Fox Hollow Landscaping and Design, Inc.

A Step-by-Step Guide to Preparing the Perfect Summer Lawn

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Spring is in the air, which means it’s time to start preparing your garden for the warm season. In particular, that lush, green summer lawn. Follow these five steps to be assured of a beautiful and easily maintainable lawn throughout the summer months.

Step 1: Mow

The first thing to do is to clean up your lawn, clear away any debris from surrounding trees and plants and then get back into the mowing habit that you put in hibernation during the winter. Trim grass once a week and keep it free of clutter and pests. 

Step 2: Weed, Aerate, and Scarify

Go to work on the weeds and moss that have built up in various parts of your lawn. Most weeds can take root and thrive anywhere, while moss grows in wet, shaded areas. Pull weeds out by hand and use scarification to clear moss infestations. Scarification (just a fancy word for a good raking) is also an effective way to clear other unwanted pests and debris from your lawn. Aeration will help you loosen up soil that has become hard and impacted during the summer months, allowing water and nutrients to get through to the roots.

Step 3: Fertilize

Feed your lawn liberally during the spring and early summer months. Get a good fertilizer that is formulated specifically for the season to reinvigorate the grass and reduce the growth of weeds and moss.

Step 4: Sow

You may have some areas that have become patchy and sparse over the course of the winter. Now is a good time to plant more grass seed to fill up those gaps. Break up the soil, rake to make a reasonably even surface and then sow the seeds before lightly raking again so the seeds are incorporated into the soil. If the weather is a little dry, water the replanted areas lightly using your sprinkler hose attachment or sprinkler system.

Step 5: Water

Speaking of watering, be sure that your lawn gets enough. If rain is not forthcoming for a while, water your lawn yourself at least once a week, making sure to aerate the hard and dry spots so that the water can penetrate to the roots.

Fox Hollow Landscaping and Design can help you create the perfect summer lawn. Contact us for unparalleled landscaping and expert garden design as well as maintenance throughout northern New Jersey.

What Are the Components of Healthy Topsoil?

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The secret to any thriving garden and lawn is their being rooted in good, healthy topsoil. But, what exactly is healthy topsoil? And what sets it apart from any old dirt? 

Well, like dirt of all kinds, topsoil is essentially a mixture of sand, silt, and clay. Sand particles are the largest, while clay particles are the smallest. Silt is somewhere in the middle. The best soil has more silt than sand and clay. Sand tends to allow too much water to drain through, while clay often retains too much water. Silt keeps the moisture balance just right. Sand or clay can be added to soil in order to adjust the drainage as needed.

What sets topsoil apart from just plain soil is its organic matter content. Decaying plant and animal matter breaks down and releases a full range of organic nutrients into the soil, binding the silt, sand, and clay particles together into soil aggregates. In between all these particles are spaces of various sizes, which are called pore spaces. The larger of these allow water, nutrients, and air to enter the soil, and gases to escape.

In addition to the soil aggregates, nutrients, water, and air, topsoil also contains billions of microorganisms. These unicellular animals break down organic matter, releasing nutrients that the plants can then absorb. Most of these organisms require oxygen to live, which means that the soil must be well aerated. Healthy microorganisms lead to rich soil, which leads to plants having the best nutrition. 

These are the main components that make up topsoil, making those top three to eight inches of your garden such a perfect environment for grass and other plants to thrive. 

Fox Hollow Landscaping and Design can help you create the perfect garden. Contact us for unparalleled landscaping and expert garden design and maintenance throughout northern New Jersey.

10 Native Wildflowers to Beautify Your Winter Garden

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To everything there is a season, as the song goes. That includes your garden, its plants, and its colors. While it may not stay lush and green during winter, it still can have all of its charm and appeal. Far from going on a total hibernation during the winter months, there is no reason why your garden can’t continue to be beautiful even as the earthy browns and icy whites set in. One way to dress your yard in the colors of winter is to foster some of these ten native wildflowers. While summer is the flowering season, winter is the time of the seedpod. They come in all shapes and sizes as well as in varying earth tones, and each one has its own particular beautiful quality.

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Native Plant Alternatives to Invasive Common Buckthorn

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Common buckthorn is an invasive plant species that can cause severe damage to the north-eastern eco system. How do you identify it? You will usually find it growing aggressively in the shade of deciduous tree canopies, and it can reach heights of around 35 feet. Common buckthorn also tends to lose its leaves much later in the fall than many other native species. 

Luckily, there is a host of options to choose from when it comes to planting native alternatives in place of this invader. Here are a few that are worth considering:

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6 Ideas For Autumn Color in your Garden

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Autumn is a time of change—the kids are heading back to school, the weather starts cooling down and fall foliage puts on a colorful show that even the staunchest devotees of summer can enjoy. Brightening your yard with fiery fall foliage isn’t all that complicated—there are plenty of trees, shrubs and flowers that produce brilliant hues and do well over a range of climates and seasons. These six ideas for autumn color will make your yard pop.

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Try This Unthirsty Evergreen for Fall and Winter Interest

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Living a busy lifestyle means having much less time to spend tending to your garden. Never mind the fact that you probably will not be all that keen to spend an endless amount of time outdoors when the weather is less than pleasant! 

With this in mind, we would like to recommend a beautiful evergreen that does not need regular watering, and that will add interest to your garden during the fall and winter months. Introducing Eastern Red Cedar (Juniperus virginiana).

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