February 2020 - Galena Lawn Care, LLC

The Earth Day comes only once every year. It brings with it opportunities and reasons to give back to the planet something in return for its bounty that sustains us through the year. If you have some things planned out this year to celebrate the Earth’s Day, make sure greening your garden is among them. If doing it alone seems to be a daunting task then you can contact our landscaping experts to assist you in getting the right solution. Galena Lawn Care emphasizes on quality lawn care and its team of professionals is always at your service.

While small lifestyle changes go a long way in protecting the environment, growing a sustainable garden in your backyard is the best way to start your journey towards going green.

If you are enticed, but also overwhelmed by the idea of going green and don’t know where to start, here are some simple but assuring ways to green your garden on Earth Day 2020.

Plant New Trees

If you have been planning to plant new trees in your garden this year, this Earth Day is a great occasion for that. If you have immediate plans, no need to hold it off for three months, but if you are raking ideas to do on that day, then planting a new tree or more is a good way to support the initiative. More plants in your backyard means purer air for your family and neighbors.

Use Organic Seeds

When planting new trees, try using organic seeds this time. There are plenty of nurseries that carry organic seeds these days. You can also order them online or even buy them at the garden section of the supermarket. Planting organic seeds is a great way to be on a planet-friendly footing.

Make Your Yard Bird-Friendly

Birds can be a nuisance for backyards, but not if you make it a friendly place for them to hang out. Put up a birdbath and a bird feeder to encourage the little twittering friends to come over and enjoy some nice time in your garden. On the upside, the chirping of the birds creates a perfect natural ambience just outside the window. The cleanups are only a very small way to thank them for it.

Start a Compost Pit

If you have been throwing away all your food wastes so far, it’s time to put them to use. Start a compost pit. Set aside all your organic kitchen waste in a separate trash and empty them in the pit at the end of the day. Keep the pit covered to expedite the decomposition, and in just a few days you will have the best fertilizer for your plants ever. It takes very little work and nearly no expense.

Collect Rainwater in a Barrel

Harvesting rainwater is a good way to reduce your carbon footprints. Set a wooden barrel out in the garden to collect rainwater every time it pours. Use this water to keep your garden fresh and green year long.

Hire an Eco-Friendly Landscaper Company

Be wise in your choice of landscape contractor. One of the most easily overlooked Earth Day tips for going green is to choose an eco-friendly landscaper. There may not be many of them yet, but the idea is to go with the one near you that offers the most eco-friendly service.

Reduce Grassy Areas in Your Backyard

Grass is great, but flowers are better. Plus, they are less work and less resource. So, next time you have the lawn guys over for grounds maintenance, get them to plant more flowerbeds for ground cover that are easy to care for and do not always need professional touch.

Switch to Natural and Organic Products

This Earth Day, discard all chemical-based gardening product and switch to the natural and organic varieties. This may cost you a little extra, but it will be money rightly invested.

There are few things more frustrating than to find the planting beds in your garden that you spent days preparing massacred by groundhogs. Birds, raccoons, bugs and woodchucks, are known to wreak havoc in lawns and yards, but there is no wild animal that is a bigger nuisance than a ground hog. Quick and energetic, these mangy, burrowing rodents have a voracious appetite and a nose for mischief. Ground hogs love lush pastures and meadows, but gardens are an absolute favorite of these furry animals. They love burrowing through soft green lawns and freshly tilled soil.

If you have a vegetable patch in your garden where you grow carrots, broccoli, lettuce, peas, squash and such vegetables, then you need to keep your guards up against these mischief makers. A flower garden too can be a treat for ground hogs as they love to snack on sunflowers, daisies, marigolds and other flowers.

Lucky for you, there are ways in which you can insulate your garden against such intruders. Let’s find out how to keep groundhogs out of garden this Groundhog Day.

Most Popular Methods

There are four highly effective ways in which menacing intrusions by groundhogs can be managed. Those are- scaring the creatures away, fencing them out and trapping and releasing.

Timely and professional grounds maintenance can remedy the groundhog problem for good. Professional landscape maintenance not only results in cosmetic and vegetative improvement, but also helps discourage wild animals from entering the premise. Keeping the grounds clear of woodpiles and bushes that groundhogs and other animals use as covers to enter the garden deter them from finding an easy way in.
If scaring them away sounds like a doable option for you, then plant wind chimes, bells, pinwheels and such sound-making items at the perimeter of your garden. These animals are shy and therefore scare easily. As long as you can keep the noise going at all hours, they would keep away. The idea is to make sure that at no point should it be quiet and hushed up.
Fencing is another way to protect your garden from ground hogs. The upside is, it will keep other nuisance makers outside too. But just any fence won’t do. Groundhogs can jump short boundaries. They can also tunnel under. So, you need a fence that stands at least 6 feet above the ground and reaches 12 inches below. Look for chicken wires in the said specifications. Those work best for small gardens and lawns.
A great, but a slightly challenging technique is catch and release. Rig the perimeters of your garden with live traps, and go to bed. Next morning, you will have caught at least more than a few groundhogs in the traps. The risky side of this method is that it could easily be some other kind of animals caught in the trap. Plus it involves handling the animals for release.

So, if you are not up for it, learn below how you can protect your garden from groundhogs this Groundhog day in natural and safe ways.

Natural Ways To Get Rid of Groundhogs

There are some very effective natural ways of keeping the groundhogs out of your garden. The object of all these methods is to create a smell barrier around the garden. This will make sure that the animals stay away from the marked area.

Epsom salts are a great repellent. Sprinkle it along the perimeter or pour a pile at the mouths of the burrows, it will make sure that the groundhogs stay away. Make sure to replace it after a rain.
Castor oil has a specific scent that offends groundhogs. So one way of stopping them from coming into your garden is by pouring castor oil in good quantity in the burrow holes. But the smell being light may not hold them off for too long.
Kitchen items that have offensive scents to chase groundhogs away are cayenne pepper, garlic and lavender. Using those to make boundaries around the garden works too. Repeat and replace as often as you can to keep the barrier from weakening.

Keep your garden maintained this Groundhog Day with Galena Lawn Care to keep the pesky intruders away.

Month: February 2020

Ways to Green Your Garden on Earth Day 2020