is to use soaker hoses. After running for an hour check that water has penetrated down about an inch; if not, run the water longer.

It’s best to water on a schedule, and to water in the early morning. This will stop the water from evaporating and allow time to soak in the soil. Do not water at night; wet grass overnight can cause fungus to grow.

If you have an irrigation system, it’s best to use a timer. Some irrigation systems can connect to your home’s Wi-Fi to monitor weather conditions. These systems control when and how you water your property and respond to water, weather, and soil conditions to deliver the right amount of water at the right time.

Water, Water Everywhere

What if we’re having a rainy summer and we’re experiencing the opposite problem? If you have noted areas of your lawn or garden where water pools, there are things you can do to avoid erosion and have your plants or lawn die from too much water.

One thing you can do is aerate your lawn to assure water is penetrating the dirt’s surface. By doing so, you’ll direct water to the roots of your grass, which will make it stronger and more lush when the rain stops. And it’ll make the soil less compact, allowing it to drain easier.

Make sure your gutters and downspouts are clean, so the runoff doesn’t create erosion around the foundation of your home, garage, or other outdoor structures and buildings.

When planning your landscaping, be sure to properly grade your lawn, garden, and flower beds. And choose plants that love water—ask us if you’re unsure.

For existing landscapes, add soil and grade the surface away from your home. Consider adding terraces to your landscape to help water run down slopes. Prune your landscaping to allow sunlight to dry areas.

For areas that always seem wet or are susceptible to pooling, you might have to install a drain, or consider changing the layout to a hardscape. You can add a permanent water feature and incorporate that area, like a pond, water garden or even a meandering stream with a bridge to your yard.

At Stephens Landscaping, we have a lot of experience helping homeowners come up with a plan for drought and overwatering. Let us help you and your landscape; call us at 603.707.0630 or contact us today.

Making the Most of Mulch

Landscape Maintenance

Mulching has been favored by gardeners and landscapers alike for many years, as mulching adds a nice finishing touch to well-landscaped grounds and protects plants, trees, and shrubbery. Since mulch can affect the soil beneath the mulch, it must be applied properly to not damage the root system of your plants. We’ll discuss what to consider when adding mulch to your property so you can make sure your gardens, yard and landscaping look their best year-round.

What is mulch?

Mulch is the name used for a substance that’s put on top of soil to provide protection or add visual interest to an area. When you are deciding which mulch to use in your landscaping, remember, the best mulch is an organic material, that is, it’s a substance that already comes from nature. Common mulches are made of bark/wood chips, and moss. Mulch comes in a variety of colors, so you can choose one that best complements your property features and landscape design.

Why use mulch?

Mulch has been used to add an aesthetic, decorative touch to landscapes for decades. Mulching around plantings, shrubs and trees adds a dimension of shading under foliage as well as contrast under brightly colored flowers. But mulch serves much more than a decorative purpose.

Mulch can help deter weed growth among your plantings by not allowing sunlight to pass down to them. It will help the soil around your plantings retain moisture, which is always beneficial to their growth, especially in dry periods. Mulch traps water and slows evaporation from the surface of the soil, so plants stay hydrated longer, reducing the need for frequent watering. It can protect your plants during periods of heavy rain, as it will absorb water and protect the roots; mulch will also help minimize soil erosion around your plantings.

Mulch can also help protect your plant’s roots during periods of extreme heat, as it acts as an insulator. The use of mulch can reduce the occurrence of heat damage to both the base of your plants and the surrounding soil. It will also help your plants resist pest and plant disease; in fact, organic mulches provide earthworms and micro-organisms with food, which is great for your plants and your plant health.

During decomposition, organic mulches add beneficial nutrients back into the soil, enriching your soil for next year.

Apply mulch correctly

Once you’ve decided on the “what” (type and color) of the mulch you want to use on your property, you’ll want to focus on the “how” of spreading the mulch. Improperly spread mulch can not only be disruptive to the overall design of your yard, it can also be damaging to a garden or landscape. Mulch that’s applied too thickly can be damaging to a plant’s root system and may stop water from making its way down to the root of the plant, or not allow the area surrounding a plant to drain correctly after watering or a rainstorm.

Start your mulch application by cleaning out the areas where you want to apply mulch. Take out the weeds, sticks, leaves, etc. that have accumulated over the winter months, and water if necessary. Then start spreading the mulch; it’s best to lay down mulch in a depth of approximately 2 inches.

If you’re putting mulch down around plants, shrubbery, and trees, etc., make sure to keep the mulch around three inches away from the plant itself, to help with air circulation around the root of the plant. However, if you’re mulching a vegetable garden, you do want to mulch right up to the stalk of the plant, to help with water retention. Water the whole area after mulching.

At Stephens Landscaping, we have a lot of experience with using many kinds of mulch, and we’d love to discuss which kinds and colors of mulch are right for your landscape and garden. Call us at 603.707.0630 or reach out by email.

Keeping Your Driveway Snow & Ice Free

Landscape Construction

Winter is a wonderful time to enjoy all that New England has to offer. Our abundant snowfall allows for all sorts of fun outdoor activities. But with the quiet beauty of snowfall comes something less enjoyable: clearing driveways and walkways full of snow.

Wouldn’t it be nice if you didn’t have to worry about clearing your passageways at all? You can have a driveway and sidewalk that stays clear of snow and ice by installing a radiant heating system under their surfaces. Many new houses are built incorporating heated driveways into their design, but installation can be done at existing homes as well.

Heating System Options

There are several options available to keep your driveway and walkways clear of snow: portable mats, a hydroponic (hot water) built-in system, and an electrical (wire grid) built-in system. We breakdown these systems, including installation details below:

Portable mats: These are the easiest and least expensive to install. It consists of portable mats that you lay down before any storm, wherever you want to keep snow from sticking and piling up. They come in a multitude of lengths and widths, so you can purchase mats to best fit your space requirements.

These are a good way to try out a heated driveway before committing to the time and expense of an installed system. The downside is that these mats must be placed before the snow comes and removed after the storm. They should be stored somewhere before the next use.

Hydroponic systems: If you are having a house built, the ideal time to install this system is before the driveway or walkway is laid. If you are adding this to an existing property, the driveway or walkway will have to be torn up, system installed and passageway redone.

This system uses tubing that is installed under the surface of your driveway and/or walkway. A warm, non-freezing water solution gets circulated through this series of tubes, and this solution is heated by a boiler that is usually located in the garage. This system is controlled by an automatic sensor or can be controlled manually. The driveway is then laid on top of this tube.

Electrical (wire grid) systems: Like the portable mats, these are a series of electrical wires that are meshed together in a grid pattern. These mats are embedded into the soil beneath the driveway, then paved over. Again, this is best done before the driveway is laid, but can be done to existing driveways if the driveway is torn up. Grids can be connected to cover the driveway completely, and this system is also controlled by a sensor that can be controlled manually or automatically.

Things to Consider

Apart from the initial purchase and installation costs, you should also be aware that heated driveways and walkways will incur operating costs each year as well. The boiler for the hydroponic system will use additional electricity or gas (however you heat your home) and the electrical grid system will increase your electricity usage.

If you install the hydroponic system, you’ll need to have the boiler inspected each year before the winter season begins, to keep your system in the best working order. While each system will likely give you 20 or so years of use, like any other mechanical system, breakdowns do happen, and you may need to do small repairs and maintenance over the years. If something really goes wrong, you may need to tear out part or all your driveway or walkway to repair the problem.

However, in weighing the pros and cons, having a heated driveway/walkway system to combat the snowiness of a typical New England winter is an absolutely excellent idea. Installing a heated driveway and walkways are wonderful ways to ensure the safety of your family and your visitors around your property this winter and will take away a lot of worry and fuss. You won’t have to find and rely on someone to plow and clear your property, and your driveway will be ready for you whenever you need to use it. You’ll increase the life of your driveway by not exposing it to great variations in temperature, or by being scraped by snowplows and shovels or corroding chemicals to melt ice and snow. And, you’ll increase the property value of your home.

We’d love to discuss the possibility of adding a heated driveway/walkway system to your home. Contact us, or give us a call at 603.707.0630.

Deer-Resistant Plants for the Lakes Region

Landscape Maintenance

There aren’t any completely deer-proof plants. Deer eat almost anything when food is scarce, or their population is high. Like humans, deer have food preferences, even when they have many options to choose from. Depending on deer pressure, here is a selection of plants that we have found to be more and less susceptible to deer browse.

HIGHLY SUSCEPTIBLE TO DEER BROWSE

Deer love to graze on many types of groundcovers, especially the tender new growth in the spring. If you have deer on your property, we recommend avoiding the following plants as they are more prone to deer browsing and can be severely damaged:

  • Hosta
  • Arborvitae
  • Petunias
  • Euonymus
  • Some Rhododendrons
  • Evergreen Azaleas

Deer seem to prefer plants which have been fertilized over those which have not.

LESS SUSCEPTIBLE TO DEER BROWSE

Deer tend to avoid fragrant plants with strong scents or highly aromatic flowers, and plants which have leathery, fuzzy, hairy, or prickly foliage. In our experience, the following plants are rarely damaged by deer:

  • Spiraea
  • Potentilla
  • Nepeta (Catmint)
  • Achillea (Yarrow)
  • Salvia
  • Pachysandra
  • Perennial Grasses & Ferns
  • Daffodils
  • Leucothoe
  • Pieris (Andromeda)
  • Iris
  • Lambs Ear
  • Dusty Miller
  • Lavender
  • Allium (Ornamental Onion)
  • River Birch

GARDENING WITH DEER-RESISTANT PLANTS

While gardening can be challenging in areas with high deer pressure, there are a wide variety of plants with beautiful flowers and fragrant foliage that are less susceptible to deer browse also attract bees and butterflies.

Deer are especially hungry in the spring, so consider filling your spring garden with deer-resistant plants or aromatic perennial herbs. Even resistant plants are more vulnerable in the first few weeks after planting; to eliminate temptation consider a strong-smelling deer repellant or plan for additional fencing or barriers for protection.

If you’re experiencing problems with unwanted deer on your property or are looking to plan ahead before it becomes a problem, we recommend talking with our experienced staff. We’ll help you select the right plants for your landscape, plan for additional protection such as the use of fencing or recommend deer repellant products which are available at our Garden Center.

Spring Pruning Techniques & The Best Time To Prune Which Plants

Landscape Maintenance

Pruning can be intimidating based on the decision of when to prune, how much to prune, and the proper types of cuts to make. Proper pruning is important and provides these important benefits.

  • To maintain plant vigor.
  • Create and preserve a good branch or plant structure
  • Increase flower or fruit production on fruit trees.
  • Improve overall health and air flow.
  • Keeping the plant size to the space in which it is planted.

People often find themselves pruning shrubs or trees more often because they have been planted in a location where mature size was not taken into account. The excess growth can lead to encroaching on other plants, screen windows, or spill into the lawn spaces and walkways.

A common mistake is pruning a plant purely by its appearance rather than looking at its natural growth factors: size, width, shape, growth rate, and determining the best course of action from there. If possible, it’s important to start pruning plants when they’re young as it is easier to maintain a well pruned tree. It’s important to cut back conservatively and knowledgeably, otherwise the plant often ends up worse off than if you just left it alone.

The first step to starting with good pruning practice is to select a high-quality plant from a reputable garden center who has been pruning it correctly from the early stages. This will create good branch structure and a good balance that will eventually establish well. Starting with healthy plants that have “good bones” makes a huge difference.

Some Things to Consider Before You Prune

It is a known fact that more pruning in young, vibrant shrubs and trees increases the amount of new growth. This means that if you prune too often, it can make the situation worse or even require more attention than if you had just left it alone. With older trees that have lost a lot of their vigor, a good heavy renovation prune often stimulates new growth of the tree and helps produce more branches, flowers, or fruit. Just like mowing grass weekly, when pruning a shrub or tree it is recommended that no more than 1/3 of the height be taken off per year to avoid stress on the tree or shrub.

Timing your pruning also has a lot to do with the species that you are working on. There is a spring and early summer prune which will help take off a lot of the new flushed growth and prohibits a lot of new shoots. You should be careful on fall pruning of some items as this can stimulate new flushes of growth that can be damaged by early frosts and cold freezes.

For flowering type shrubs and trees, it’s important to determine if the species will flower on the new buds from the current season or the previous season’s growth. Knowing this will help you decide when it’s best to prune and reduce cutting off the new potential flowers. We have found that if you prune in the dormant season, and take off growth with buds that would have developed in the spring, it will help the plant flower more and develop a stronger branch structure. This also helps reduce the time that the open wound is susceptible to disease before active growth starts.

There is definitely a benefit to pruning shrubs and trees for the right reasons. It’s always good to take off any dead, diseased, or dying material at any point. This will reduce the stress on the plant, reduce the wounded area from insect and disease damage, and allow the wound to heal correctly. If you put thought and consideration into what you are trying to accomplish and what outcomes you hope to have, this will drive how you do your pruning, when you do it (depending on species), and will also help you decide if you really have the right plant for the area.

Proper Pruning Tools

  • Loppers: used for larger branches up to 1” in diameter.
  • Pole Pruner: used for different size branches that are further up in the canopy of the tree that cannot be reached from the ground or ladder. These have a lopper-type cutting ability as well as a heavily toothed saw that is used for larger branches.
  • Hedge Shears: used to shape smaller shrubs with very fine or thin branches.
  • By-Pass Pruners: this type of pruner has the blades slide by side like a pair of common scissors.
  • Anvil Pruners: this is a sharp blade that pushes down on a flat, small metal surface on the pruner to cut the branch.
  • Chainsaw: used for larger branches that cannot be cut by a pole saw or other method.

It is very important that you sanitize your tools before you start pruning anything. A simple 10% bleach and 90% water solution is the easiest way. It is recommended that you do this between each type of plant and cut that is being made to reduce the chance of spreading a disease. Although it is not common to spread disease through pruning, there is some risk, and sanitizing your tools will reduce that risk greatly. It’s also a good idea to always start with your known healthy plants and then finish pruning any plants or shrubs in question.

When you start to prune your plants, you need to consider what the mature look of the plant is and make your pruning cuts accordingly. The type of cut and where it is made will have a big impact on how the wound heals, along with how the new branch structure will grow out and effect the health of the plant in the future. It is said that most species of shrubs and trees will respond to the cut similarly as long as it is done the right way.

Different Types of Pruning Cuts

There are several different types of cuts that can be made during the pruning process depending on what the condition of the plant is, what you are trying to accomplish, and the species of the plant as well:

  • Heading Cuts: this is when the new growing part of the branch is taken off, which then stimulates the lower buds to push out a vigorous flush of new growth. This method is often used when you want to create a dense type of growth like shaping a small shrub, hedge, or tree. If you are using this method only to keep the plant size down, you have the wrong plant for that location.
  • Pinching: this method is used by taking off only the new growth on the stem or branch, which then pushes out new growth from the buds below that to develop into branches. The more often this is done, the denser the branch structure will become as the plant grows. For example, we see this type of practice a lot in the growing of annual plants or fall mums that have 3-4 pinches in a 6 month period to shape and build out the density and fullness of the plant.
  • Thinning Cuts: these types of cuts are taking off more than the small new growth at the tip. It is cutting back down to the first or another lateral branch which then will put energy back into the growth of that lateral branch rather than pushing out new growth at the pruned location. This method is often used to help open up air flow inside the canopy of a tree, cut crossing branches out, and decrease the height.
  • Removal Cuts: this is one of the heavier cuts made which results in taking the branch right back to the main stem or trunk of a large tree. It can be utilized when trying to limb a tree up from the ground.

Branch Collar and Branch Bark Ridge

When making cuts during pruning, it is very important that each cut is done with the correct angle as trees and shrubs do not have the ability to heal “tissue”. Instead, they create a barrier of cells to reduce the damage of the wound. The cut angle is easy to establish once you are able to identify the key features on the branch. These features are the “branch collar” and “branch bark ridge”.

  • Branch Collar is the swollen area that is found right where the branch and trunk tissue connect at the start of growth.
  • Branch Bark Ridge is the area of the branch in which there is raised bark that the branch and stem meet at. This area is crucial to the health of a tree because the “woundwood” is located inside this area, which has cells that help form tissue to protect the tree from decay after cuts are made.

When you start to prune, the cut needs to be right above the branch collar and at the same angle as the branch bark ridge. If you cut below or your cuts are flat, this reduces the amount of woundwood and the trees ability to fully heal the wound, which then opens the tree up for decay and insects.

If you are worried about doing this process, you can always start out on a small shrub or tree in an inconspicuous location, take a photo of the area you are about to prune, and make the proper cut. Then, in a few months, return to that same shrub or tree and see how your pruned area has developed based upon your pruning technique. Start small until you are comfortable and confident in what you are doing. There are many books, online articles, and resources to refer to in making the right decisions on timing and techniques. And, as always, our experienced staff at Stephens Landscaping Professionals is here if you want your pruning expertly taken care of.