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How to Curate an Award-Winning Yard While Balancing Your Busy Life

There’s something rustic about taking pride in working the land you own. Beautifying a garden is good for the environment. If landscaping is your passion but your timetable simply won’t allow for it, here’s how you can cultivate an award-winning yard without upsetting your schedule.

Plan your entire yard

When you plan your entire yard, you get a good visual for what you want, and you’ll be able to outline the areas that need the most work. An article in the New York Times recommends that you try basic colors: red, yellow and blue. Think about which colors work best for your yard and what you want your yard to look like. If there are some colors that clash, don’t be afraid to do some digging and rearranging.

This is also a good opportunity to implement the changes that you always wanted, but never had the time for. Planning will set the foundation for what your yard’s biggest priorities.

Maximize the off-season

The off-season is an excellent time to take care of any diseases that may have ravaged your plants. This not only helps your plants, but the overall environmental impact plant disease can have on your entire yard. Try to take a little bit of time each weekend to start inspecting your yard so you have an idea of what you need to fix. If necessary, hire someone to help you inspect your yard and help you understand the fixes you need to make.

Fertilizer focus

Once spring hits, fertilize your lawn. You’ll need to plan out exactly how many times you’ll fertilize the yard and when you’ll do it, as well as select a good fertilizer. According to Popular Mechanics, you should use a slow-release fertilizer, as it gives you longer periods to wait for a reapplication of fertilizer. You want to get your grass as green as possible without making it grow too fast and slow-release fertilizer will do just that.

Leave some work for the professionals

As a busy person, there’s some yard work that simply has to be done by the professionals. It all depends on the task at hand to determine what professional you should hire. For example, trimming and pruning your trees is a huge task. You can avoid the risk of injury to your home (or yourself) by hiring an arborist. The average cost to trim or remove a tree is between $422 – $707 nationally.

Maximize your mornings

Get up just a touch earlier to spend some time outside in your yard. Watering your garden in the morning is best, as it gives your plants some moisture and strength to face the heat of the day. Watering correctly will not only save your plants, but it will save you time and money. If you have new plants, water them twice a day so they can establish their roots and survive the heat. Focus on watering your perennials and annuals as well so they can stay in constant bloom.

Follow the trends

You don’t need to do every trendy thing in the book, but take advantage of current trends and try out new methods. Don’t be afraid to grow more edible plants, such as berry bushes and fruit trees. Some people are adding vintage decorations to their yard, while others are adding fancy furniture to the back. Some trends tend to come and go, but find out the reason behind the trend and see if it’s sustainable for you.

You want to have a beautiful yard, but you also get to live in it. Leave some work to professionals, take advantage of your mornings, plan carefully, but have fun experimenting. That’s what makes it fun, and what makes your yard truly home.