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Fall Landscape Design

Late Summer Landscape Tips

The summer heat can make even the most lovely of landscapes look a little tired!  Refresh your landscape with these fall landscape design tips:

Fresh Mulch

Add a thin layer of mulch to your landscape beds.  Mulch is often bleached out looking this time of year, and a thin layer is all you need to freshen it up.  If you have already mulched this year, you only need to add another inch of mulch.  If you haven’t mulched at all this year, we recommend three inches of mulch.  This will help the soil retain moisture, and protect plant roots from drying out. Mulching also helps keep weed seeds from germinating.  For more about mulching, including our Mulch Calculator, visit this post.

Planning for a Planting

Take notes and pictures.  Late summer and late winter; these are the times of year that tell the whole story about your landscape.  Does it need more color?  Are there empty spots?  Do you have disease or insect issues that keep coming up?  Is your irrigation system working properly?  How much sun do the different areas of your landscape really get when the sun is high in the sky?

That last one about the sun; this is key.  Let’s say you come in this fall for a plant, and you feel pretty confident that the planting location is shady.  And maybe it is shady in October, when you look out the window before heading to see us.  But because the sun is more overhead in the summer, that spot may actually be fully exposed to the afternoon sun in July and August, causing it to burn up next summer.  We see this a lot; avoid replanting by understanding your sun exposure during the different seasons.

Fall Planting of Trees and Shrubs

It can be tempting to ignore the issues and just wait until it’s time to plant pansies, and then let the beautiful colors distract the eye.  But if you are striving for a fresh look all year round, now is the time to analyze your landscape.  This is because fall is a great time to plant trees and shrubs; they actually get a full season of root growth this fall while soil temps are still warm.  Our last fall landscape design tip is plan now and plant this fall!