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Who Do I Call For Clearing Snow Off Roads And Sidewalks?

Clearing snow is a part of life in London. But even long-time citizens might not know who to call when they’re caught off-guard by a snowfall. While the city is responsible for clearing much of the snow, priority routes mean you might be waiting a long time. But they’re not the only ones who can clear snow!

Who Cleans The Roads?

When it comes to roadways, certain routes take precedence. These standards categorize roads, including adjacent bike lanes, into five main classes, with Classes 1, 2 and 3 taking priority. These roads have higher speed limits, carry higher volumes of traffic, are part of bus routes, give access to hospitals and schools, and take people in and out of the city. 

The remaining classes of roads include side streets and some cul-de-sacs. The City crews clear the snow from 

these routes after the priority roads are complete.

Who’s Responsible For Clearing Snow Off Sidewalks?

The City of London’s crew is responsible for clearing 3,625 kilometres of roads and over 1,500 kilometres of sidewalks. Yes, you read that right: sidewalks too. Unlike the citizens of some cities, Londoners are not required to remove snow off sidewalks. The municipality provides a snow removal service using mechanical equipment after eight centimetres of snow has accumulated. The equipment does not allow for clearing down to the bare pavement but rather gets it to packed snow.

Residents are encouraged to shovel the sidewalks in front of their homes. This makes it easier for all Londoners to get around on our sidewalks. Downtown retailers and property owners, on the other hand, are required to clear the sidewalk around their business as per the City of London Streets By-law. But what if you can’t lose any time to the wintery weather?

Who Can I Call?

The City keeps its response team on-call for snow removal 24/7, but they still have to abide by their prioritized route system. What can you do if you live on Class 4 or 5 routes, or can’t get out to remove the snow from your driveway and walkways yourself? You can call us and have the Green Ninja team do the dirty work! One service we offer is regular, reliable snow clearing and removal because the only thing you should worry about in the morning is the traffic.

In the chance that there is a storm and we’re also swamped, the municipality asks that you remove parked cars from the street so that they can safely clear the road. They also recommend that you consider doing any of the following:

Give yourself extra time for your commute

Reschedule any appointments that you have that day

Take public transit instead of driving or walking

Having a plan for snow clearing when a storm blows through the city – a guarantee for London – means you won’t have to wait for the City crews or break your back doing all the work.

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Do I Cut Back My Garden in Fall or Spring?

Gardeners prune their flowers in spring and fall, but which time is better to cut back? There’s no clear answer, as it all depends on the type of flowers in your garden! Some perennials need their tops to protect new shoots through the winter, while others will get burdened with dying foliage. 

  How Much Should You Cut Back?

The phrase “cut back” can mean different things for different plants. When pruning in the fall, gardeners should cut the flower all the way down to the ground or reduce it several times a year. This helps the plant look fresh and clean when the new foliage emerges. In the spring, cutting back means removing the foliage left on through the winter.

The tops of most perennials are best left intact during winter instead of cutting back. They add winter protection to the rest of the plant and reduce harmful cycles of freezing and thawing. The stems and dried flowers add interest to the winter landscape and provide habitat for birds.

  What To Cut Back In Spring

You can leave most perennials with their foliage during the winter for protecting the growth and helping local wildlife. Annual wildflowers are a type. This allows them to drop their seeds and come back the next year. If you just can’t stand the sight of them left up, cut the plants back and leave the debris on the ground. This should help them drop some seeds for the next season.

Perennials will not die if you remove their tops. During harsh winters, though, intact tops can mean the difference between survival and failure for some types of flowers. Mums, for example, survive best with the tops left of the flower left untouched. You should cut them back in spring before the new growth cycle begins. 

  What To Cut Back In Fall

A perennial plant naturally dies back when it goes dormant. In the fall, removing the plant matter helps the plant reemerge in spring with no dead material marring its beauty. Plants that benefit from pruning are ones that must shortened stems for protection. Columbines, daylilies, hostas, irises, peonies, and salvias all benefit from an autumn cutback. 

Choosing the right time to prune can be hard. For frost-sensitive plants, wait until several intense touches of frost have occurred to make sure the plants are completely dormant before cutting back. Other plants, like irises and hostas, will start to become mushy and limp after the first frost, and you can cut them back then.

It’s also good to remove anything diseased. If any plants caught a disease in the past season, cut the foliage all the way down to the ground. Don’t compost the plants, but rather throw them away far enough from the garden so that no future growth will catch the disease. After pruning them away, clean the shears with bleach and water.

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What Flowers Bloom In Fall?

Canadians can enjoy their flower gardens for much longer than they think, and the colours should be able to last from spring until the first frost. Even in a climate like London’s, we shouldn’t be so quick to give up on our flowers. A gorgeous garden can last even into November! 

It all depends on the types of flowers you include in your garden. Before planting for the fall-time bloom, gardeners should be sure that their flowers are appropriate for their region.

Luckily, we have quite a few options!

  What Flowers Bloom In October And November? 

While London winters are often brutally cold, the fall is still an excellent time to enjoy certain flowers. Some of the most popular October and November blooms include: 

Aster: A common wildflower in southern Ontario, the many types of aster flower can blossom in the fall.

Autumn Crocus: One of the most popular fall-time flowers, the autumn crocus is the ideal flower for the end of the growing season. The colour of the blossom is a lavender-pink, and it needs a well-drained spot with a lot of sunshine.

Common Zinnia: Common zinnias are long-lasting flowers, with very bright colours and rich textures. While they thrive in the summer, the colours are vibrant in September and October, too. 

Goldenrod: Don’t believe what you’ve heard about goldenrod causing hayfever allergies! These yellow flowers grow beautifully in autumn, but they can get out of control. Try the Zigzag and Gray varietals for more manageable blooms. 

Marigolds: The white, yellow, red or orange blooms of marigolds can stick around until frost. When planning your garden, remember that marigolds love full sun.

Before planting any of these, check the seed packaging for the timing of the blooms. Only choose plants that grow and thrive in your Plant Hardiness Zone. 

The Plant Hardiness Zone Is Important

The world is separated into many different Plant Hardiness Zones, also known as Gardening Zones, Growing Zones, and Plant Zones. These regions are the different climates that support specific plants, flowers and trees. The zones are defined by the minimum range of temperatures in which a plant or tree can survive. 

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How Late Can You Apply Fall Fertilizer?

Fertilizer applied in the fall strengthens the roots of your plants and grass, giving them a rich soil in which to grow and thrive next spring. Lawns and landscaping don’t go away as soon as the summer is over. In the fall time, many plants come out of heat-induced dormancy in the time between temperature extremes. This means your grass, flowers, trees and bushes still need help before they slow down for the winter, and a shot of nutrients just before the cold sets in can make a huge difference when the weather gets warm.

But how late is too late?

The Latest You Should Fertilize Your Lawn

The final application of fertilizer on your lawn should come at the end of October or in early November. This shouldn’t be the only time you put down some nutrients after the summer is over. Ideally, you’ll want to give your lawn a dose of fertilizer in September because the grass is recovering from the dry weather. It may have gone into dormancy due to the heat and a lack of water, so you’ll want to give your lawn a shot of nitrogen to push blade growth.

Not all fertilizers are alike, though. You’ll notice three numbers on the bags at your local home and garden store; these symbolize how much nitrogen, phosphorous, and potash (in that order) are in the formula. The formula you use in September should be different from your choice for the last use of fertilizer of the year:

In September, a boost of nitrogen will help the grass come out of dormancy and get growing. A formula with a balance of 20-8-8 is the best choice. 

For the final fertilizing of the season in October or November, you’ll want the grass roots to strengthen and grow before dormancy. This can be helped by a mixture with a higher amount of phosphorous, so choose a formula with a balance of 13-25-12.

The Latest You Should Fertilize Your Flowers, Shrubs, And Trees

For your garden, fertilize the plants at the same time as the lawn. Even though the perennials are beginning to wilt and fade, they can still benefit from fertilizer cultivated into the soil around the plants at a dose recommended on the bag. By using a fertilizer heavy in phosphate – the numbers on the bag should be around 0-20-0 – your perennial plants and bulbs will grow strong in spring. 

The last fertilizer for your trees, shrubs, and bushes should come in late September or early October. Fertilizer promotes root growth, and the nutrients will still be in the soil in spring to feed these plants come out of dormancy. If you have a tree or shrub that doesn’t flower well, a formula high in phosphate helps promote new growth.

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Should I Rake My Lawn After Mowing?

Whether or not to rake after mowing can be a divisive question. Many homeowners firmly believe in removing every scrap of cut grass from the lawn; others believe in a “let them lie” philosophy. Which one is correct?

There are situations where grass should be raked off and bagged. Most of the time, however, leaving clippings on the lawn can be good for the grass!

  When Should I Rake The Lawn After Mowing?

Under certain circumstances, you should rake the grass after mowing. If the clippings come out of the mower in thick batches, you should rake them up. Thick bunches will occur when the grass is too high or too wet. Stay on the safe side and rake the clippings after the first mow of the spring. 

After this, it’s good to leave the clippings on the lawn after mowing. If you keep to a schedule and mow before the grass gets too tall, you can leave the clippings alone without having to worry about pests or fungus. You can save yourself a lot of time and energy by not raking the clippings, and you’ll be doing something good for the grass at the same time.

  The Benefits Of Leaving Clippings

Leaving grass clippings on the lawn can return moisture and nutrients to the soil in your yard, helping the grass grow stronger. Grass clippings can reduce the amount of chemical fertilizer you need to lay down, and they are free! You can help the lawn by using a mulching mower. These can reduce the size of the clippings, breaking down the grass and making nutrients more available to the soil.

Keeping the mower blades in great shape also helps the grass. They should be sharp, dry, and free of debris build-up before every use. If you’re pulling out the mower once or twice a week, sharpening the blade once a year is enough.

  Does Cut Grass Contribute To Thatch Build-Up?

One concern with leaving grass clippings on the lawn is the build-up of something known as thatch. Thatch is a layer of mostly dead grass lying on the soil and creating a barrier between the blade above ground the root system below. If left on in a layer of half an inch or more, thatch will restrict the airflow on the lawn and suffocate the grass and its roots. 

Thatch is very bad for the lawn. It creates the ideal conditions for pests and diseases while harming the ability of the roots to absorb water and nutrients. This creates conditions for fungal disease in particular, and you’ll notice mildew, brown spot, lawn rust, and other problems that are hard to eliminate. 

However, it has been shown that leaving cut grass on the lawn doesn’t contribute all that much to thatch. Most thatch is caused by the inability of microorganisms in the soil to keep up with the growth of grass. This means that the main culprits of thatch build-up are using too much fertilizer and watering too often. While these are both good actions to take, you should always fertilize and water consistently, evenly, and in moderation.

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How Does Gardening Help With A Child’s Development?

The summer holidays are the perfect time to start a garden with your kids. It’s not just a solution to getting them away from video games for a while; it helps with child development, too. They’ll learn so much without even realizing it, and you’ll enjoy it right along with them!

Gardening Gets Kids Outside

Gardening with children is a wonderful combination of skills and tasks that will aid in child development. But one of the most important ways it helps is that it gets them out in nature. They’ll get some much-needed fresh air and a new appreciation for the outdoors. It can even improve their health! Exposure to the dirt, microbes, and sunshine will help boost their immunity, help them get the vitamin D necessary for growth, and improve sleep schedules.

There is also exercise involved in gardening. The only way flowers and veggies can grow is with daily attention, and regularly tending the plants is the perfect work-out. When kids get out into the garden, they’ll be using every part of their body in soil preparation, planting seeds, watering, and weeding.

  Gardening Helps With Child Development and Cognition

Working on a garden project helps your children work on important skills involving memory, analyzing, planning, and predicting outcomes. You can start by helping them think through all the necessary preparations required to grow a healthy garden. Learning why certain nutrients help plants, how these plants grow, what makes them thrive, and how they interact with other parts of nature can give kids a practical lesson in science.

They can learn a lot about the importance of hard work when they do the gardening with you, but you can gently guide them in the right direction as they work by themselves. To help them develop, ask questions about this work and what steps they think they should take next. What makes certain spots better than others? Why do some plants need different attention than others? By working through these questions, they can learn the importance of problem-solving in everyday life.

It can even help with topics like math and reading. They can learn the names of different plants and read the instructions needed to grow the seeds. They can also map the garden, working out the accurate measurements for the best plans. These practical lessons won’t even seem like learning, and their hard work will pay off in beautiful ways!

  Gardening Together Is Bonding Time

Gardening combines so many healthy physical and mental activities, but it’s also a great way to help you learn about one another. Working with your children in the garden is a unique way of spending time together. You’ll get to know the strengths, weaknesses, and interests of your kids. You’ll also create wonderful memories that will last a lifetime!

There’s one bonus to gardening together: at the end of the growing season, dinnertime will be less of a hassle, too. It’s much easier to get your children to eat their fruits and veggies when they’ve grown the food themselves!trh

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Tips For Keeping Your Lawn Mower In Great Shape

Do you only pay attention to your lawn mower when you’re using it? Like any other piece of machinery, lawn mower maintenance is crucial to keep it running. Follow these five important lawn mower maintenance tips and make a habit out of them, because keeping your lawn mower in great shape helps keep your lawn in great shape!

Mower Maintenance Tip 1:

Regularly Check The Oil

To keep the engine running smoothly, old oil should be drained and replaced regularly. Keep an eye on the oil level and look for any debris floating in it, and make a note of the colour of the oil: if it has a dark black colour, change it! When your lawn mower does need new oil, consult your owner’s manual for the correct type of oil to use. Some mowers might need a special formulation to run smoothly.

Start the oil change by taking out the spark plugs to remove any potential for the mower starting. Place a pan down and remove the drain plug underneath the mower, draining it completely. Add the new oil, filling it up to the fill line on the dipstick. 

  Mower Maintenance Tip 2:

Sharpen The Blade

A dull mower blade don’t just work ineffectively – they can actually harm your lawn. A dull blade will cut the grass unevenly, shreds the tips rather than cutting them cleanly. Grass will often turn brown, giving even an otherwise healthy lawn a brownish, dry look and opening the grass up to diseases. 

Regularly sharpening the blade will help you avoid these problems. Unless you’re mowing the lawn every day like we are, sharpening doesn’t have to be a common chore – you can have the blade sharpened once every year. 

  Mower Maintenance Tip 3:

Clean Out The Discharge Chute And Undercarriage

The parts around your blade, like the undercarriage and the discharge chute for the clippings, can easily become clogged with grass. To guarantee your safety when checking out around the blade, remove the spark plug. Scrape all that caked-on grass with a stiff brush, then hose it down. Always wear work gloves, and be careful of the position of the mower blade. 

A lot of homeowners forget to clean out the underside after every use. It doesn’t take too long to brush off the blade and undercarriage after every use, and you’ll prevent a lot of build-up. 

  Mower Maintenance Tip 4:

Replace Or Clean Out The Air Filter

An often overlooked part of the lawn mower is the filter. If your mower has one, read your manual to see if it’s paper or foam and to find out how to remove  it. If the filter is made of paper and it looks dirty, toss it out and replace it; if it is made of foam, wash it with soap and warm water, then air dry it, lightly coating it afterward with clean motor oil. Reinstall the filter according to your manual. 

  Mower Maintenance Tip 5:

Drain The Fuel From It At The End Of The Mowing Season

Believe it or not, gas can go stale, and old gas can be one of the biggest reasons why a mower won’t start. Don’t let the fuel sit in the tank all winter long: run the tank empty or drain it out, then fill it up with fresh gas in the spring. Adding a fuel treatment stabilizer can extend the life of the gas and protect the engine. 

    With all of these tips in your lawn mower maintenance arsenal, you will be sure to keep your lawn mower in top condition. Keep your lawn looking beautiful and healthy!

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Will Dew Affect How Well I Water?

A lot of people get up early to water their lawn, and we’ve recommended that before. But for the homeowner concerned about sprinkling too much water, waking up to grass covered in morning dew can give pause. Over-watering can create damp conditions that are ideal for disease, fungi, and insects, so you’ll want to avoid it. But does dew have an impact on how much moisture your grass is getting?

What Is Morning Dew? 

The little droplets you might wake up to during the summer are an after effect of your lawn radiating its heat. The moisture in the air condenses faster than it can evaporate, becoming too saturated and creating water droplets. When the temperature and humidity no longer allow the air to hold water, the air has reached what is called the dew point. When the air cools to the dew point through contact with a lawn that is colder than the air, water will condense and form droplets on the grass.

These droplets don’t occur every night. The soil has to cool in the right atmosphere, which includes clear skies, calm conditions with lighter breezes, higher moisture in the soil, and a lower dew point during the night. But these are the conditions you’ll find often in an Ontario summer, making dew a common sight in warmer months. 

  How Does Dew Affect Your Lawn? 

So we know that the cooling of warm, moist soil during a calm, clear night will cause condensation near the ground. But what impact does this have on your lawn, especially if you’ve taken to watering in the morning? When you think about how much water you need to keep your grass green and healthy, you’ll see that this mild condensation is just a drop in the bucket. 

Typically, your lawn needs an inch of water per week, and to give it this much water, you need to water deeply two or three times a week. This creates a deeper root system and strong, healthy grass. Even in humid locations, the formation of these droplets is a sprinkling, and it evaporates quite quickly as the sun rises. Some plants have evolved to utilize what little water they can get, but your average grass won’t see much hydration from the dewy conditions

Dew has an impact in certain areas and in other times of the season. Many landscapes that need constant manicuring, like golf courses, benefit from removing it before the grass is mowed. It can also be a sufficient source of water for plants that have shallow roots or have adapted to a landscape that does not provide a lot of water. In the colder months, these droplets can freeze to become frost, and this can hurt crops. 

All this means it’s safe to say that for average residential lawn care during the summer, the dew forming will not have a huge impact on grass. Dew or not, you can still water the lawn!

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How To Landscape A Yard With A Dog

Dogs need a lot of outdoor time, but they might not mix well with the landscaping of your yard. If you want to remake your lawn and garden with your furry friend in mind, follow these tips to keep everyone healthy and happy!

How To Landscape With A Dog: Choose The Right Plants

Pets like to eat things they find around the yard; it can be disgusting, but hey, it’s nature. This means they’ll sometimes treat themselves to what you grow in your garden. If you have a diverse selection of plants, especially native ones, there’s a good chance some of them are poisonous.

Many popular landscaping flowers, like azaleas, chrysanthemums, crocus, daffodils, and oleander, can cause problems like diarrhoea and severe vomiting. If eaten in too high a quantity, these could be the least of your worries. The plants you choose in your landscaping can prevent your dog from getting sick, and it won’t even force you to make radical changes. Good flower choices to make a dog-friendly garden include roses, sunflowers, African violet, hibiscus, daylilies, marigold, and zinnia.

For those who grow their own produce, you can select species that won’t be harmful if your pet ingests them: blueberries, oat grass, and strawberries are three popular ones that won’t make your dog or cat sick. Some herbs, such as lavender, mint, and rosemary, can even reduce the likelihood of fleas!

Landscaping With Dogs: Choose The Right Mulch

The kind of mulch you lay down in your lawn should be tailored for your pet. If they have long coats, use materials that won’t stick to their fur and track indoors, like hardwood mulch, wood chips, or even gravel. Mulch made from cocoa bean hulls, sold in many large home and garden stores, should be avoided at all costs – it contains theobromine, a lethal substance for dogs and cats.

You can also use mulch to make areas of your yard “less desirable” for dogs in a very gentle way. If you want to keep pets away from certain parts, use hardscape like crushed stone mulch to make a rough surface that won’t appeal to pets. This is the perfect medium for drought-resistant plants for additional colour. These plants, like succulents, are also good for the types of fertilizers you should use.

Choose The Right Yard Care Products

Lawn care products made from chemicals can be toxic to pets, especially if they have free rein to roam about your yard. If they ingest it through eating plants or licking their paws, they can develop long-term health effects. As much as possible, use certified organic pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers.

If you’re doing some home gardening, use natural yard and kitchen waste to help make the soil healthier in a way that won’t hurt your dog. For instance, used coffee grounds will have a neutral pH and won’t affect the acidity of your soil. Work them into the garden soil for a fantastic, natural fertilizer!

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Should You Water The Lawn In The Morning Or The Evening?

Watering the lawn is important for keeping it green and healthy, but did you know that when the lawn is watered matters too? Some people think it can just be done whenever it’s convenient for them; others choose what they think is the optimal time and stick with it. There is, in fact, an optimal time to water the lawn, but it may surprise some homeowners!

What Are The Best Watering Times?

Proper watering is a very important part of keeping your lawn as healthy as possible. Too little water and your grass will grow shallow roots; too much and you’re inviting fungi, bacteria, and insects. Setting the sprinkler in the late morning and afternoon is a waste of water because a high percentage of that water will evaporate before it can be used by the grass. You’ll have to run it much longer, but this will still result in shallow roots, with an increased chance of pest infestations.

You need to pick the time that has all the right conditions, and your best options are the early morning and late evening. At these times of day, the sun is low, the air temperature is cool, the winds are at their lightest, and dew is on the ground. However, we still need to decide: Which is the better choice?

Morning Versus Evening: Which Is A Better Watering Time?

According to some people’s definition of “common lawn care wisdom”, watering in the day is useless because of evaporation, therefore, watering in the evening is best. But the early morning is actually the best time because it has the benefits of sunlight, not just the drawbacks. If you can water before 10 a.m., when there are cooler temperatures and calmer breezes to prevent evaporation, as well as a rising sun that will evaporate the excess water, you’ll be doing the best for your lawn’s health!

In the early morning, the grass will also still be dewy. That’s a positive thing because watering the grass when it is wet helps prevent the spread of disease and fungus by reducing the length of time your grass is wet. The grass will have time to absorb and use the water before the sun gets too high. Even though evaporation can render your watering useless, you still want the sun to evaporate excess water before it can create a good environment for grass-killing pests.

If you water overnight, there will be no high sun to do the positive evaporation, meaning your lawn will remain wet for twelve hours or more, until the following morning sun dries off the lawn. This creates the perfect conditions for many harmful types of fungi and insects who thrive in wet foliage, and you’ll hurt large patches of your grass this way. Contact a professional landscaper to learn more!

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How To Spot Quality Landscaping Companies

You’ll notice that there are many landscaping companies out there in the city. The options will probably offer similar lists of services, and while they’ll all promise you a great-looking lawn and garden, the results can be radically different.

It’s very important to take the time beforehand and make sure the landscapers you’re considering are the right people for the job, but the minutes used researching options will be time well spent. Before you end up committing to the wrong choice, here’s how you can easily spot a high-quality landscaping company.

Be Wary Of Low, Low Prices

Nobody wants to pay too much for landscaping services, but as the saying goes, “You get what you pay for.” If it’s too cheap to believe, don’t fall for it. You might save a couple of bucks, but you’ll be paying for that shoddy landscaping work for a long time.

Quality Landscaping Companies: Read Into Their Personality

Gauging someone based on personality might sound shallow, but it’s actually not a bad way of determining which landscaping company to go with. A good landscaper will engage, ask questions, and generally communicate well with their customers. Take note about how the landscaper talks to you during the quoting process, and if you’re not comfortable, don’t be afraid to back out.

One way to know the costs involved and to learn more about what the landscaping company can do for you is to be clear about what you want. The more detail you can give, the more exact the company can be about their pricing and the results. If after this they still give you vague answers, wave their hands about your needs, and just not seem to understand what you’re asking, the subsequent experience will probably be negative.

Go With Experience For Quality Landscaping Companies

Experience means a lot in the landscaping business. Companies who have been in service for a long time will know what they’re doing. They also clearly do it well enough to stay in business! An even better sign is if they’ve retained a base of loyal customers, so if it’s okay with the company, ask for client information.

Carefully read online reviews, too, and don’t hesitate to ask about their past while getting the quote or consultation. You’ll be able to find details like the quality of work, their professionalism, and the kind of services they’ve delivered to past customers. All this information will give you more to take more into consideration before making a final commitment.

Look At Their Previous Landscaping Work

Is there hard evidence to back up any claims of quality service? If the company is online, always look for photos on their website or social media accounts. Compare these photos to the service descriptions to get a better idea of the end result.

Be mindful of creativity, too! Lush green grass mowed in clean, straight lines are all well and good, but the photos should show a variety of landscaping skills. A good company should be able to do a wide range of services and have the proof there for you to see.

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Trendy Landscaping Designs To Try This Summer

If you’re having trouble envisioning your garden this spring and summer, 2019 has some very creative looks to try. These landscaping designs are all about adding more to your property, getting more out of your gardening budget, and even bringing back a little bit of nature!

Landscaping Designs For Curb Appeal

Landscaping is one of the best, most cost-effective ways to upgrade the look and feel of your entire property. Decorative use of shrubs, planters, aggregates like mulch and gravel, and a well-groomed lawn will help make an excellent first impression. If you’re looking to sell your home, this curb appeal is absolutely essential!

Major features can also make your home more valuable in the eyes of potential buyers. Patios and decks in the backyard, for instance, can add more living space and increase the value of your home by up to 12%!

Backyard Oasis Landscaping Designs

Many people find peace through just the act of gardening. This isn’t for everyone, but the alternative isn’t to just mow the lawn and be done with it. By turning your backyard into a private oasis, even the people who hate getting their hands in the soil can use their yards to relax.

You can create small, secluded places in your garden, perfect for enjoying a book, a drink, or some meditative time. Plant some lush greenery, use some stone or wooden elements to block it off from the rest of the garden, and install some rustic seating for two. You can even add some creative water features to get that feeling of a babbling brook or waterfall!

Edible Landscape Designs

Growing food in a garden isn’t a new trend for 2019, but devoting more and more space alongside other ornamental elements definitely is taking off. We can thank the “locavore” movement for this, because more consumers are seriously thinking about where their food comes from.

The important thing to note is that the edible parts of your garden shouldn’t crowd out the flowers, and vice-versa. You can have professionals get your garden up and running, but if you’d like to DIY the entirety of your new source for vegetables, make a little map before planting. Know what will grow well in your region and soil type, too!

Low Maintenance Yards

As lives get busier, more and more homeowners are turning to low-maintenance plants and yard covering These include planting more perennial flowers that will return year after year, and planning the yard based on the watering needs of different plants. As well, a lot of the lawn, which was once only grass, is now being replaced by the ground cover that provides some colour without the need for a lot of water or special care: ajuga, creeping jenny, English ivy, phlox, chamomile, and different types of clover are all very popular!

Bee-Friendly Gardens

Bringing the garden back to nature is a big trend. Native wildflowers and perennial meadow plants make the garden look looser and less manicured, but it’s worth it if your goal is to create a small bit of paradise for bees and butterflies. It’s a different look, and you’ll probably have more land suitable for it in the backyard, but it’s another way to create a relaxing space on your property. Contact us to learn more!

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Landscaping On A Budget: Five Affordable Backyard Designs

Spring is a great time to give your backyard a new look, but landscaping costs can have many homeowners thinking twice about overhauling their gardens. Don’t worry about the cost, though – there are many affordable backyard designs and plans that are very budget-friendly, and will still give your yard the makeover it deserves.

Planting Perennial Ground Cover

A lot of property owners skip the flowers because they have the reputation of needing a lot of work. If you want a colourful yard that is low on maintenance, you can choose to spread the seeds of a perennial ground cover. You won’t have to spend a lot of time weeding, you can skip the chemicals like pesticides and herbicides, and it is an inexpensive way of adding some flower power to your property!

Some great perennial ground cover options include violets, pansies, creeping periwinkle, and walk-on-me thyme. You can plant the seeds right into the ground, but some of these may need to start germinating indoors.

Mulch Alternatives Make Affordable Backyard Designs

Mulch is great for reducing the time and money you’d spend on watering and weeding your backyard gardens, as it is used to retain moisture, suppress the growth of unwanted plants, and keep the soil at a moderate temperature. But if you have to keep buying massive bags of the stuff, it can get expensive.

You can easily make affordable mulch alternatives from the organic matter you once thought of as waste! Shredded leaves, pine needles, grass clippings, and compost are all great materials you can use to mulch your gardens. If you’ve got the right plants, you can even use stone!

Plants That Keep On Giving In Your Backyard

Using your backyard for herbs and vegetables is a great way to combine beauty and functionality. You’ll have fresh produce for summer barbecues, helping you cut your grocery bill during the summer. Herbs like mint, rosemary, and basil have the added benefit of repelling insects, removing the need to take pesticides to your garden; most of them also taste great in summer cocktails, too!

Cluster Your Flowers As An Affordable Backyard Design

If space or money are two big issues, you can create unique visual layouts by clustering your flowers with planters. Grouping two or three bunches of flowers together in planters of varying sizes adds extra depth and height to the arrangement and lets you still incorporate vibrant colour regardless of the size of your backyard or budget. It also lets you put plants onto a concrete or paved surfaces, so you don’t have to limit the extent of your garden!

Divide Perennial Blooms

Perennials are the other kind of garden plant that keeps on giving. You can increase the size of your garden year after year if you purchase the right kinds of flowers. Perennial flowers multiply in the summers after they are initially planted, and you can move the new blooms after they have germinated rather than buying new flowers spring after spring. Contact us if you’d like to learn more!

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5 Landscaping Mistakes To Avoid This Spring

After being cooped up all winter, you may have forgotten some landscaping and gardening basics. Don’t worry, it happens to most people every year! As a bit of a refresher, here are five landscaping mistakes you should definitely avoid this spring if you want your landscaping to look its best going into summer.

Mowing The Lawn Too Short

It’s natural to want to give your lawn a close shave the first time in spring, but it’s very bad for the grass. If you lower the blade height too much, you could create bald, dead spots, essentially scalping the lawn. Not only do these brown patches spread and look bad, but they are prime breeding spots for harmful insects.

Preventing this is really easy; just remember to adjust the mower’s height when taking it out of winter storage. For the first few cuts of the season, raise your blades so that you’re cutting only the top third of the grass. You can let the grass grow a bit before cutting it as the weather heats up, then begin lowering the blades.

Mixing Garden Types: Common Landscaping Mistakes

When laying down your gardens, don’t mix flowers with fruit and vegetables! We know you’re eager to get out and spend weekends in the flowerbeds, but make sure you have room for everything you want to plant. If you’re getting in on the “grow your own” trend, make sure to give enough soil for both flowers and produce. They have different needs, and some veggies can crowd out other plants, or require a lot of their own space.

Adding Too Much (Or Too Little) Fertilizer

Fertilizer in the spring gives your grass the nutrients they’ll be craving after being dormant all winter, but you need to find a delicate balance in this feeding. Too much fertilizer and you can burn the grass; too little, and your grass will be thin and spotty with shallow roots.

Start by purchasing the right fertilizer, and you can pick the best one by looking at the symbols on the bag. The N-P-K symbol stands for “Nitrogen – Phosphate – Potassium”, and the numbers indicate what percentage of each is in that particular fertilizer. A good spring fertilizer should have a formula close to 20-5-10, or 20% nitrogen, 5% phosphate, and 10% potassium.

Fertilizer also has to be laid down properly, so make sure to use a spreader to evenly distribute the fertilizer on your lawn. If there are hard-to-access parts of your property, get at them with a hand spreader.

High-Maintenance Plants

Be careful about what you plant, especially in spring. For many flowers, spring is too late for planting; planting seeds and bulbs is, ironically enough, better spent in the fall! Of course, you can plant healthy, grown flowers in the spring from your local garden centre, but just make sure you know what you’re getting into! Many flowers, especially if they aren’t native, will need a lot of TLC.

Not Watering Enough

Nature takes care of a lot of your watering in springtime, but don’t count on it to do everything. Keeping everything growing properly, from your lawn to the shrubs to the flowers, requires proper watering. So depending on the rainfall, try and get everything watered two to three times a week. If there are parts that don’t get enough rain due to tree cover or other obstacles, make sure to target them specifically! Contact the Green Ninja to avoid more landscaping mistakes.

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Spring Lawn Fertilization Tips

Spring is the best time of the year for lawn fertilization because your soil is the perfect temperature for growth. But if you aren’t paying attention to how you’re fertilizing your lawn, you could end up cutting your grass way too often, or worse, scorching it. For a thick, green, healthy lawn, you need to do three things: carefully read the bag you plan on buying, purchase the right equipment, and get the timing right!

Number Knowledge Is Key To Lawn Fertilization

Bags of fertilizer might seem chock full of unidentifiable symbols, but they’re important. There will be three numbers in little boxes under the letters N, P, and K; these show the percentages of nitrogen, phosphate, and potassium respectively, the primary nutrients needed to feed your lawn.

Using this guide, a bag with the numbers 20-5-3 will have 20% nitrogen, 5% phosphate, and 3% potassium. The remaining parts of the bag are filler material that helps you distribute the nutrients evenly. A good, basic nutrient mix for the springtime is roughly 20-5-10.

Look For “Slow-Release” Lawn Products

Do the words “slow-release” appear on the lawn fertilization bag? They should! A good slow-release fertilizer will break down over a longer period of time, requiring fewer applications. Rather than using it every four weeks, you can add a thin layer every six weeks. This means you’re less likely to over-apply the nutrients, preventing you from letting it grow too quickly or accidentally burning it.

Buy Granular Fertilizer

Not only should the fertilizer be slow-release, but it should also be granular. You might see these fertilizers next to products called water-soluble lawn fertilization; these are liquids you will probably have to mix yourself, and if the proportions are off, you can easily damage the grass. Not only that, but liquid fertilizers have an easier time getting into storm drains and water systems.

Granular fertilizers take their time breaking down, and the distribution is hard to mess up when spread with the right equipment. You are much less likely to harm your grass and other plants with granules! Just make sure that you’re applying it early enough so the plants have time to take in the nutrients they need.

Lawn Care: Time It Right

Getting the timing right on your fertilizer is key to a healthy lawn. Start in mid-April, and plan to add it five or six times throughout the spring and summer. Spread your second layer in mid-May (four weeks after the first), and then every six-to-eight weeks after. Keep going until October, because your grass will keep growing well into fall and will need strong roots when spring returns.

Apply the Fertilizer Correctly

Hardware and home stores usually carry two types of spreader, and you should use a broadcast spreader rather than a drop spreader. This kind distributes the fertilizer further, preventing missed spots that will be obvious later. If you’re looking to buy, the broadcast spreader is usually a lot cheaper, too. For thin strips of lawn, handheld broadcast spreaders are the easiest to use.

To spread the fertilizer evenly over the lawn, walk at a steady pace as you push the spreader. If you don’t take it easy, some areas of your lawn will get too little fertilizer, while others will get too much. You’ll see the difference when it really starts to grow.

Make sure you’re filling the hopper of your spreader on your driveway or on the protective surface; if you’re trying to fill it on your lawn, the little granules that spill out will build up and kill the grass. Also, make sure the spreader is shut when filling it because you don’t want all the fertilizer to just pour right through! Contact Green Ninja today for more great tips.

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How To Repair Salt Damage To Your Lawn

Here in Ontario, spraying salt on the roads and sidewalks is not just popular – it’s necessary. This means that it’s almost impossible to prevent salt from getting where it doesn’t belong, and that includes your lawn and in your garden. It’s not just what you track in with your car, or the grass that sits right next to the road: the spray can travel up to 150 feet with the wind!

Not a lot of property owners know this, but you can both prevent and reverse damage caused by salt. You just need to start the work as soon as the snow melts!

What Can Salt Do To Your Lawn?

The salt used on roads in Canada is usually sodium chloride, better known as rock salt. While some municipalities, including London, mix it up with beet juice to reduce the amount they have to spread, rock salt can still where it doesn’t belong. Many alternatives, like calcium chloride, are better for plants and grass, but are too expensive to use, so you’ll end up battling with rock salt.

Rock salt’s biggest damaging effect is that it draws moisture from the ground, preventing water from getting to the roots of the grass, drying it out and causing it to turn brown. Sodium ions also prevent key nutrients like magnesium from being absorbed by the grass, keeping it malnourished.

It can also affect the plants and trees on your property, and the effects won’t be noticed until spring starts and the plants begin to bud. Or, if they are seriously damaged by the salt, until the plants not bud, because they won’t grow new leaves and blossoms.

How To Prevent And Repair Salt Damage To Your Lawn

When the snow and ice dissolve, the salt will too, but the residue will stick around in the soil. When it’s safe to hook up the hose again, an easy way to prevent salt from doing too much damage is to wash it away. Soak the lawn, your plants, and the root area around your trees and drain the salt away.

Treating salt damage requires a product that will neutralize the sodium chloride and replace it with helpful nutrients. Pick up a bag of gypsum soil condition and use a lawn spreader to lay down a thin layer over the affected parts of your lawn. The gypsum is also known as calcium sulfate, and as such it replaces the salt with the elements calcium and sulfur. These retain water in the soil, help growth, and heal damaged grass.

One way to prevent future salt damage is to reorganize the elements on your property. Use salt alternatives like sand and kitty litter on your driveway and walkways, and if possible, grade them away from gardens and plants so that you can easily drain them. Next fall, set up burlap barriers and snow fences along the parts of your property that face the road so that the salt spray carried by the wind won’t get on your lawn.

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Natural Alternatives To Salt For De-Icing

Every winter, roughly five million tonnes of salt are used to melt the ice on Canadian roads, and more is added to sidewalks, private walkways, and driveways for de-icing. All this sodium does more than harm lawns and gardens: it rusts cars, gets into waterways through runoff, and degrades concrete. It’s important to decrease the amount you are sprinkling on your property and sidewalks, or just find an alternative altogether!

Effective natural alternatives to sodium do exist, and you can even make some of them yourself. These natural options can be used either instead of rock salt, or mixed with it so that you aren’t using as much.

Pickle Brine 

Don’t chuck out that brine just yet. The leftover liquid from jars of pickles can make for an effective, environmentally-friendly alternative to rock salt. While it still has chloride, it’s far less than rock salt – as much as a quarter less chloride. It works as well as salt does, melting ice at temperatures as low as -20 C, and more places are taking notice. When a county in New Jersey ran out of rock salt in 2014, they turned to spraying brine on the roads!

Pickle brine is just one type of brine, and different regions will have different amounts of the salty solution on hand. In Wisconsin, brine from cheese production works as well, and with all the cheesemakers there, it just makes sense to use this readily available, cost-free by-product. In Russia and Hungary, it’s barley residue from distilleries!

But brine has one personal use benefit salt doesn’t: it’s an effective preventative measure. Spray it before the ice and snow move in, and the precipitation won’t stick to the concrete, making it easier to chip away.

Sugar Beet Juice

Sugar beet juice and crystals can lower the melting point of ice and snow, making it easier to clear it off your driveway. It’s a material that poses no chemical threat to people, plants, animal’s paws, and concrete. Much like pickle brine, municipalities are taking notice of the safety and lower costs associated with beet juice, and many are considering adding it to the salt they spread on the road.You can make your own beet deicer by mixing two pounds of salt per gallon of water with a glass of sugar beet juice or crystals. Don’t worry about stains – it’s more of a brown colour than red, anyway.

Sand And Kitty Litter

You might have an easier time getting your hands on bags of kitty litter and sand than beet juice, and you’ll see some similar results. The obvious benefits of these gritty materials are that they provide traction on icy surfaces, and you might keep some in your car for this purpose, anyway. When the sun is out, the darker colour attract and retain heat, helping to speed up the melting process.

Other natural traction-giving materials you can use? Fireplace ash and coffee grounds are two other things you might have lying around that can be sprinkled on ice. So make that extra pot of coffee; your concrete will thank you!

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