
Our Blog
Use our blog as a resource of information pertaining to lawn and landscape maintenance information and services for your properties.
Use our blog as a resource of information pertaining to lawn and landscape maintenance information and services for your properties.
Summer is an important time of year for both your lawn and landscape, so make sure you do not neglect them during this season. At Beautiful Blooms, LLC, we tend to yards across Wauwatosa, Brookfield, Elm Grove, Pewaukee, and more throughout Wisconsin.
Learn more about four of the must-have services for your lawn and landscape this summer.
Your grass needs to be mowed consistently throughout the entire growing season. Without a proper mowing schedule, it may grow to be too tall and you could end up cutting off more of it than is recommended. Especially during the warm summer months, you should keep the lawn at a height of about 3.5-4 inches so that the grass can protect the soil and its roots from the heat of the summer sun. This is vital, otherwise the soil and roots can end up getting scorched.
Many appreciate mulch for its aesthetic appeal in a landscape bed, but it also has many other benefits. If you did not get mulch installed in the spring, then you need to have it put in during the summer for a few reasons:
At Beautiful Blooms, LLC, we offer...
When winter weather rolls around, it can get bitterly cold in Brookfield, Elm Grove, WI, and the surrounding areas. Plants native to our area are usually able to go dormant during the winter months, but sometimes they need extra protection to endure the freezing weather.
Here are some ways we recommend protecting your landscape plants, trees, and shrubs from the cold weather and why you need to protect them in the areas of Brookfield, Elm Grove, Wauwatosa, Pewaukee, and surrounding Wisconsin cities.
It’s not easy for anything living to survive in the bitter cold. Animals huddle together for warmth and plants may also need a bit of a boost to make it through the long winter months. Additionally, animals may be seeking out food sources and when deer or rabbits come into your yard to eat your plants, this can kill them. At Beautiful Blooms, LLC, we have devised several ways to help your plants make it through the winter.
One method to protect plants from winter weather is called wilt pruf. This is an anti-desiccant that we apply to select types of evergreen plants. Wilt pruf is made from pine sap and helps to prevent winter windburn of your trees and plants.
Our professional crews may also choose to use burlap wrapping, especially if you have plants that are close to the street or other areas where winter wind or salt spray can be thrown ...
Mulching is an important part to the landscaping, and one of the most beneficial and easiest steps. There are many reasons to mulch around your plants. The first is to retain moisture. Mulch helps to slowly release water into the soil as you water. This allows for greater soil infiltration. This results in even soil moisture levels and a healthier root system. The mulch also helps the soil to keep the water that it does absorb by reducing the amount of moisture evaporating into the air. All in all this makes it easier for you because it reduces the amount of water needed to be applied.
Mulching helps to regulate the temperature of the soil surrounding your plants. It keeps soil cool in the summer, as much as 30 degrees cooler than the air temperature compared to bare soil or soil covered with stone. It also acts as a natural insulator in the winter. It allows for a slower freezing and more uniform temperature to make for less drastic temperature changes and prolongs the plant life.
Mulch can come in many forms. They can be organic or inorganic materials. Organic materials are ones in which they used to be a living plant form (i.e. bark nuggets, shredded wood chips, pine needles, and hay or straw). Inorganic materials include anything that would be considered man made. The natural or organic materials are best because they naturally decompose to add nutrients to the soil beneath. These nutrients are carried deep into the root systems by earthworms. These earthworms also ...
Does a warmer winter mean more pests to manage during spring and summer? Actually, there are a few other factors to consider before concluding this theory.
Pruning deciduous plants while there are no leaves on the plant allows us to see the complete framework of the plant and do a thorough job of pruning. We will work through the winter season to do this work. The cost for pruning a shrub or ornamental tree is far less than the cost of replacing an overgrown tree or shrub in the future–pruning is a necessary task in the maintenance of an ornamental landscape and should be done every 1-5 years depending on the plant species. Corrective pruning or rejuvenation pruning is just that–it is to correct mismanaged plants or to reinvigorate them by removing a substantial amount of growth. This drastic measure may be needed initially, but not as an ongoing part of a sustainable landscape management program. Contact us for a full property review (free)– Be aware of anything that needs attention!
Things to do to prepare your plantings for winter–
* If you have a young tree, protect the trunk with a plastic sleeve or wire guard. This will protect against deer rubbing their antlers on the trunks and shredding the bark.
* Plants that may be favored by deer should be wrapped with a deer net. The most common are Yews, certain Viburnum, Oak Leaf Hydrangea, young Magnolia trees/shrubs, young Burning shrub, to name a few.
* Anti-desiccant spray–this is a liquid spray applied to evergreens to help them preserve moisture and protect them from winter wind burn.
* Mulching–apply mulch at the base of first year roses and perennials. Often, you can rake mulch from the surrounding area–new mulch is not necessarily needed. This helps to moderate soil temperature fluctuations–especially when there is little/no snow on the ground.
* Repellent–we are fans of Bobbex. This is an effective way at deterring deer, rabbits, and voles. Reapply about every 6 weeks–take advantage of periods of “thaw” to do the reapplication.
* Deep root fertilization–this can be done a number of ways. We recommend applying Milorganite (also deters deer) around the base of plants in the fall (now), drenching the soil with compost tea, or having fertilizer and bio-stimulants injected into the soil. All of these...
Just complete the form below to get a pricing quote.