Residential Landscape Maintenance

Why should I hire a professional landscape company to maintain my yard?
First and foremost, proper landscape maintenance is the best way to protect your outdoor investment. After investing a lot of money on your landscape installation, it only makes sense to protect it and make sure it develops as intended. And that’s where a landscape maintenance program comes in.

Landscape maintenance begins with the proper lawn maintenance. In Houston, lawns typically need mowing weekly through the summer and bi-weekly in the winter months. In addition, most Houston lawns need aeration twice per year, but since you really can’t aerate enough, the more often the better.

Over seeding with rye seed is a great addition to a landscape maintenance plan by keeping your lawn gorgeous throughout the winter. The local temperature range normally dictates that winter rye seed can be spread in early to late October. It is imperative to know, however, that rye grass has some real disadvantages. For example, the rye grass can compete with the St. Augustine grass (typically planted in Houston) for space and nutrition, which makes it very hard on the St. Augustine in the spring. This struggle is particularly apparent in shaded area where grass already has a difficult time growing.

Other Elements Landscape Maintenance Programs Typically Include:

• Shrubs, Ground Cover and Vines. As part of a meticulous landscape maintenance program, hedges as well as other shrubs and bushes should be trimmed frequently to maintain the desired contours. Ground cover and vines should be edged to maintain a orderly appearance. This regularly-scheduled attention will make certain that all elements conform to the overall plan of the landscape design.
• Tree Maintenance. All small trees should be pruned as necessary. It is also a good practice in your landscape maintenance scheduling to do a deep root fertilization of these trees annually.
• Flower Bed Maintenance. Flower beds need to be weeded frequently. It is also a good idea to turn the mulch every two weeks so that you keep the exchange of air and water flowing into and out of the soil.

Fertilization and chemical treatments are the next important step in a landscape maintenance program as they provide a boost to healthy plants and prevent diseases and infestations common to the Houston area.
Optimally, lawns need to be fertilized four times per year. All shrubs, ground covers and vines should be on a similar schedule. Azaleas and gardenias need to be fertilized in April and May, and acidified in February. Roses require fertilization in the spring, which needs to be continued every four to six weeks during the growing season.

Even in Houston, Texas, it can get cold enough to require covering your outdoor plants. Jeff Halper with Exterior World encourages his clients to be proactive when the thermometer starts dropping. “When the temperatures get below 32 degrees for an extended period of time, you need to cover your delicate plants and tropicals,” he says. “Remember not to use plastic. Instead use proper freeze cloth, which allows light, oxygen and water to pass through so that you can leave the plants covered for a few days without suffocating them.”

They will also be mindful of surface maintenance: walkways, driveways, patios and outdoor kitchens should be blown or raked free of debris during the landscape maintenance service. Swimming pools, ponds or outdoor water fountains that accumulate debris during trimming of shrubs or lawn should be cleaned as well.

Exterior Worlds is located in the memorial area. They have been serving the Houston area including River Oaks, West University, Bellaire, Memorial, Tanglewood since 1987. Call Exterior Worlds at 713-827-2255 to discuss a custom maintenance program.