Even the most carefully cultivated landscaping birmingham MI suffers through the winter months in Michigan.
The last frost dates in southern Michigan is around May 1, and May 15 in northern Michigan. Here are simple steps you can take to take to prepare your front yard and garden beds for fabulous color and curb appeal the rest of the year:

• Once past the danger of frost, clear away the mulch you laid last fall. Cut back dead perennials, remove dead foliage and either dispose of it, or compost it. Caution: do not compost obviously diseased plants.
• Test the pH level of your soil. Your local gardening center will have test kits available, and complete instructions on usage. Till the soil carefully! Be careful to avoid areas in which you have perennials. Only till those beds in which you will plant annual flowers.
• Add compost or manure to your beds. Spread it around the perennials—don’t cover them. If you are working with fresh beds in which you are planting for the first time, work the compost or manure into the soil. Don’t be stingy—30 or 40 bags of compost worked into a 100 square foot flower bed will provide a healthy base.

Maintaining garden beds is simple and relatively quick once you’ve mastered the steps. From there, it’s only a matter of time till you have the most gorgeous front yard landscaping in the neighborhood.

If you are looking to improve the quality of your landscaping, decorative landscape stones in Waterford, MI can help you enhance the look of your home quite easily. But before you view these stones as a luxury, you can take a very practical approach to understanding why decorative landscape stone can be a great investment in the look of your house. If you are confused or not convinced, here are a few ways that these types of stones can help your home:

• Have you heard of “curb appeal”? A few strategically placed decorative landscape stones can really add a touch of class to the front of your home. In today’s real estate market, you need to give yourself every advantage that you can. Curb appeal plays a major factor in whether or not someone will buy your home, so putting extra decorations that tastefully enhance your home can mean thousands of extra dollars in your sale.
• They are simple and inexpensive. If you are worried about trying to improve your landscaping without destroying your budget, decorative landscape stones can add that extra touch at an affordable price. Good stone is an investment in your future, but it does not need to be so expensive that you are unsure of the purchase. Instead, affordable stone can give that landscape an extra touch that will be much nicer to your wallet.
• They are low maintenance decorations. Install a flower bed with gorgeous rows of beautiful flowers and you will certainly improve your curb appeal. However, in exchange for this, you will also have to spend hours tending to that garden – planting, weeding, and keeping pests away. Once the seasons change, your flowers will die, and next year you will have to plant them all over again. Decorating with stones is a one-time investment of your time. Once they are installed, they last a long time. Because of their durability, you rarely need to maintain them outside of a quick hose wash every now and then. Plus, they stay around throughout the colder months so that you do not have to have a bland landscape during winter.

As you can see, there are a lot of reasons to install a few decorative landscape stones in and around your landscaping. With these installed, you enjoy a fresh, yet understated look that will enhance your home for years to come. In exchange, you do not have to worry about keeping them in shape.

Soil is the anchor of your landscape. Good topsoil in Oakland County offers plenty of benefits to you and your home. If you are landscaping with poor topsoil, you will understand why great topsoil is such an important tool in your gardening and landscaping. Instead of settling for the soil you have around your home, why not bring in some topsoil from Oakland County that will bring you all the benefits you should expect from your soil?

• Good topsoil in Michigan adds nutrients to the soil underneath it, making it great for plants and flowers. This is a no-brainer. If you have better soil, your plants will grow better. A healthy plant is a happy plant, and this makes for much more beautiful landscaping. Your hard, rocky soil is likely choking your plants, keeping them from taking root and robbing them of valuable nutrients that make them grow. Add a layer of topsoil in Oakland County and watch the difference that it makes in the health and quality of your plants.
• Good topsoil in Clarkston, MI adds an extra aesthetic advantage to your home. The curb appeal of your home is important. You have heard of it in terms of real estate and selling your home, but what about when you have company over? Or when your neighbors walk past? Would you prefer that they have to look at gray, rocky dirt, or beautiful, soft, dark topsoil? You probably would prefer the latter.
• Good topsoil in Waterford, MI is easier to work with. With old, hard soil, you have to manually churn up the dirt and tend to it on a regular basis to make it soft enough to plant in. With new topsoil, you can plant right away, affording you a little less effort and a little more time to focus on more important things. That good topsoil will also help keep those plants healthy (as stated above), so you spend less money on plant food and other unnecessary expenses.

Still confused? In summary, good topsoil keeps plants growing and makes your home look a little nicer. These are both really important to any homeowner that has flower beds around their home. These flower beds are opportunities to enhance the look of your home, so take the time to get good topsoil in Oakland County that will add to your home, instead of leaving the old soil that takes away from it.

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There are great reasons to find out where to buy mulch in Oakland County. Mulch is an excellent filler material for your yard and flower beds, offering several key benefits that make it stand out from the rest. But before you start looking for where to buy mulch in Oakland County, consider how you are going to use it around your home and landscape.

• Fill your flower beds. Mulch protects your plants. With a good layer of mulch, you can keep your soil fresh and nutritious while fighting off weeds before they grow. Because it is easy and flexible to install, mulch can be added around delicate plants in their beds. Then you offer the soil underneath it protection from the elements, and it will keep your plants from washing away in heavy rains as well.
• Pour some around your inground pool. Do you have a landscaping around your in ground swimming pool? Fill those areas with mulch. First, they offer a great look for around your pool. But even more important than that, you will keep weeds away. Some people prefer to use stones around their pool, but if you are running around your pool, you can easily catch a rock with your bare foot. A piece of mulch will not travel quite as far, and it will not hurt nearly as much when you accidentally step on one.
• Just use it for decoration. The beauty of learning where to get mulch delivered in Clarkston, MI is that you will know where to find an excellent source of landscaping material. Mulch adds color and depth to a landscape, so that you can increase the curb appeal of your home. Even if you do not tend to many plants or flowers, filling some flower beds around your home with mulch can really add a touch of low maintenance class that people will enjoy. Anything that you can do to improve the look of your home will mean a lot to you when it comes time to sell your home.

Still unsure? Why not find out where to buy mulch in Oakland County and see for yourself? Once you see the different types of mulch, you will know how to beautify your home and enjoy some of these great benefits. Mulch is a flexible and useful material that will add a classy look to your home during all seasons of the year.

Get Mulch Delivery in Clarkston, MI Today! 248.674.1127

Landscaping can be frustrating for those who do not have much money. You might see your Oakland County neighbors who have beautiful back yards and gardens filled with a variety of plants and decorations that make them pop. But if you are on a tight budget, you need to make sure you get the best landscape materials that you can get for your money. This does not mean that you have to sacrifice the quality of your landscaping, however.

• First, focus on soil and trees. Nothing will grow in poor soil. If you have sandy soil or hard clay, your first order of business is to spend the money to get good dirt in there. Proper soil is the best of the landscape materials you can get. Soil needs to be able to deliver nutrients to the roots of your plants, so if you spend all your money on big, exotic plants and have lousy soil to plant them in, you have already wasted your money. Second, put a few trees in. You can buy trees when they are young and tend to them over the years as they grow into big powerhouses. They can be the centerpieces of your landscape.
• Second, look at small plants that will spread out. When you are landscaping on a budget, you need to think long-term. One of the best ways to do this is to buy small plants that are cheap and planting them appropriately. You may find that, in a year or two, they spread out and double – or even triple – in size, giving you a beautiful bed of flowers. Investing the time in these types of landscape materials is a smart move for your money.
• Finally, one of the best landscape materials is one you can make at home: compost. You don’t need to buy expensive mulch or fertilizers if you keep a compost pile. Yard waste and scraps of food can decompose into very nutrient-rich soil, and you can use this to accentuate the soil that you already have. This is another long-term solution, but it will save you a bundle of money in the long run.

As you can see, if you are willing to be patient, you can have a beautiful Oakland County, Michigan landscape by spending wisely on landscape materials and giving them the time to work. By doing so, you can also have a great landscape that will fit in with the rest of the neighborhood.

Whether you decide to hire landscaping designers in Oakland County or you want to go for it yourself, it is important to understand the basic strategies that landscaping designers use to build a masterpiece around a home. If you are doing it yourself, you may think that it is as simple as planting a few trees and a few flowers, but nothing could be farther from the truth.

Instead of going at it haphazardly, think about these strategies that landscaping designers use:

• Plan for machines to be able to access the area. You may need to grind a stump or simply bring in a mower to cut the grass. But either way, there will be a point during the time you live in your home that you will need to bring in a machine to the back or front yard to perform some heavy-duty work. Landscaping designers plan for this when they develop a plan for your landscape, so that you will not have to necessarily destroy or uproot all of your hard work when you do need to bring in a machine.
• Start with the focal points and accentuate the rest. When you make a steak dinner, the steak is the focal point of the plate, and the side dishes and vegetables accentuate it. When you work on your landscape, focus on the “steak”. In other words, whether your focus is the patio or a fountain, or even a garden, you should work hardest on making that piece the best it can be. Focal points are going to be areas where guests are going to look because they will attract the eye, so divide your efforts up accordingly.
• Incorporate some movement into the design. Oakland County, Michigan landscaping designers will encourage you to have a dynamic landscape, instead of a static one. A static landscape design Macomb MI will be nice and pretty, but it will also be boring. It will have the same flowers and plants every day. Instead, plan for a dynamic landscape – put in some elements that will attract birds or butterflies. Put in some longer grasses that can bounce around when the wind blows. A small water fountain can even add some pleasant movements to the design.

Landscaping designers work very hard to build unique and beautiful designs that not only wow the eyes, but also include these elements. Keep them in mind when planning your next landscaping project.

Contact Breens Landscape Today @ 248.674.1127

You may love the view of deer walking through your Oakland County back yard. They are beautiful creatures, and it makes you feel closer to nature when you watch them stroll around, observing your beautiful landscaping. However, that joy and peacefulness can disappear quickly when you notice that the same deer are chewing on your plant life and ruining your landscaping. One of the most effective ways to deal with deer is to build a fence, but it is not your only option. There are other landscape supplies that can help you turn deer away without closing off your entire yard.

• Wild animal manure is one of the more valuable landscape supplies that you can use. The scent of certain animal manure, strategically placed throughout your yard, can signal to the deer to stay away. This also gives the added bonus of improving the soil in your yard, as manure is an incredibly effective and well-known fertilizer.
• You could also consider some of the more unusual and less traditional landscape supplies. For example, bar soap is a very effective deer repellent. You could hang bars of soap in your trees or place them on stakes throughout your property.
• There are commercial landscape supplies available that claim to repel deer as well. These can be effective, but they are rather high-maintenance. They are most effective immediately after application, and you may have to apply them every few days. In addition, it could wash off after a good rain, so you would need to apply it again then as well.

If you are not very attracted to the idea of using landscape supplies like these, you can always start planting certain plants that deer are not attracted to, like lavender, allium, or Rugosa roses. But if you insist on planting the plants that attract deer because you prefer them, then consider some of these landscape supplies that could help you keep the deer away. While you may think of some of these as quite unusual to include in your Oakland County, Michigan landscaping, the results that they provide may be just what you need, and you can avoid closing off your yard with a fence.

Contact Breens Landscape Today @ 248.674.1127

You decide that you need a retaining wall. Good – a retaining wall can keep your Oakland County yard from washing away and prevent water from seeping into your basement. It protects your property and keeps your landscape looking sharp. But are you thinking about doing it yourself? That may be a major mistake. Hiring a retaining wall company can be worth it.

Not sure? Consider these points when thinking about whether or not to hire a retaining wall company:

• If the construction of the wall isn’t done properly, it will likely fail. The failure of a retaining wall means the wall and the soil behind it can move very quickly into a neighbor’s yard, the walkway in front of your house, the driveway, or even your home. This depends on the location of the wall. In any case, the retaining wall is not something you want to fail. Failure means that you will need to construct the wall from the bottom up once again, in many cases. Hiring a Macomb County, Michigan retaining wall company can reduce the risk of wall failure, so that you do not have to worry so much about whether or not the wall will stay up.
• How much experience do you have in grading a landscape? Grading refers to the slope of the soil and how it drains. It is a delicate science, and improper grading can adversely affect the drainage of water in the soil, as well as the erosion of the soil. Water can back up behind the wall and seep into areas that you do not want it to, or it can pool at the base of the wall, which is likely not what you want it to do. A retaining wall company knows exactly how to grade the landscape so that it drains properly and is not a headache to the homeowner.
• Is it worth the risk? Finally, considering all of this, you need to evaluate whether or not the understood drop in cost will be worth taking on that risk. The drop in cost implies that the wall will be of the same quality as one built by a retaining wall company. This is not always the case. If it fails or needs to be rebuilt, or it damages anything, then the cost of the wall is already well over the initial cost of just hiring a retaining wall company to do it for you right the first time. Are you willing to take on that risk?

Doing it yourself may be tempting, but a retaining wall company is a smart investment when you need a retaining wall built.

Contact Breens Landscape Today @ 248.674.1127