Top 10 Landscaping Don'ts

In my time as a landscaper I have seen it all. There are people who invite you over to take advantage of a free quote who literally copy all your designs as you draw them so that they can do it themselves! There are those who see a yard pictured in Better Homes & Gardens and think that you should be able to copy that look for less than $1,000. There are even those run around with rulers, measuring every square inch of dirt that gets raked as you landscape their yard.

While these things constitute annoyances for any landscaper, they generally will not result in any problems for your yard. There are mistakes that can be costly for a homeowner, though, mistakes that I have been called in to correct. Here are the 10 biggest landscaping no-nos you will want to avoid.

10) Planting anything without checking with local regulations. Certain cities do not allow certain trees or shrubs due to a variety of things from the whim of city officials to the tendency of certain trees to develop large roots that can wreak havoc on sidewalks or underground utility lines.

A quick check of local ordinances will prevent you from getting in trouble with the city. It will also allow you to see what, if any, city services are offered to help you design and/or keep up your yard.

9) Fertilizing too late in the fall. Your lawn will look good come spring with a fall feeding, but if you do it after around the middle of October you won't accomplish anything. Once your lawn goes into hibernation mode, it is not going to absorb much of that fertilizer. Mid-September to early October is the ideal time to lay down that fertilizer.

8) Seeding instead of resodding. If your lawn is beyond repair, simply tossing seed down on ruined ground will not solve your problem. It will look bad for a long time(possibly years). Resodding is your best option and will get your yard looking good again in the shortest amount of time.

7) Overpruning. If you have let a tree or shrub go too long without pruning, you may tempted to hack your plant down to the size it should be. Don't. The way to handle this problem is to trim the plant back a few inches every couple of weeks until it reaches the proper size.

If you overprune, your plants will look bare and ugly. By trimming a little and letting the remaining area fill in before pruning again, you will keep your trees and shrubs from looking as though they are either dying or recently vandalized.

6) Using a mulching lawnmower on wet or very long grass. Mulching lawnmowers are a good idea. They save the work of bagging clippings and give your lawn a source of nutrition(decomposing clippings). However, they are not for all circumstances. Trying to use your mulching lawnmower on wet or very long grass will actually make a big mess.

Wet grass tends not to cut as easily as dry, causing your mulching mower to tend to spit it back out in clumps. This is also true of long grass. What you end up with is piles of grass that you will have to rake up or otherwise dispose of. If you have to mow when it is wet, or you have let your grass get a little too long, bag the clippings.

5) Getting a free lawn analysis from a lawn fertilizing company. Free quotes of any sort are usually just a way to try to talk you into buying something you don't really need. A free lawn analysis is no exception. Do you really think those big trucks that drag those hoses across your lawn are spraying something different on each lawn?

If you do think your lawn could use some improvement, ask a landscaper or even a professional that works in the lawn and garden department of somewhere like Lowe's or Home Depot.

4) Choosing a landscaper based on how soon they can get the job done. Sure, it's great to get your landscaping done as quickly as possible, but there's a reason some landscapers are busier than others. In some cases it's because they're really cheap, but a lot of the time it's because they're very good.

The landscaping you get can last a lifetime if it is done well. Waiting a few months until the right landscaper is available to do yours is a small price to pay for a beautiful job.

3) Using cheap materials. There are plenty of creative ways to save money on your landscaping, but this is not one of them. Cheap landscape borders, cheap weed barrier, and cheap bedding will inevitably disappoint you. Unless you don't care about your landscaping, avoid cheap products since it will cost you more to fix up shabby landscaping than it will to do the job right the first time.

2) Planting large plants too close to your house. Sure, most of the plants you get from the nursery are pretty small. Don't make the mistake of thinking that they are always going to stay that size. You need to check out the average fully grown size of whatever you plant. I cannot count the number of enormous trees and shrubs that I have had to yank out because they had grown far too big for the yard they were in.

Pruning will help in some cases, but no amount of pruning is going to keep a tree that grows to 50 feet from becoming a problem if you plant it three feet from your house.

1) Not watering your grass. This seems really obvious, right? Everybody knows grass is not in the cactus family, but there are those out there that seem to think that if it rains once or twice a month that they don't need to "waste" any water to keep their lawn alive.

Depending upon the climate where you live, it is possible that you will need to water your lawn once a day. If you find this to be too big of a nuisance, perhaps you should consider installing a sprinkler system. Think about it. Just having a landscaper come out to replace 20 yards of dead sod could easily cost you $100. That money would buy you enough water to keep those 20 yards healthy for years.

Avoid these mistakes and you will keep from causing yourself a lot of frustration. You will probably also save yourself a little money in the process.