Best gardening steps

The average household these days has a small yard in comparison to the size of the home. Most cluster-home communities will have only an eighth to a quarter of an acre for as much as a three thousand square foot home. Even with such a small space to care for, many households in and around Sanford, NC will hire a lawn care service in order to maintain their yard.

For most people, these services are utilized simply because they lack the time it takes to maintain any outdoor space. No one wants to be the neighbor with the ugly yard, so for many it is worth the expenditure to have a beautiful area around their home. For this reason, this particular field is a wide-open opportunity for the aspiring small business owner.

On average, most of these homeowners simply need someone to keep grass mowed and the area kept neat. Trees and shrubs do have their own requirements, but this task need only be done once a year. However, this yearly task must be done in Autumn, when the leaves have nearly fallen but before the hard freezes that generally occur during winter.

North Carolina lies in a temperate zone, so cutting back of trees and shrubs can be done from October to December. So long as this task is completed prior to January, the new flowers or fruit of the tree will occur the next Spring. Should the homeowner wait till after January, however, it is possible that they will be cutting newly developing buds.

Lawns require seeding and aerating at this same time of year, which is a step most new homeowners get wrong or simply do not know about. Without new seed being put down in the Autumn, many weeds take over and the yard is not as pretty the next summer. In order to aerate the yard one must either be committed to raking thoroughly, or a machine can be rented which puts holes in the grass.

Over-seeding is simply the practice of throwing grass seed over the existing grass in order to ensure a full and vibrant green carpet for the next year. In these temperate climates, new grass begins to germinate right away in spite of the cold nights and potential short snows. The baby grass, if kept covered by hay, can survive these chillier times and will be well-established before the heat of summer sets in.

Many homeowners make the mistake of over-seeding in the Spring, and they quickly learn that the baby grass withers and dies when the heat reaches peak temperatures in the nineties. New grass must be rooted deeply and matured before the heat sets in. Otherwise, all the lovely patches of baby grass die, and the yard winds up even more barren then it had been the year before.

Too many homeowners make such mistakes and wind up spending huge sums of money on sod rather than seeding. In fact, a yard freshly set with sod is an ideal opportunity to market a budding business providing services along these lines. These homeowners may already be frustrated with the responsibility of their little yard and will be open to the idea of hiring a professional to take the guesswork out of outdoor maintenance.