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16 May 2016
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How do I Prevent Crabgrass from Growing in My Yard? [Infographic]

crabgrass

If you plan ahead, you greatly increase the chances that you will never have to face crabgrass in the future. Let’s take a closer look at what crabgrass is and what you can do about it.

What is Crabgrass?

  • Crabgrass is an annual plant.
  • It’s a low plant with very thin leaves that seems to infect yards like a virus.
  • There are more than 300 different types around the world.

How to Prevent Crabgrass from Growing

  • Keep your yard healthy as possible.
  • Let your grass grow a bit higher. Four inches during the summer, and three inches during the winter and fall seasons.

Tired of crabgrass? Consider switching to synthetic turf. It’s low-maintenance and looks great year- round.

Contact us for a Free Consultation.

11 May 2016
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The Foothill Pine

 

Foothill PineFoothill pine is a handsome evergreen that can grow to 80 feet tall. It’s also called California foothill pine, pinon pine, bull pine, nut pine and gray pine. The California foothill pine thrives in areas with poor soil and little water. The nuts, eaten raw or roasted or even ground into flour with other seeds, were a vital food source for Native Americans. Native Americans also used the pine pitch for medicinal purposes and the branches to fashion utensils and even in basket weaving.

Foothill Pines: Useful Landscaping Trees

While normally a slow-growing tree, regular watering will help the California foothill pine reach half its full height at a much faster rate. Foothill pines are ideal as a windbreak tree because they sway with the wind and are unlikely to be damaged. Windbreaks are especially important in drought-prone areas of our state where high winds can blow away dry soil. They protect smaller plants from strong winds and keep the wind from beating against your home. They also provide some shade for the sunniest side of your house so that you can turn down the air conditioning.

Foothill Pines and Wildlife

California foothill pines provide food and shelter to many varieties of wildlife and even bring butterflies and hummingbirds to your yard. Deer, including mule deer, find its young branches tasty, so you may want to have your trees pruned so that foliage is just out of their reach. Pruning should be done by a landscaper in late fall or winter. Another advantage to pruning is to open up space under the tree for the plants that grow under it in nature.

Songbirds feed on the seeds of the foothill pine, and the tree provides essential winter shelter for birds when other trees lose their leaves. Butterflies also spend the winter in California foothill pine and lay their eggs there in the spring, where the larvae live and spend their pupae stage. Hummingbirds are known for subsisting on nectar, and this pine flowers from late spring into early summer. Hummingbirds also drink tree sap. If you love backyard wildlife watching, consider pines in addition to your bird and butterfly-attracting plants.

The Foothill Pine and Mistletoe

Gray pine dwarf mistletoe, like all varieties of mistletoe, is a parasite, and it’s not the attractive variety that’s become part of holiday lore. Gray pine dwarf mistletoe is unattractive and can harm your foothill pines. If you start to notice curly, dark yellow or reddish-orange masses on your trees, call your landscaper immediately so that they can deal with the infestation before it gets out of control.

Like most trees, for the best placement and growth, foothill pines should be planted by a landscaper. Since the California foothill pine is typically planted in hard, rocky soil, professional equipment is required to dig a hole wide and deep enough for the young pine. Your landscaper can also ensure that young trees receive proper irrigation. Please contact us if you’re interested in foothill pines for your yard.

01 May 2016
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Advice to Make Gardening More Fun and Fruitful [Infographic]

gardening

 

Gardening includes many benefits making it an excellent hobby.  From enhancing property value to growing fresh ingredients for cooking, it’s a great way to spend your time.

Here are some tips to get started on your personal garden!

First Time Gardeners

  • Find plants that are good for beginners.
  • Use organic mulches to keep moisture within the soil by reducing evaporation.
  • Consider asking friends or family for clippings using their existing plants.

Landscape designs

  • Where water is scarce, home gardeners need to change to plants that need little moisture.
  • Lawns can be changed to gravel, wood chips or patio decking.
  • Taking advantage of clippings can help you save in landscape designs and gardening costs.

Excessive Amount of Fruits & Vegetables

  • Don’t let your veggies go to waste. Offer then them to family, friends, and neighbors.
  • Preserve for future use by canning, freezing or dehydrating the surplus.
  • Call the local food bank to see if they except donations.

Need a jump start with your gardening? Contact Evergreen Landscaping for a free consultation.

19 Mar 2016
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Scrub Oak

Scrub oak is perfect if you have a dry, sunny yard and need to add some year-round greenery. It has handsome, grayish-green leaves that slightly resemble holly leaves. Scrub oak can grow up to 20 feet tall if it isn’t pruned yearly. Scrub oak is native to California, prefers a dry environment and can easily survive California droughts.

Scrub Oak: The Basics

Scrub oaks, also called Gambel oaks, survive by gathering what little water is naturally in the air via their leaves. They grow best in sandy or even rocky soil. Scrub oaks are often seen growing on hillsides in the wild. Left to grow naturally, they grow in thickets, with new trees growing from a single massive taproot. Scrub oak is a long-lived shrub. It thrives even in areas decimated by wildfires.

Animals and insects depend on scrub oak for shelter and food. Scrub oaks produce acorns that sustain squirrels throughout the winter. Butterflies are attracted to the scrub oak’s yellow flowers as a food source and then lay their eggs on its branches; the offspring eat the vegetation in their larval stage. Scrub oak is an attractive, drought-resistant shrub that’s important to our state’s environment and to our native animal life.

Landscaping With Scrub Oak

Scrub oak looks at home in a naturally landscaped yard. It’s especially attractive if you have a redwood, ranch style or traditional Southwestern style home, but scrub oak can work with nearly any style home. We recommend scrub oak to homeowners who want to work with native plants and attract wildlife to their yards.

Hardscapes and scrub oaks go great together. Native grasses add elements of natural drama to your sunny, dry yard. If you’ve decided to grow drought-resistant flowers, fruits or vegetables, having scrub oaks in the yard to attract butterflies will help your other plants survive and produce more blooms and fruits.

A retaining wall with pruned scrub oaks on top and flowering grasses at the base will instantly make a bare yard look lush. You can use scrub oaks as a hedge around your house, particularly under bedroom and bathroom windows, as long as you keep them pruned short. If you want shade, you can let your scrub oaks grow to their natural height of 15-20 feet. In addition to making your yard look great, trees or shrubbery combined with hardscapes increase your property value.

Caring for Scrub Oaks

Scrub oaks require almost no maintenance on your part. We’ll will prune them in the fall and trim them before the spring growing season starts. Experts recommend no watering for scrub oaks. We’ll examine them for any sign of insect infestation. Remember not to panic over the caterpillars in the spring, but call us if you see oak galls. This insect infestation should be treated.

Things to Remember

• Scrub oaks are drought-resistant
• They require almost no irrigation
• Scrub oaks grown well in adverse conditions
• Butterflies are attracted to scrub oaks

Fill out our contact form or call us at 805-773-5395 if you’re interested in scrub oaks for your yard or if you have any questions not covered in this article. Evergreen Landscaping will be happy to give you a consultation about the best types of the best drought-resistant trees and plants for your yard.

12 Mar 2016
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Bush Poppy

Bush PoppyBush poppy is also called tree poppy. The latter is somewhat inaccurate, because the bush poppy is one of California’s smaller native flowering shrubs. It’s drought-resistant and likes full sun, but needs more care than other wild flowering shrubs. Its yellow flowers are the color of buttercups and will light up your yard, but only if it’s planted in the right type of soil. Depending on the soil, your bush poppy will need a little watering.

Bush Poppy: The Basics

The bush poppy is a slow grower compared to buck brush. Bush poppy grows about three feet a year in the right conditions. If your yard is mostly clay, bush poppy is perfect for you. If your yard is hilly, that’s another plus. You can also plant bush poppy in a sandy yard, but you’ll have to make sure that it gets just the right amount of water.

Bush poppy’s yellow flowers are over five inches in diameter and closely resemble the classic poppy. The leaves are long, slender and appear grayish-green in direct sunlight. The bush poppy blooms from late spring through mid-summer, after other shrubs like buck brush have stopped blooming. It responds especially well to pruning at the end of the year, putting out even more big yellow flowers next year.

Landscaping

The bush poppy is one of the smaller, slower-growing native shrubs, and is often used as the background to flower gardens, as an edging shrub and to bring attention to larger shrubs like scrub oak. Bush poppy and scrub oak have similar gray-green leaves and look fantastic planted together, with bush poppy’s bright yellow flowers adding visual interest. The bush poppy also looks great around your patio or outside the windows of your kitchen nook.

Bush poppy looks spectacular as part of your rock garden. It’s medium-sized when fully grown, so it won’t grow to obscure rocks and boulders. You can build a beautiful hardscape with a bush poppy as the centerpiece. Because bush poppies have root balls instead of taproots and don’t reproduce the way that scrub oaks do, it’s safe to plant bush poppies around your deck without fear of root damage from the plant in the future.

Caring for Bush Poppies

It’s common to see a single bush poppy shrub surrounded by red lava rocks. Just remember that wherever you plant the bush poppy, it must have soil that drains or the roots will develop rot and kill the plant. Bush poppies can be planted in large planters with lots of drainage holes, but don’t expect the abundant blooms you’ll get if you plant in the yard in the right kind of soil.

The bush poppy needs professional care to look its best and live as long as possible. With proper care, the bush poppy can live up to 10 years. The roots of new plants are fragile, so it’s best to let us plant your bush poppy and give you a watering schedule based on your soil and the amount of sun the plant will receive.

Things to Remember

• This plant is a medium shrub
• This plant needs a small amount of water
• They like full sun and clay soil
• Pruning in the fall makes the plant lush in the spring

Looking for the perfect plant, shrub or tree for your yard or business? Do you want to use this plant in your landscaping? Evergreen Landscaping can help to make it happen fill out our contact form or call us today at (805) 773-5395 to set up a consultation.

05 Mar 2016
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Buck Brush

Buck brush, or buckbrush, is one of California’s loveliest native flowering shrubs. It blooms in white, fuchsia, pale violet and the intense violet-blue shade that inspired the alternate names Wedgeleaf Mountain Lilac and California Lilac. The deepest blue blooms resemble blue hydrangeas. It can get bushy quickly and grow as tall as ten feet, so it should be cut back after the flowers die and the seed pods open in the fall or winter.

Buck Brush

Buck Brush: The Basics

Buck brush is ideal if you’re looking for a fragrant, flowering shrub that comes in a variety of colors and is drought resistant. Several shrubs that are tasty to deer are casually referred to as buckbrush. This article is about Ceanothus cuneatus. It is not palatable to deer. Buck brush is a California native and one of our best-known wild flowering shrubs.

Buck brush is an evergreen, so it will still dress up your yard after it stops blooming. Buck brush is highly attractive to pollinators. Several varieties of butterflies favor buck brush. Hummingbirds are also drawn to buck brush’s fragrant blossoms. By planting it, you’ll be feeding bees and butterflies as well as beautifying your lawn. Buck brush is one of the most popular plants in California butterfly gardens.

Landscaping with Buck Brush

Ceanothus cuneatus is versatile and requires little more than sun and sandy, loose soil that drains. It’s available in so many shades of white and purple that you can choose white or pale violet and use it as a background shrub, or you can pick a couple of the more vivid shades and build flower gardens or hardscapes around them. You can line your driveway or porch with a soft shade and flank your porch steps with the intense lilac purple.

Bright shades are stunning at night when highlighted by solar lights. Plant the most colorful buck brush around your patio. Enjoy your butterfly and hummingbird garden during the day, and then wow your guests in the evening with buck brush’s natural beauty and fragrance. For an indoor or outdoor centerpiece, cut a few long branches that have just started to flower.

If you want a dedicated butterfly garden in your yard, you’re going to need other pollinator-attracting plants like scrub oak, and you’ll need a butterfly puddle. Butterflies need a puddle in mud or sand where they can drink water and obtain minerals, specifically salt, not found in flower nectar. Creating a butterfly puddle is easy. Find a clay dish that doesn’t drain. Dig a hole just deep enough to hold the dish with the edges even with the dirt. Follow the instructions in this article to make your butterfly puddle perfect. You can make a partial circle of buck brush and place your butterfly puddle in the center.

Things to Remember

• Buck brush comes in a color range from white to bright purple
• It has a strong, pleasant fragrance
• It’s drought resistant
• Deer don’t like it

When you’re ready to make your yard colorful and fragrant with Ceanothus cuneatus, fill out our contact form or call at 805-773-5395. We can design dramatic hardscapes for you, edge your patio and walkway with buck brush or even create a butterfly and hummingbird garden. Tired of your dry, boring lawn? Give buck brush a try.

09 Feb 2016
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Hollyleaf Redberry

Hollyleaf RedberryLandscaping in the Pismo Beach area leaves residents and business owners with far more options than one may realize. There are a multitude of beautiful plants, shrubs, and trees that are available and grow very well in our area. You can choose from everything from large trees to small, delicate flowers, that will grow well in areas you may have thought would always have to be barren.

Evergreen Landscaping can help you plan and create your perfect outdoor living space, even in areas you thought you could never grow anything. Let us put our years of landscaping experience to work for you.

One such plant, that we have found to be fairly popular in the Pismo Beach area is the Hollyleaf Redberry. It’s name give you a good idea of what it looks like, but the beautiful red berries really need to be seen to be fully appreciated. These plants are perfect for when you’re looking for splashed of red that will attract a wide variety of wildlife.

Hollyleaf Redberry is fairly easy to care for and grows well in a variety of soils. It is best planted on well-draining slopes and likes rocky, well-drained soils the best, but it can grow in other areas as well. Fast to medium drainage is best, no matter where the plants are located.

The Hollyleaf Redberry is very drought tolerant and needs very little in the way of summer water – from none to once watering per month.

These plants are mounded and can range from 3 – 9 feet tall and 3 – 9 feet wide. They are a slow growing evergreen that bloom from April to June, producing bright red fruits after the blooming period. Some of the favorite uses for the Hollyleaf Redberry are for hummingbird gardens, butterfly gardens and hedges. They are found naturally in foothills and mountains across coastal California.

The Hollyleaf Redberry can be paired with a large variety of other types of plants. Companion plants include oaks such as the Coast Like Oak and Scrub Oak, Woolly Bluecurls, Coast Sagebrush, California Buckwheat, Manzanita, as well as various Yucca and cactus species.

They are a great choice for the splash of color they provide, but many residents have also chosen them because they work so well with so many other plants. This allows for a wide choice and gives residents the ability to get the perfect look and feel for their outdoor living spaces.

Landscaping can seem like a daunting task. It can be difficult to know what to plant where, or if you should even try to grow anything in your arid, rocky soil.

Fortunately, there are several plants and shrubs that will grow in almost any soil condition, even in rocky soils. And the best news is that you are not stuck to boring, dull-looking landscaping plants based on poor soil conditions. We will find great plants that bring lively color as well as wildlife, into your home outdoor space or to your business.

When you are looking for the perfect plant, shrub or tree for your yard or business, fill out our contact form or call us today at (805) 773-5395 to set up a consultation. Evergreen Landscaping services will work with you to find the perfect plants for your outdoor living spaces. The Hollyleaf Redberry may just be exactly what you’ve been looking for!

03 Feb 2016
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Coyote Bush

Coyote Bush

When you are looking to landscape your yard at home or the space around your office of business, it can be hard to know what plants will work well where, what they will look like when full grown, what plants work well together, and what type of care each plant will need. It can seem completely overwhelming at times. For that reason, many residents of the Pismo Beach area decide to get a professional landscaper involved.

Evergreen Landscaping has been helping residents and business owners in the area to create perfect outdoor spaces for years, and we can help you, too. Just let us know what you’re looking for, how you envision your outdoor living space, and we will provide you with a wide variety of options that will grow well and look great in your situation.

Many people are surprised at the number and variety of plants and shrubs that will grow well in their yards, even with what seems like poor soil conditions.

One of those stars of landscaping in the Pismo Beach area is the Coyote Bush. These shrubs are very popular with our customers and are also very easy to care for. For residents who want to spend time enjoying their landscaping rather than tending to their trees and shrubs, a shrub such as a Coyote Bush is a great option.

These plants can grow to ten feet high and twelve feet wide in the erect variety, but there is also a ground cover variety that is just as easy to grow and can cover a large, vacant space bringing with it its beautiful greenery to brighten the dullest of areas.

This is a flowering shrub, but the white and yellow flowers have no fragrance, which is great if you want a pretty plant that does not have a smell to compete with another, fragrant, companion plant. Pruning the plant can be done to create an upright or a ground cover appearance. Some of the ground cover shrubs can even be mowed, making them even easier to care for.

Even though there is no fragrance, these shrubs, especially while in bloom, will attract a variety of insects. For that reason, many residents choose them as pieces for a butterfly garden or a hummingbird garden as well as for ground cover or hedges.

The Coyote Bush works well with a variety of companion plants, too, which makes it easy to place. As long as the shrub is in sun to partial shade, it will go well with oaks, Toyon, Manzanita, Coffeeberry species and most other chaparral species.

It is very drought tolerant and is also tolerant of a wide variety of soils. All of these things put together make the Coyote Bush a very versatile plant that can be used in a wide variety of locations. When you’re ready to spruce up your outdoor living spaces, bringing in a professional, trained landscaper is usually the best idea.

Our landscapers at Evergreen Landscaping Services will help you choose the perfect variety of plants and shrubs to give your landscaping the perfect look and feel that you want. Fill out our contact form or call us today at (805) 773-5395 and put our years of experience to work in your yard. Don’t settle for landscaping you don’t absolutely love!

27 Jan 2016
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Eastwood Manzanita

Eastwood Manzanita

Residents and business owners in the Pismo Beach area often have a great deal of questions when it comes to landscaping. What plants will give me the right look? Will anything grow on this hillside? Is my soil to rocky to have anything pretty in my yard? How will I ever be able to entertain in my outdoor living space when it looks like this?

If you have any of these questions, do not despair. You can still create the perfect outdoor living space at your home or office, no matter the terrain or soil type. At Evergreen Landscaping we will put our years of experience to work for you and help you to create the perfect look for any outdoor space, no matter if it is for your home or office.

One fairly popular plant that we have used with great success in many areas is the Eastwood Manzanita. These rounded shrubs can grow eight feet tall and eight feet high at their largest. They have a moderately fast growth rate and are very easy to care for. These things are a big plus for many of our customers. It can fill a space relatively quickly and with relatively little effort from the land owner. This plant does well on rocky outcroppings, ridges and slopes. In lower elevations, it is often a component of chaparral. It is also found in higher elevations in evergreen forests, growing in the forest openings.

Another thing that makes these particular plants popular is the wildlife they attract. Their pink and white flowers bloom from January to March, and attract a variety of hummingbirds and butterflies. The bloom give way to fruit that is a favorite of many birds. Birds also enjoy eating the seeds of this erect shrub. If you’re looking for a plant that is not overly fragrant, perhaps as a companion plant in an already fragrant garden, the Eastwood Manzanita might be perfect for you.

This plant works very well with a wide variety of chaparral as companions. This makes it a very versatile plant. It is very drought tolerant and fairly cold tolerant. It enjoys full sun to partial shade in areas that are well drained. While Eastwood Manzanita can be watered weekly for the first year, once it takes hold after that, summer watering is not as necessary.

If you are looking for a shrub that will work well in a variety of places, is beautiful but not incredibly fragrant, the Eastwood Manzanita may be for you. Evergreen Landscaping can help you to determine which plants will give you the exact right look and fragrance for an area you are looking to improve. We will also help you choose plants that will fit your lifestyle and the time you have to dedicate to your landscaping plants. We can also be contracted long term to care for your landscaping, should you wish us to provide those services.

No matter what your landscaping challenges are, Evergreen Landscaping can help you overcome those challenges. We will suggest a variety of plants that will work well in your outdoor spaces and make sure that you fully understand the characteristics of each plant.

If you think the Eastwood Manzanita may be the solution to your landscaping project, or you are interested in learning about other plants that might work well. Evergreen Landscaping Services, unlike other landscapers who may just sell you some plants and walk away, we will work with you to find your exact needs and desires for your outdoor spaces. Fill out our contact form or call us today at (805) 773-5395.

20 Jan 2016
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Silver Lupine

Silver Lupine

Landscaping anywhere can be a challenge. But landscaping in an arid or rocky area such as those in and around Pismo Beach can be especially challenging.

You may think you have outdoor spaces around your home or business that will never look good, that will never be home to beautiful shrubs or greenery.

At Evergreen Landscaping, we understand your plight, and we’ve spent years designing beautiful backdrops and outdoor living spaces for residents of the Pismo Beach area. We can help you find the perfect plants to give your outdoor areas the exact look and feel you’ve always wanted.

One very popular shrub that we use in a variety of areas is the Silver Lupine. It gets its name from its feathery, silver leaves. The flowers of the Silver Lupine are blue, lavender, or purple, and grow in groups along a stem that can reach up to a foot in length. Not only are the flowers beautiful and great at adding that certain splash of color, but they are very fragrant as well. They are favored perennials for butterfly gardens as well as hummingbird gardens. They also attract bees to their sweet nectar.

Part of the reason for the popularity of the Silver Lupine among Pismo Beach residents and business owners is the variety of areas in which this shrub will thrive. It prefers full sun, and grows best in sandy or rocky soils, but it will also tolerate some moisture.

Silver Lupine are extremely drought resistant and cold resistant, making them perfect for several places where you may have thought you were stuck with just a rock garden or a sand pit.

Silver Lupine grows well with a wide variety of other plants, making their landscaping possibilities nearly endless. At Evergreen Landscaping, we have helped many customers utilize the splash of color and beautiful fragrance in their home outdoor living spaces as well as to create the prefect approach or backdrop for their business. With flowers that bloom from April to September in many regions, it is just might be the perfect shrub for your outdoor space as well.

This perennial species is native to California, Oregon, and even parts of northern Baja. There are four different recognized species of Silver Lupine, but they are all easy to care for and fast growing.

There are other reasons for their popularity among residents looking to beautify their outdoor areas. They can grow to cover a space five feet tall by five feet wide and make a perfect addition to many gardens, approaches and backdrops.

If you are looking for the perfect plants, shrubs and trees for your outdoor living spaces, call Evergreen Landscaping. We can help you choose the right plants that will grow in areas you may have thought nothing would ever grow.

Don’t settle for landscaping you don’t absolutely love. Trust your outdoor view to the expert landscapers at Evergreen Landscaping Services. Fill out out contact form or call us today at (805) 773-5395. We will work with you to make sure that you can fully enjoy every outdoor living area as much as you enjoy your home or office.