Making One Plant Look Better Does The Trick

You move into a new house and the once nice landscape has turned bad. What are you going to do to get it back into shape? Like most people, you do not have the money to invest a great deal in landscaping and time to work on the landscaping is limited.

Why not start with just one plant? Choose a plant such as scrub or tree and start working with it. Choose one as a focal point in your landscape, one that will stand out and take the attention away from the other neglected areas. Make sure it has enough root room and is not being crowded by other plants that are competing for root space. You do not want it to be isolated as turf and some ground covers that spread in under your plant can leach needed nutrients from it. Pull all the ground cover away from its base, trim it to a nice natural shape and thin out any dead wood on the inner part next to the trunk. Check the pH of your soil around your plant and add amendments to bring the pH to the healthy point for that plant. Find out how much water that particular plant needs to stay healthy and beautiful. Add some mulch around its base to conserve water and extend it out to about a foot beyond the drip line of its leaves.

By making one plant look better in your landscape, you can improve the appearance of the total area. You can slowly improve the surrounding landscape accordingly.