19 Oct Beautiful Landscapes: Knowing What Grows
The importance of the final touches in building your perfect custom home, like landscaping, shouldn’t be overlooked. Robare Custom Homes understands the significance of creating a beautiful surrounding to your home that will not only be inviting to visitors, but also, give you the sense of being welcomed every time you come home. With several years of drought and water restrictions in Southeast Texas, creating beautiful landscapes can be a challenging task. Therefore, Robare Custom Homes contracts with only the best landscapers to bring each client a surrounding they can be proud of all year round.
Robare Custom Homes, with our landscapers, will go over all of the options that would best suit your home site and create a beautiful landscape plan that will add that enhanced curb appeal to your new custom home. Whether or not you choose to hire a gardener or maintain the landscaping yourself, learning about what plants will grow and what they require to maintain can be very beneficial in choosing the plants for your landscaping.
Weather conditions in the San Antonio area have brought about a renewed interest in landscaping with native plants. Native plants use less water, but a hesitancy to use native plants may be lack of knowledge of how to landscape with them. Native plants tolerate and resist local diseases and pests. They minimize the use of fertilizers and pesticides, while protecting the soil with long root systems, yet are unlikely to become invasive. Our native buffalo grass would mean lower lawn maintenance. Native flowering varieties, such as the Texas bluebonnet, Golden wave, Lemon mint, Mealy blue sage, Engelmann’s daisy, Indian blanket, Texas lantana and Prairie verbena can add a rainbow of colors to your natural landscape.
The San Antonio Botanical Garden is a great place to learn more about plants and flowers that can turn your bare yard into a beautiful garden. With 33 acres, the Botanical Garden remains the center for learning what grows in the area. With a variety of top notch garden centers and landscapers, the mild climate of this city is ideal for turning yards into human habitats that are healthy, beautiful and safe.
Just as much as plants, nothing adds more value to a landscape than large healthy trees. Learning a bit about how to care for and maintain healthy trees in your landscape can go a long way in helping your yard remain healthy looking all year round.
Pruning your trees is critical to their long term health. As a general rule, you should never prune more than a 1/4 of the tree’s crown and avoid pruning branches that are greater than a 1/3 of the diameter of the main trunk. Most pruning should be done during the tree’s winter dormancy just after the coldest part of the winter. You may also prune a tree during the summer months to help maintain the tree’s size and slow its growth. If pruning during the summer, make sure to wait until the majority of new growth from spring has matured. If at all possible, avoid pruning your tree during the fall since molds and fungi are most active at this time.
Trees do not usually need regular fertilizing like many other types of plants. If the right tree is selected and is healthy, then the tree should do just fine without any fertilization. However, if the tree is not performing as expected, the best place to start is with a soil test. The test will let you know what nutrients your tree is lacking and which fertilizer to apply.
Trees are most susceptible to pests and diseases when they are stressed. Improper pruning or unfavorable environmental conditions are two of the most common ways to stress a tree. The best way to avoid any problems is to select the best tree for your home site.
Being informed about what landscaping grows best in your area will go a long way to prevent any major problems or expense that can occur with poor landscaping planning. Be sure to choose a custom home builder, like Robare Custom Homes, who will help you make informed choices with every aspect of your home, including landscaping.