Improving Your Curb Appeal

Having good curb appeal will attract new tenants and keep EXISTING tenants satisfied. Here are a few tips for improving your curb appeal!

1. Invest In Quality Maintenance, Tree Work, And Improvements

Keeping your property well-maintained is essential for keeping tenants and attracting new ones, because people want to be proud of the place they call home. For instance, a well-kept lawn that is manicured and healthy is crucial because it makes your property look soft and inviting. You will also want to keep trees and plants consistently trimmed. Too often, landscaping maintenance, improvements, and tree work items fall at the bottoms of budgets. Depriving your landscaping budget is a mistake because quality landscaping is an investment that pays off threefold. Investing in landscaping maintenance, improvements, and tree work items attract new tenant, improves the satisfaction of your current tenants, and items like adequate tree work, can prevent injury, incidents, and decrease liability.

It starts with the basics, well kept grass and trimmed bushes keep your curb appeal looking manicured.

2. Use Annuals For Color And Brightness

We suggest adding some annuals to your flowerbeds. Utilize flowers or plants that compliment your color scheme. This will not only adds warmth, but makes your buildings  stand out.  Some great annuals for Florida are marigolds, geraniums, zinnia and impatience. Butterfly milkweed is also a nice one with its bright orange flowers that attract butterflies. Azaleas are also good because they come in many colors and have that beautiful honeysuckle smell. Your landscaping and maintenance company can provide you will a selection of seasonal annuals and recommendations for the annuals that best suit your properties specific needs.

Purple Salvia and pink Begonias are used to soften the hard exterior of this building and adds much needed brightness and color.

3. Create Unique Greenspace’s

An inviting greenspace is very important, yet often overlooked. One idea would be low maintenance gardens with surrounding benches where people can enjoy the outdoors, along with play areas and open spaces for children. Planter boxes around community areas such as swimming pools and picnic areas are always a nice touch because these are gathering areas for families and friends.  Greenspaces are another example of a landscaping item that attracts new tenants and improves the satisfaction of your current tenants.

Greenspaces provide a relaxing and peaceful retreat.

4. Light Up Your Property

People like to feel safe where they live. When considering a property many people drive by at night just to see if it is well lit and feels secure. Adequate outdoor lighting not only provides safety but is also a great way to accent your buildings and grounds. You can easily add small lights to your landscaping which will showcase your plants, turning your property into a magical place for people to call home.

New Plant Care

Young plants, much like young children or babies are more fragile; they need more attention and more care. Here are a couple tips to help you care for your new plants!

1.) WATER is one of the most important needs for new plants. New plants require around 1 inch of water per week. This is important, because without sufficient water, there’s no way for the roots to become hydrated. Letting the water run for a minimum of 30 mins-1 hour will ensure enough water is present to soak into the roots. These waters should be scheduled for the late evening or early morning. Watering at night will result in root rot and watering during the day will evaporate the water before it has the chance to sink into the soil and reach the roots. Therefore make sure your irrigation is up-and-working and that the times are scheduled to water at the right times of day.

2.) MULCH sometimes has a bad rep, but not only is it ascetically pleasing, it’s an environmentally, wholistic, and natural option to improve plant health and increase the appearance of the landscaping. In addition, laying mulch properly, around 3 inches thick, help plants retain moisture, regulate the temperate of the root system, and decreases weed growth (instead of using dangerous chemicals such a Round-up).

3.) PRUNING encourages increased growth on both new, and mature plants. In mature plants, a great deal of plant material can be removed during pruning. However, when pruning newly installed plant material, only about 3-6 inches of plant material should be removed. In addition, this material should be pruned evenly, on all branches/stalks of the plant to ensure new growth develops horizontally and vertically. Pruning should be done every 7-10 days to allow enough time in-between, for the plant to produce new growth.

Water, mulch, and pruning are our top tips for new landscape installations. Other care tips include fertilize plants as needed and stake-up large plants. Continue to read our post to learn about not only caring for new landscape, but also your preexisting landscape! Thanks for stoping by!

Summertime Landscaping Maintenance Tips

Summertime in Florida is HOT, HOT, HOT! That means landscaping maintenance really heats-up and with hotter weather, means harsher conditions for you landscape. Here are a few tips for keep your lawn looking its best during this sizzling time of year.

These tips will help you keep your lawn looking cool, despite the heat!

1. Irrigate Correctly - When things get hot out, they also get dry. Many people think the answer is as simple as increasing the amount of water provided to the landscape, and although increasing the amount of water provided to the landscape helps, you must water at the appropriate times. When water is provided during the heat of the day, the water evaporates on the very tops of your plant material, and can often boil those positions of the plant. It is best to water as or after the sun has set, or before or as the sun is rising. In addition, increasing the irrigation anywhere from an additional hour-two hours is also helpful to compensate for the increased daylight hours during the long, hot, summer days.

2. Attend to Signs Of Stress - The hotter weather of the summer can often stress sod, shrubs, and trees. Signs of stress include: 1.) shrinking of plant leaves and material 2.) dropping excess plant leaves and materials 3.) browning of plant leaves and material 3.) drying of plant leaves and materials. When you notice these signs make sure you respond accordingly - do not trim much off of the stressed plant, do not try to over compensate with heavy water, and do not fertilize until it shows signs of improvements.

3. Know Your Conditions - This is important in all seasons, but especially during the harsh conditions of summer time. For example, if you know that your material requires partial shade and during the summer that same material will be exposed to more sunlight, you’ll be able to increase the irrigation for that material to compensate for the the changes. In addition, knowing that increased temperatures will decrease the ph levels in soil, will enable you to compensate for the changes again, using a fertilizer with a higher ph. Understanding changes like these during the summer, can help you compensate to address your landscapes needs.

May Annuals - Time To Brighten Things Up!

Time to freshen-up your planter pots, beds, and gardens with a new selection of annuals. The selection of annuals for this time of year include an array of full, colorful, flowers! We’ve come-up with an outline of seasonal annuals that are available at most nursery’s this time of year.

Take a look below to find out more!