Tips and Tricks for Landscaping Success

Posted on: 24 May 2023

Maintaining attractive landscaping around your business is a must since it is often the first thing your customer sees. Weeds can be a frustrating issue in a commercial landscape, but there are ways to keep them under control.

1. Install Borders

Weed seeds are often carried onto a property via visitors' shoes. Putting in borders along sidewalks and parking areas can reduce the number of seeds that make it into the main lawn. These can be bare borders filled with gravel mulch, or you can have them planted with low shrubs, perennial plants, or annual flowers. Weeding border beds can often be easier than getting a weed invasion out of lawn areas.

2. Use Edging

One challenge with borders or other flower-planted areas on the property is that lawn grass can invade them and become weedy. Edging prevents this from happening by creating a barrier between the grass and the bedding areas. Edging must extend several inches into the soil to prevent roots from growing beneath it, and it should protrude a couple of inches over the top so plants don't creep over and into the bed.

3. Mulch Regularly

Weeds will first take over the forgotten areas around your building — the bit of bare soil along the sidewalk edge, for example, or the sparsely planted flower bed around the entrance sign. Covering all bare soil, in both planted and unplanted areas, creates a barrier that keeps weeds down. The mulch can be combined with a weed-blocking landscape fabric so that it's even more effective.

4. Plant Wisely

Some plants are more likely to be problematic when it comes to weeds. Dense groundcovers are sometimes planted to prevent weeds, but in areas with high weed pressure, they can grow right through the ground cover and be difficult to remove. In these areas, choosing annuals that can be torn out yearly so the bed is fully weeded and refreshed, may be a better option. Avoid any options that are difficult to weed around, like creeping juniper hedges, as these can be expensive and time-consuming to keep weeding.

5. Schedule Treatments

Weed treatments are the key to keeping the weeds out of grassy areas. Your landscapers can apply pre-emergent herbicides in late winter and early spring to get rid of many weeds before they even sprout. Targeted post-emergent herbicides can keep weeds in check after they begin to grow. Combine these treatments with fertilizer treatments to keep the grass lush so weeds also have trouble establishing.

Contact a commercial landscaping service if you need more help with your business property.