The Ohio Valley Group is dedicated to supporting you in creating the landscape of your dreams. It seems 
Spring is here (the coat of yellow pollen is a sure sign), and the plants are ready to grow! Are you ready for yard work? Do you have what you need? Is your yard the yard you’ve always wanted? Where can you improve? Let’s get our hands dirty and come up with some exciting projects this month!
How Can You Improve The Space?
A cool way to go about this is to walk through your yard and take photos of areas that you dislike or find boring. Start asking yourself, “what makes these areas boring?”. After you find some answers, the next question is “What can I do to make them awesome?”. These questions will start your creative juices flowing so that you can easily find better solutions.
Start to look online for some inspiration from other people and see what they did. This is a brilliant way to get closer to your vision of the yard you want. You now have photos of the areas you like less, so be sure to use those for reference and start picturing cool new ways to innovate the landscape. Oh, and remember to have fun!
What Yard Projects Are There?
Sometimes people don’t know where to start when landscaping or even what constitutes landscaping! This can feel overwhelming, but have faith, it doesn’t have to be so complicated so let’s go over some simple landscaping ideas you can do now!
Flower bed border- This is a super simple idea that adds a lot of life to your existing flower bed. Simply start putting a stone of your choice around your flower bed, and Voilà, you now have a flower bed that looks 10x more appealing. This also saves a lot of money, and you might even be able to start this today!
Hiding your AC unit- This takes a little more work but all you need is some wood and nails, and start hammering your planks together to create a box around your AC unit. Leave some cracks and plenty of space between the wood and the AC so that it doesn’t affect its function.
Garden hose home- Similar to the AC unit, build your hose a nice little home for it to live in. This hides it while also adding some aesthetic to your yard.
Create a path- If you have any areas where people often travel through it might be a good idea to create a path. This can be with stone, concrete or anything else creative people can step on.
Let there be light. Add some lights creatively around your yard highlighting things you want to show off to others.
Retaining wall- Adding a retaining wall is excellent for your plants, look great, and help prevent erosion!
Rock it- Add some rocks of different colors and shapes to your flower beds or retaining walls to add a little life and authenticity to them.
Clean up- Sometimes the simplest renovation is to just clean up the mess that’s there. Powerwash anything you can, and pull any weeds you see. You will drastically improve the look of your yard.
Be sure to buy some temporary spray paint if you’re having a hard time deciding where things should go. With the spray paint, you can mark out how big you want areas to be and get an idea of how much room you’ll have after.
How Can You Maintain Your Yard?
After creating your dream yard it’s time to maintain it. There are some very common landscaping issues people run into that can easily be fixed.
Patchy grass- Start by aerating compacted soil, then spread seed and topsoil.
Shade- The grass underneath shade tends to be thinner, less green, and sometimes not even grow. Be sure to take into account how much sunlight spots are getting before making major plans.
Just a trim- Regularly cut your grass but be sure not to cut it too low. Cutting the grass too low stresses the grass out and can make it look a lot less appealing. Go to the highest setting you can when mowing.
Water- Water once or twice a week, and water well. Make sure your plants are getting the right amount by looking up online their specific needs.
Food- Twice a year you should resupply your plants with some new delicious soil for them. Oh, and it’s not a bad idea to test the PH of your soil.
When To Hire Professionals
Maybe you don’t have the time, know-how, or desire to get your hands dirty and change your lawn on your own. That’s totally okay. You’re probably in the majority, that’s where experts come in. At Ohio Valley Group they will send experts and only experts to evaluate your lawn needs. This is the best way to support you with your vision. Even if you don’t have a specific vision that’s okay, they can help out with that too by designing your new yard.
