The Pros and Cons of Landscape Fabric

Landscape fabric is typically made from linen, polyester or recycled plastic materials and is marketed as an effective solution for reducing or preventing harmful and unsightly weed growth.

But what many homeowners find is that after digging up their gardens and placing landscape fabric, there’s still a fair amount of weed growth invading their plants and flowers. So if it’s not achieving its basic purpose, should you use landscape fabric? While landscape fabric can offer a few benefits to your landscaping, most landscaping and gardening professionals recommend that homeowners avoid using landscape fabric.

Reasons to Avoid Using Landscape Fabric

If you’re debating whether to install landscape fabric throughout your landscape beds, consider these important landscape fabric cons:

• Won’t Prevent Weeds: While landscape fabric can prevent some weeds from popping up in your gardening beds, this product won’t actually keep weed growth at bay because weed seeds don’t travel through the soil. They migrate using breezes or animals. As these seeds travel, they are deposited on the ground’s surface, bypassing the strategically placed landscape fabric placed under the mulch layer.
• Compact Soil: For soil to be healthy and receive necessary nutrients, it needs to be crumbly and loose and allow plants and grasses to easily spread their roots and grow without encountering resistance. The soil underneath landscape fabric ends up becoming compacted and hard, preventing any roots from stretching and making planting and digging difficult.
• Prevents Re-Seeding: Using landscape fabric makes it incredibly difficult for plants to re-seed.
• Reduces Soil Nutrients: When the soil is compacted, it doesn’t receive nutrients from grass clippings and shredded leaves and won’t allow plant and grass roots to receive all of the air and water they need to achieve full, thriving growth.
• Restricts Movement of Helpful Organisms: Landscape barriers also prevent helpful animals, insects and fungi from moving throughout the different soil layers and mixing helpful organic materials from different parts of the soil.

A Couple Landscape Fabric Pros

While landscape fabric is mostly considered a poor solution for preventing weeds and will eventually ruin the health and quality of your soil and plants, it can offer a few benefits to your gardening setup.

Landscaping fabric is a convenient solution if you’re a gardener who prefers planting annual flowers. With landscape fabric, you can easily and quickly lift the fabric and remove all of the previous year’s plants in one motion, instead of pulling up each plant or bulb individually. Landscape fabric is also an ideal solution beneath rock and gravel installations for fast, clean removal in the future.

Keep Your Landscaping Lush and Healthy With Help From Bee Green Pest Control

Bee Green Pest Control has been Central Florida’s solution for comfortable and thriving landscaping for several years. We’re a family-owned and operated local Florida company with a continued dedication to offering all of our Central Florida customers the most personalized, comprehensive fertilization and systemic pest control services available. Learn more about our unique lawn care services today by filling out our online contact form or by calling 813-661-9300 to speak to a team member.

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Common Florida Lawn Care Mistakes

Like many homeowners, in your quest to have an enviable and lush lawn, you might douse the grass in a variety of fertilizers, keep it watered daily and maintain a trim, clean height. But, while performing these tasks, you may find that your lawn isn’t turning green or growing full, thick blades. By learning some of the most common lawn care mistakes, like overwatering and scalping, you can better understand how to improve your lawn care regime and keep your lawn healthy, prevent damage and disease, and encourage bright, green growth.

Find out whether you’ve been making common lawn care mistakes like:

• Scalping: Lugging out the lawn mower on a sizzling weekend afternoon is not an appealing chore for most Central Florida homeowners. But in an attempt to reduce mowing instances, many make the mistake of cutting their grass too short, also called “scalping.” When the grass is cut too short, it prevents the blades from being able to properly absorb sunshine through the leaves, which eventually weakens the plant and makes it more susceptible to disease and pest damage, and unable to fight weed growth. The ideal grass length for Florida lawns is no less than 4 inches, so you’ll want to vary your mowing schedule to keep it around this height year-round.
• Overwatering: A common belief is that, if you give a plant plenty of water, it will grow healthy and strong. However, it’s a delicate balance between the right amount of water and way too much water. Most Central Florida homeowners only need to water their lawns once every week. By overwatering your lawn, you prevent the grass from developing a deep root system that finds water from deeper sources and is less dependent on supplemental water systems. This is especially important when your lawn needs to survive droughts and area water restrictions.
• Over-Fertilization: One of the most common mistakes homeowners make is either fertilizing too often or applying the wrong product at the wrong time of the year. When homeowners over-fertilize their lawns, it can cause excess leaf growth. This may initially look appealing, but it limits root growth and burns the lawn. The best way to fertilize your lawn is to find a slow-release product to deliver nutrients slowly over a longer period. Apply fertilizer at least twice every year in the spring and fall for the best results.

Contact Bee Green Pest Control to Schedule Complete Lawn Care Services

At Bee Green Pest Control, we happily provide custom lawn care and maintenance solutions for homeowners throughout Central Florida, including the Orlando, Lithia and Seffner communities. We’re dedicated to providing dependable and high-quality lawn fertilization and pest control services by friendly and local lawn care experts. To learn more about our lawn care services, call us today at 813-661-9300 or complete our online form to request a free lawn care estimate.

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The Basics of Lawn Striping

When you notice stripes stretching across a field of grass, the light and dark effect of the stripes is actually different light reflecting off the grass blades, creating the illusion of stripes and different shapes. The grass blades that are bent towards you will appear darker, while those positioned away will look lighter.

To create stripes across your own lawn, all you need is your push mower and a roller or striping kit. The grass is bent in different positions using these rollers attached at the back of the mower to apply pressure to the blades. Ballpark professionals typically use a reel mower equipped with multiple rollers to achieve those stark contrasts and intricate patterns.

Lawn Striping With a Push Mower

When attempting lawn striping, the most difficult part is deciding which stripe pattern you want to start with. The most common designs are straight, alternating stripes, checkerboard and diamonds. Grass species also help determine which types of lawn striping patterns you can try. Warm-season grasses found throughout Central Florida, like Bermuda grass, resist striping efforts because they feature longer grass stems and shorter grass blades, while cool-season grasses like fescue can handle more elaborate striping patterns.

To begin striping your lawn, first mow around the perimeter of your yard, following the straight lines of a driveway or walkway. Then, you’ll start angling your mower to create one of these common lawn striping patterns:

• Stripes: Mow straight along the initial pathway created beside your driveway. Then, when you reach the end of the row, lift your mower deck and begin mowing in the opposite direction of the previous pass. Once your initial lawn striping is complete, you can intensify the contrast of the stripes by going over them again with a roller.
• Checkerboard: For a checkerboard pattern, you’ll start by creating a simple stripe design. After the initial set of lines is complete, you’ll mow the lawn again at 90 degrees to your first mowing pattern. To finish the checkerboard pattern, mow along the perimeter of the lawn again to remove any stripe irregularities left over from having to turn at the end of each row.
• Diamonds: Once you’ve mastered the basic checkerboard pattern, you can graduate to the slightly more complicated diamond design. Like checkerboard striping, you’ll start off by creating simple straight stripes, only instead of creating a perpendicular pattern on the second pass, you’ll angle the mower at a diagonal to achieve diamonds.

Lawn Striping Around Obstacles

Not every residential lawn can be as clean and crisp as a baseball field — so how can you create a professional-looking lawn striping pattern around trees and other landscaping obstacles? To get around trees while still maintaining the look of your stripes, you’ll mow around the object into the uncut part of the lawn. Then, during your next pass, you’ll stripe over the angled turn marks to restore the even striping pattern.

Make Your Lawn Look Like a Professional Field With Help From Bee Green Pest Control

At Bee Green Pest Control, we’re dedicated to creating gorgeous lawns throughout Central Florida. Our experienced and trained lawn care professionals work with homeowners throughout the greater Orlando area and beyond to develop customized lawn fertilization and systemic pest control solutions that work best for your specific lawn. To learn more about our local lawn care services, call us today at 813-661-9300 or complete our online form to request a free care quote.

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While regular lawn upkeep may seem intimidating to perform all year long, with some simple and specific Central Florida lawn care tips, having a thick and luscious lawn is simple and will help your home positively stand out.

Caring for Your Central Florida Lawn

With its intense heat idling at an average of 83 degrees and direct sunshine throughout the year, it’s crucial to keep your lawn and landscaping thriving. You want to ensure your grass is green and healthy and able to stave off unsightly and damaging pests, weeds and disease, and to maintain your home’s overall visual appeal.

Here are some Central Florida lawn care tips to keep in mind throughout the year:

• Routine Mowing: Central Florida homeowners should mow their lawns at least once every week. The most common species of grass throughout the Orlando area are St. Augustine, Bahiagrass and Bermuda. St. Augustine and Bahiagrass should be kept at about two to four inches high, while Bermuda can be clipped to approximately one inch. Be sure to keep the blades sharp to prevent grass damage and disease, mulch the clippings to restore necessary nutrients and maintain a regular mowing schedule for the best results.
• Weekly Watering: Most experts recommend a weekly watering for Central Florida lawns for a total of three to four inches of water.
• Year-Round Fertilization: For thick, widespread grass growth, you need to provide your lawn with proper nutrients and ongoing care. Central Florida lawns should be fertilized at least four or five times every year. Test the current pH of your lawn to select the best fertilizer product to ensure beautiful, effective growth, and choose a slow-release, granular product to limit how often you have to fertilize.
• Annual Aeration: Lawn aeration (the process of perforating the soil with small holes) is a great solution for breaking up compacted soil and allowing proper air flow, water and nutrients to circulate throughout your lawn. The best time to perform aeration is during the fall.
• Wintertime Overseeding: Because most Florida homes have warm weather grasses, if the temperature dips a bit low during the winter, the grass can quickly die out. Overseeding (the process of planting grass seed directly into the lawn) with a cool-weather variety like Ryegrass will help maintain the condition of your lawn and keep it healthy.

Common Pests and Fungi to Watch Out For

While healthy, vibrant and lush lawns attract admirers, they can also be an inviting spot for unwanted guests like bugs and pests, diseases and fungi. Most Central Florida homeowners need to watch out for signs of chinch bugs, mole crickets and sod webworms as well as brown patch fungus, dollar spot fungus and gray leaf fungus. While each pest and fungus presents unique symptoms, you can often tell you have some type of pest problem when you start seeing unattractive brown and dying grass patches.

Need Help With Central Florida Lawn Care? Contact Bee Green Pest Control Today

Bee Green Pest Control is Central Florida’s leading expert in all types of residential lawn care services, including lawn fertilization, systemic pest control solutions and shrub and ornamental plant care. Learn more about our lawn services today and discover which are right for your home and lawn by calling 813-661-9300 to speak to a lawn care specialist, or request a free project quote by filling out our online form.

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Are you in need of soil amendment or soil testing services in Riverview, Florida? If you want to maintain a healthy lawn, you must know the condition of your soil. This requires an accurate soil test and an understanding of what the results mean. What exactly is soil amendment testing, how does it work and how can we use it to promote the health of your lawn?

How Soil Amendment Services Work

When you call for professional soil testing, professional soil care specialists come to your home and examine your lawn to determine the existing level of specific nutrients in it. This allows us to know exactly what we need do to amend the lawn. For example, we can apply custom fertilizer tailored to your lawn’s specific needs. Soil testing involves taking multiple samples of soil from your lawn to get a complete picture of its condition, mixing them together and testing them for pH level and levels of nutrients like potassium, nitrogen and phosphorous.

Lawn Problems Soil Testing Can Uncover

What nutrient deficiencies might you find in your lawn, and why are they important? Before worrying about that, you need to make sure your soil pH are at the appropriate levels. If your soil is too low on the pH scale (acidic), or if it is too high (basic), your lawn and plants won’t grow to their fullest potential, regardless of the fertilizer used.

Bee Green Pest Control uses a mixture of macro-nutrients and micro-nutrients to ensure your lawn has the appropriate levels of nutrients including nitrogen, hydrogen, magnesium, phosphorus, and many more. If your soil is lacking in any of these nutrients, your lawn and plants will not grow properly. Once we determine which, if any, nutrients your lawn is deficient in, we can mix a fertilizer containing the nutrients it needs and mix it into the soil to help restore a natural nutrient balance.

Trying to do your own soil testing is possible, but it can sometimes be difficult and inaccurate. We have developed soil testing and amendment techniques over years of research and training, and if you do it yourself you are not likely to get accurate results. This, as well as trying to mix your own fertilizer, can result in further upsetting the nutrient or pH balance of the soil and could potentially permanently damage your lawn. Bee Green Pest Control offers accurate soil testing as an additional service at an affordable price.

Contact Bee Green Pest Control for the Best Soil Amendments for Lawn Care in Florida Today

Bee Green Pest Control has trained experts to handle soil amendments in Riverview, Florida. We have been working with lawns and soil for years and know just what you need to keep your lawn growing fresh and lush for years to come. If you need soil amendment services in Riverview, Florida, for your lawn, there’s not a moment to lose. Simply fill out and submit our online form or call us at 813-661-9300 right now.

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Here are some basic information about mowing that will keep your lawn investment strong, tough and resistant to pest, disease and weeds. There are 4 basic steps to mowing that will do just that. No matter that you do your own mowing, have the neighbor’s kid do it or the big guys with the big mowers jump on your lawn these four steps are important.

First, make sure your mower is in great shape. Of course checking things like oil, belt condition, and keeping the blades balanced are ultra important but so is keeping the blades sharp. Keeping the blades sharp ensures blades of grass are cut straight and not ripped keeping the tips of the grass blades from turning brown. Not pretty and also weakens the grass!

Second, vary your mowing patterns. Mowing the same direction each and every time eventually creates ruts and weakens the “runners”, those growing tentacles we told you about and the grass itself. Try making your mowing passes with long back and forth passes. Then when you mow the next time, change the direction that you started with on the last mowing day and head in a different direction with your passes. By varying the mowing pattern, it gives your grass a chance to recuperate making for a stronger lawn.

Third, keep your lawn cut to no less than 4”. Florida is a fun filled sun filled state, wonderful for all kinds of outdoor activities. St. Augustine grass can take the Florida sun but a lawn cut too short will fry, leaving room for both weeds and diseases to join in the lawn party. The height of grass blades creates shade not only for the parts of grass itself but helps shade weeds and their seeds keeping them from germinating. Weeds need full sun to spread, another reason not to be too ready to chop away at your lawn.

Fourth, watch out for heavy equipment, especially in the rainy season. When day after day is followed by rain and then a big heavy lawn mower is plunked down on the wet soil gouges are formed ruining the look of our once beautiful lawn and pushing the grass into the wet mud. Most good mowing companies offer a 30” push mow service.  Our partners on our BeeGreen partner page offer that service if you’re looking for a service provider who can do it. If you are the one mowing and you are tempted to either mow in the rain or while it is still wet, resist. Not only will waiting until the yard is dry help prevent those ruts in your yard but the wet grass clippings will clog up your mower and make it a miserable job. Waiting until the grass is dry is the best option for a more beautiful lawn.

Mowing is not fun, but when done right it helps support your lawn making it one of the best looking lawns in your neighborhood. You’ll never get tired of hearing your neighbors ask you “How do you always make your yard look so great?”

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