Category: Landscaping Tips
Dry Streambeds for Nature-Inspired Landscapes
The Pacific Northwest is known for its natural beauty with soaring trees, green farmland, sprawling streams, and cascading waterfalls. It’s no surprise that our residents often want to capture that nature-inspired awe right in their own backyard. While we can’t mimic exactly what you see on a trip through the Columbia River Gorge, the team at Landscape East & West can bring a year-round natural feel to your own backyard through a well-placed dry streambed.
As the name implies, a dry streambed is meant to look like just that: a natural stream that has dried up. It typically consists of a shallow, winding trench filled with stones. The stones, gravel, and boulders used, along with natural plants along the borders, are meant to mimic the flow of water. In some cases, they even capture and direct rainwater that flows through a property. They can serve both a strictly aesthetic purpose and a solution for practical drainage problems.
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Prepare Your Yard for Winter
We’re in the countdown to winter. At Landscape East & West, that means we’re busy prepping yards around the region before the first rains fall and the temperatures drop below freezing. Our decades of experience have taught us that the rain tends to start full force around the second week of October, so it’s time to clear out dead plants, plant winter gardens, prune, and winterize your irrigation system. You can tackle many of the fall maintenance items for your landscape, or you can contact us to do the hard work for you. Then, you can spend your weekend watching the Ducks and Beavers or just watching the leaves fall.
Here’s what we address when protecting your landscape from winter weather and preparing it for a beautiful spring:
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Plant Selection Tips for Year-Round Beauty
Our part of the Pacific Northwest is officially designated as zone 8 or 9 for plant growth and hardiness. That zone designation considers the average temperatures and rainfall over several years but as we well know, there is no such thing as an average year anymore. Those extreme heat spells, ice storms, and extended dry periods are anything but normal making it challenging to select the right plants for your Oregon yard. However, at Landscape East & West we have some tricks of the trade to ensure whatever you put in the ground has the best chance of survival.
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How Professional Landscapers Repair Winter Weather Damage in Your Yard
The Pacific Northwest has been experiencing more severe winter weather year over year, and, as a result, homeowners are seeing more damage to their yards. Requests to Landscape East & West to replace or rebuild retaining walls, replace irrigation pipes, and repair soggy lawns are on the rise.
As the spring equinox has finally arrived, now is the time to hire professionals for winter weather recovery and repairs in your yard. Here are some tips for clean-up of winter damage, but we also strongly advise you to give us a call if there are areas of your yard that are suffering from more severe damage, such as retaining walls, lawns, covered structures, etc.
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Year-Round Yard Maintenance – All Seasons Yard Care
Ever walk through your neighborhood and notice how some yards look good no matter the season? Whatever the style, from finely manicured landscapes to less formal gardens, some yards always seem to be well-dressed – even in the dead of winter. Does a master gardener live in each of these homes? Probably not, but one thing they do all have in common: regular, year-round maintenance.
Whether you’re the DIY type or prefer to let someone else do the heavy lifting, following a seasonal schedule of care – and doing the right things at the right time – is the secret sauce to healthy lawns and thriving landscapes. So, here’s our seasonal guide to help you get through the year.
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Transforming an Outdoor Living Space into the Perfect Wedding Venue
Hillsboro Outdoor Wedding Venue Makeover: Form, Function, Elegance - Success
As far as outdoor wedding venues are concerned- the decorations, the reception areas, and of course the perfect place for the ceremony- are the biggest factors in your decision-making process. Landscape East & West took all of these factors into account during a 2018 project in Hillsboro where the clients were preparing to host their grandchild’s wedding. Long before guests were searching for what to wear to an outdoor wedding (cocktail and black tie are the most common for the summer), Landscape East & West was tasked with converting the client’s outdoor space into an elegant and functional venue for the big event. (more…)Planning Your Spring Landscaping Project
If you are looking through your window and the pouring rain at your yard, dreaming of lounging in an Adirondack chair by your fountain under the shining spring sun, now is the time to start planning to have all of those things! A landscaping project is the perfect solution, transforming your yard into an oasis complete with retaining walls, pavers and paved walkways, water features, a covered space for entertaining guests, and so much more.
The most important thing to understand at this very moment is that if you have an idea for a landscaping project, it’s best to start the searching and hiring process now to lock in your landscaper and plan because the project will likely start in the spring. To better understand the process of going from idea to consultation to project and project completion, here are some things to consider. (more…)
Preparing Your Yard for Winter: How to Winterize Irrigation
Sprinkler and irrigation systems can be extremely valuable when you need to water plants and crops over large spaces that would otherwise take hours to tackle with a basic hose and spray nozzle. However, in the Pacific Northwest, winter temperatures frequently drop below freezing, leaving those irrigation pipes and other components vulnerable to freeze damage. Expansion of residual water left in your system can lead to cracks and leaks in the system, including underground pipes, pumps, sprinkler heads, valves, and other parts.
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Landscaping Project Management: What to Expect After Signing on the Dotted Line
Landscape East & West project managers (PMs) are efficient point people, with a deep understanding of how to take a project from concept, to design, to build. After the design phase and consultation with the customer are complete, the salesperson transfers the vision of the project in document form over to a project manager. This doesn’t mean that the customer’s involvement in the project is done, it just means the project is now in the hands of the certified, skilled professional that will be communicating with the customer frequently in the coming days.
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What to Plant in the Fall for Your Best Spring and Summer Garden
September is the perfect time to rejuvenate your landscape with new plants. September may be heralded by the ringing of school bells, but it also marks the beginning of the fall planting season. The days are not too hot, the nights are mild, and the coming rains all add up to a welcoming environment for new plants to take root and get established before winter sets in. And come next spring, these fall plantings will have a head start to looking their best.
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