Landscape maintenance is essential to the health and growth of your garden. Once your garden has reached its full potential, it needs regular maintenance to keep it looking its best. The maintenance that a landscape requires depends on a variety of variables, including its size, the weather and the types of plants in it.
As a general rule, once helping you design and construct your outdoor area, we maintain your landscape by routinely working through the following three steps:
1. Prune trees, bushes and shrubs
Pruning trees, bushes and shrubs is important for four primary reasons:
- To prevent disease – When we prune, we focus on eliminating dead and damaged branches, because they are especially vulnerable to diseases and pests.
- To give purpose – Every plant in a landscape has a purpose, which can be to flower, create a division in the landscape or add an interesting shape. As we prune, we keep the plant’s purpose in mind and help it fulfil it.
- To improve appearance – Most trees, bushes and shrubs tend to grow and spread in irregular, unattractive ways. We prune them to control their size, shape and density and in this way, improve their overall appearance.
- To protect people and property – Unkempt trees and bushes can become a safety hazard to people or property if they fall or interfere with visibility along a road or around a home or business. We prune intentionally to keep people and property safe.
2. Care for flower beds and ornamental plants
Depending on the season and the types of plants that we are working with, this second step can include any of the following activities:
- Weeding
- Dividing overcrowded plants
- Adding new plants
- Pruning and removing yellow foliage
- Deadheading flowering plants
- Grooming ground-cover
- Fertilising
- Mulching
Especially when a landscape is new and the plants are young, this second step can also include training vines to climb a pillar or arch, as well as putting in stakes and ties to support fragile plants.
3. Trim and care for the lawn
Lawns are usually one of the largest elements in a landscape and they play a significant part in its overall beauty. Because of this, we go the extra mile to keep lawns looking their best by:
- Edging the border of the lawn
- Mowing the lawn and alternating the mowing pattern to avoid creating strips or ruts
- Removing grass clippings and leaves
- Fertilising regularly
- Dethatching when necessary
- Aerating the lawn once or twice a year
As we maintain each of the different aspects of a landscape, we make it a point to always be watching for signs of invasive weeds, fungi and other diseases, as well as pests. Whenever we see a problem, we promptly take steps to care for it before it spreads and damages the whole landscape.
It takes time and hard work to keep a landscape looking its best. At Normark Landscapes we enjoy maintaining landscapes for our clients, though, because we know it saves them time and work, makes Victoria – specifically Melbourne and the area around it – more beautiful and even nurtures the environment.