Back Yard Maintenance: 4 Ideas To Do In Your Spare Time
When you have some spare time to get into the back yard, then take advantage of it.
Once the weather turns or winter comes along, you’ll have a lot less time and probably zero inclination to get started on outdoor jobs!
Develop a few projects and devote half a day on each to knock them out. For longer projects, schedule them over a full weekend or wait until you have a couple of days off work.
You’ll be so glad you grabbed the bull by the horns when looking back at your handiwork in the summer.
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Here are four ideas to work on in the backyard.
Create a Curved Landscaping Feature
A curved landscaping feature is one that stands out from the rest of the backyard. This is especially true when the lawn is in a traditional rectangular shape that seemingly lacks imagination.
It’s up to you to use landscaping to recreate how the yard looks to make it more pleasing to look at.
Use a spade to cut a pleasing shape in your lawn and remove the excess sod. Dig over the bare earth and remove weeds and stones. You can then turn the area into a new flower bed or even a vegetable patch.
If you would rather create a hard landscaping feature, adding some thin stone veneer is an interesting choice. It is made from thinly cut building stone.
It doesn’t include concrete, so it has a unique appearance that is excellent in landscape features for its distinctiveness. You can use it as an extra footpath or plant fragrant herbs that emit a lovely perfume when you walk past in the evening.
Fix Your Deck
Taking care of your deck ensures it’ll last many years.
After winter, it’ll require some loving care to bring it back up to standard again.
Start by removing any branches, leaves, and other debris that have traveled onto the deck and not been removed over the last few months when it probably hasn’t been used.
Sweep up and then pressure wash the area to remove remaining dirt and grime. Once the deck is dry, look closely for signs of rot and missing screws. Fix any problems you find and replace worn or rotten slats.
Finally, use a deck cleaner to go over the surface properly to remove any oils or other remnants. Check the deck cleaning solution to verify if it should be applied with water and directly to the deck. Follow the instructions on the bottle to avoid damaging the wood when preparing it.
Once this step is finished, you can treat the deck with a wood protective treatment, which should keep it in good condition for at least another twelve months.
Low Maintenance Plants
Look at the plants that you have in the back yard currently. Do they bloom in spring or don’t they always show their face each year?
If you want low maintenance plants that come back each year, then lavender covers a lot of vertical and horizontal space. It provides a lovely fragrance that spreads across the garden area and onto the patio too.
Lavender also doesn’t need added water more than a couple of times a week, so it won’t keep you out in the garden watering the plants very often.
One bonus with lavender is that it naturally gets rid of bugs because they don’t like it. So, if you plant it close enough to the seating area in the back yard, then it’ll be more pleasant in parts of the country that have a major bug problem.
There are plenty of other low maintenance plants too, such as succulents if you live in a hotter climate. If you’re not sure which plants are suited to your soil and climatic conditions, ask a local garden center for advice.
Check Paving Stones and Pathways
Pathways and paving stones often end up with weeds growing at the side and between the cracks, which you probably haven’t noticed until now.
It’s a perfect time to add some weed killer to get this back under control again. This will prevent them from growing as quickly the next time.
Look for a product that doesn’t include any harmful chemicals to avoid them getting into the soil and the water supply. In addition, make sure you don’t spray on a windy day, or you could inadvertently end up killing large swathes of lawn and flowerbeds.
Fill in gaps between paving stones with a dry mixture of sand and cement. Brush it in and it will harden when it next rains, effectively deterring more weeds from making an appearance.
There’s plenty of small tasks to do at home or call any Riverside Tree Experts for your yard. Keeping things simple and easy to manage creates less stress in life. And we could all do with less of that.
Now, It’s Up To You…
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