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New sod lawn and simple planting |
Page Outline:
- Soils
- Lawn Types
- Lawn Edging
- Time of Year
- Design/Plant Selection
- Plant Spacing/Growth
There are many keys to a
successful landscape. The three main ones are design, installation,
and maintenance. But soil quality is also an essential key.
Few plants will do as
well in poor soil as in good soil. Good soil has adequate drainage
and air spaces, yet retains moisture, and either has nutrients or
can store nutrients when they are added. Good soil is a blend of its
three main components, sand, silt (clay) and humus (organic matter).
Often we can improve an existing soil by amending it by tilling in
additional organic matter.
Tilling in organic
matter helps sandy soils hold moisture and nutrients, and helps
improve the texture of clay soils.
Sometimes (eg. if there
is too much rock) it is easier to spread a layer of topsoil over the
existing soil. Then you need to be concerned with the quality of the
imported topsoil and with layering. Frequently with a layer of good
topsoil on top, the lawn or plants will keep their roots in this
upper layer (ie layering). That often results in shallow rooting
that is more susceptible to drought.
There are three common
methods of starting a lawn: from sod, hydroseed, or seed. Each
method usually uses about 5 different types of lawn seed mixed
together to allow the final lawn to do well in different conditions
of sun, soil, and season.
Sod is grown from seed
at a sod farm for about a year, then a thin layer is cut,
transported, and relayed on the new site with fertilizer and lime.
Finally it is rolled and the edge is trimmed.
Hydroseed is a watery
mixture of seed, fertilizer, and mulch (wood fiber) that is sprayed
onto a prepared seedbed for new lawn. It usually costs less than sod
but more than seed.
A seeded lawn is often
the least expensive and is accomplished by spreading grass seeds and
fertilizers over a prepared area.
Often even the finest
estate gardens have no edging materials on the lawn. The edge is
just carefully maintained. But edging can be used to keep a tidy,
defined border to the lawn. Some materials are: wood, concrete,
plastic, steel, aluminum, or bricks.
Lawn plantings and sod lawn installation can be done most any time of
year in the Seattle area, including Renton, Burien, West Seattle and more.
Our summer drought is the most difficult time for new plants, so
fall planting is good for getting new plants rooted to prepare them
for summer.
A good landscape design
reflects your tastes and lifestyle, as well as taking into account
the physical attributes of the property. How will you, the owner,
use different areas of your site? What are your dreams of a perfect
garden? Do you crave more privacy or want a view opened up? Do you
need play areas for children and/or pets or areas to entertain
friends? Are there certain plants or colors you love or hate in a
garden? Do neat, controlled plantings or loose, blowsy ones feel
better to you? Do you enjoy gardening or is "low maintenance" more
appealing? And how about drought tolerance? Are there places in the
world you would like to be reminded of or should the garden style
reflect the style of your house?
We provide the
creativity to plan your landscape, combining your ideas with our
expertise in construction and planting. A plan drawn to scale, with
the plants and hardscaping features labeled, will help you visualize
your finished garden and provide a roadmap of how to proceed or how
to divide your project into phases. The finished landscape needs to
please you.
There is a "right type
of plant for right place" phenomenon. Some are rapid growers,
continuing to grow larger with each year. Others are medium to slow
growers, staying a more controlled size for more years. Very few
plants grow rapidly, then stop at a certain height, bamboo being the
exception. We design plantings with individual plants spaced so they
will provide visually full plantings in 3-5 years and larger growing
plants so they won't outgrow their spaces. This means that plants
look pretty spread apart for the first few years.
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