Tips and Tricks for Landscaping Success

Posted on: 9 February 2022

The time for yard care and planting your landscaping is quickly approaching with spring on the horizon. When it comes time to get into fresh air and sunshine, make sure you use smart techniques to add your vegetation to keep it protected against damaging soil erosion. Here are some recommendations to help you install your landscaping to protect your soil against moisture loss and erosion.

Install Landscape Fabric

When you are planting new seedlings and vegetation in your yard, the threat of weeds growing in your yard is real and can be immediate. Weed growth is ready to take over anywhere irrigation occurs and even places it does not. So, when you are preparing the soil for landscaping plants, take some time to cover the soil with a layer of landscape fabric. 

You can use the fabric as a full covering over the soil, overlapping its edges to provide complete protection. Be sure you place the fabric with the smooth side up and the roughened side touching the soil. The roughened side will help adhere to the soil and keep it from slipping around on you. Then, when you want to plant a new growth, cut out a small area of the fabric and keep the soil watered with drip irrigation. The drip irrigation will seep down right into the soil around your plants, then when the sun is hot and fierce, the fabric protects the moisture that is in the soil by blocking it from evaporation.

Use Decorative Rock

Another beneficial ground covering for your vegetation and around plants and trees is a decorative layer of rock. Rock is a natural material that adds to the appearance of your yard and it will not break down where it will need replacing. Rock is a good medium to use as a barrier against soil erosion, as it holds down the soil and keeps it protected against drying out. A layer of gravel over the soil around your trees will protect the soil and also create a landscaping feature in which rain and sprinkler runoff will seep into the soil when it gets trapped within the rocks. 

Grow Healthy Vegetation

Anytime you leave bare soil exposed in your landscaping, you are prone to the wind blowing the topsoil off and out of your yard. Topsoil is the healthy loose material that contains high amounts of nutrients and organic matter to nourish plants and hold moisture in for their roots to use. Without topsoil, you are left with the underlying clay and loam-filled soil where your plant life is not going to grow unless it is a weed.

Do your part to protect your yard's soil and your own real estate by planting vegetation in bare areas of soil. Look for ground covering plants that grow thick and low to the soil, such as periwinkle or ivy, varieties of grass and lawn, or aggressively-growing flowers that easily spread through the season and into the next season, such as calendulas, mint, and raspberry plants.

For more information on landscaping services, contact a company near you.