lawn care
All yards have rocks. But some yards have many, many rocks. Depending on the region in which you live, instead of removing all the rocks, which could take the better part of your lifetime, you could use these boulders to your advantage and create decorative ornaments. Some popular uses for large rocks include:
Rock gardens
Rock fences
Randomly placed rocks on property
Rocks used as planter shelves
Rocks used with other lawn ornaments.
Be creative! Use your imagination! This is your chance to take an annoying problem and turn it into something wonderful. Many homeowners are forced to use their lawn’s natural landscape in order to create a functional lawn that looks great. If you have large boulders that cannot be moved, plant vines and flowers around them. If you have drainage issues, use medium and large rocks to line your dry creek bed or French drain.
Many times, these rocks will help reduce the amount of erosion that could harm the grass and other plants. Erosion occurs when too much rain saturates the lawn and then quickly moves down a natural slope and off of your lawn. While this is great for drainage purposes, you may be left with soil that is nutrient poor. Having rocks will keep some of the water on your lawn.
Now that you know how to deal with very large rocks, let’s talk about smaller rocks. If you have rocky soil, you may have difficulty keeping some plants alive due to the fact that their roots cannot reach as far down in the ground as they need to. This soil can be tricky to deal with. These tips will help you prep and plant in rocky soil:
For this type of soil, it is important that you till it first before planting in order to remove some of the larger rocks. Remove as many rocks as you can. You will find this to be an impossible mission after a while, but at least try to remove those larger ones.
If you are concerned with weeds, you should then prep you soil with landscape fabric and mulch.
You can prep the soil by watering or adding fertilizer if you feel the soil needs it. Rocky soil has a tendency to be dry.
Choose plants that are more vine-like and have smaller roots that can weave in and out around rocks in the soil. These plants seem to last longer than others. Common vine plants include:
o English Ivy
o Morning Glory
o Trumpet Vine
o Passion flower
o Dogwood
You can buy these plants as seedlings or plant seeds into the ground. If you starting out later in the growing season, you should buy seedlings as they are easy to transplant and should take to your soil right away.
Planting your new plants is easy even if you already put down landscape fabric and mulch. Simply move the mulch aside and cut a small ‘x’ shape into the fabric. Plant your seedlings and then pack the mulch around them.
These vines grow pretty quickly and should flower for most of the season.
If you want to plant trees, you should complete the same soil preparation procedures. Trees that can survive in rocky soil include:
o Evergreen
o Pine
o Spruce
o Juniper
Rocks do not have to ruin your lawn as long as you try to accommodate them and make them part of the landscape.
Terry Blackburn. Internet Marketing Consultant, living in South Shields in the North-East of England. Author and Producer of blog http://www.lawnsurgeon.blogspot.com Author of "Your Perfect Lawn," a 90 Page eBook devoted to Lawn Preparation, Lawn Care and Maintenance. Find it at http://www.lawnsurgeon.com
I would be very interested to have your comments on this Article.
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Terry Blackburn - EzineArticles Expert Author
lawn care
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