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Types of Landscaping to Consider for Your Long Beach Home

by with No Comment Landscaping

You’ve decided that you’re finally ready to get your landscaping professionally done. That’s great! Now it’s time for you to decide on what type of landscape you’ll want for your Long Beach home.

There are many types to choose from to fit the style and budget of anyone. As to not overwhelm you, today we’re going to go through the different types we offer at MC Landscaping. You can use this to choose the overall theme and style, or to incorporate some features when deciding your landscaping design.

English Garden Style

An English garden uses more geometric shapes like squares, rectangles and ovals to organize the different plants in the landscape. Its design style is to emphasize contrasts. An example is  you can have neatly trimmed hedges, but at the base there is a bed of wild flowers. This style attempts to use materials used to build the home like brick or stone to create garden walls, columns, ponds and other features. This makes the landscaping feel like an extension of the home, not just “the yard”. Ideally the plants you choose from should change along with the seasons. These require a great deal of maintenance to keep their aesthetic.

Organic Gardens

Organic gardens are ideal for homeowners concerned with sustainability, as well as staying away from chemical pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers. Organic garden landscaping creates and maintains a natural sustaining system where soil, plant nutrition and plant health is accomplished without the use of those chemicals.This type of landscaping uses an abundance of mulch, typically being topped off yearly. Without this layer of mulch, your soil can become dry which makes it difficult for some plants to naturally grow a strong root system. Mulch benefits the landscape in more ways than one, including feeding microfauna to keep your soil loose and healthy. 

Drought Resistant Landscaping

Unfortunately Southern California often suffers with droughts. To help conserve water and maintain beautiful landscaping, many homeowners have begun to design their landscapes to be drought resistant. This typically means removing many of the old dying plants and replacing them with plants native to your area or plants from areas with similar climates and conditions. A drought resistant lawn will still have the bright green grass so many love to see, though usually not year round due to a dormancy period though some choose to paint the grass during this period. Instead of letting plants dry up and die during times of water scarcity, a drought resistant landscape will provide plants that won’t mind the lack of water.

Oriental Landscape

Oriental landscapes have defining hardscape elements such as a bridge, archway or stone walkway. By design an oriental garden provides refuge filled with eastern mysticism. It is meant to be a place of both relaxation and movement. People should engage with an oriental landscape design by walking through different pathways leading to the different features. If budget allows oriental landscapes, a koi pond can be an option to add an authentic oriental experience.

Modern Landscape

With clean edges and a clean look the modern landscape is designed to fit a contemporary home or to contrast with a traditional rustic architecture. Modern landscaping is characterized by the use of sleek, smooth and refined stylings. Generally the modern style emphasizes the architecture and building material over the plants and trees. Stone, concrete, hardwoods and metals are used to shape a modern landscape design.

Tropical Landscape

 Tropical landscapes are meant to be lush, bright, and vivid. Plants such as bromeliads, orchids and hibiscus are often used in garden beds or containers for their bright colors. Large leaved plants  like elephant ear or birds or paradise provide large areas of coverage like a tropical jungle. Due to tropical landscaping being filled with different plants, decor is often overlooked. Decorative stones not only provide a different texture to the abundance of plants, they retain heat which is helpful in regulating temperatures for some tropical plants. Tropical landscapes are also great environments for birds to come and visit, if you are a lover of birds a birdbath can be a great addition to a tropical landscape.

How would you feel with a yard expressly designed to fit your unique home and personality?

Our staff is dedicated to delivering unique landscapes that 100% fit the needs of homeowners. Each yard is designed in-house by our landscape designer. Our expertise and experience in the cities of Long Beach, Lakewood, Seal Beach, Rossmoor & surrounding communities allows us to custom design the perfect landscape for you.

Your project is carefully managed by our team of experts. Whether you are looking to turn your front yard into a showpiece or creating the backyard of your dreams we are here to help. Fill out our Landscape Design request for landscape to fit your aesthetic today. Feel free to call us at (562) 225-9460 or get a free quote for the project you have in mind.

When it Comes to Maintaining Your Landscaping, it Takes More than Mowing

by with No Comment Landscaping Maintenance
Mowing is the most common lawn maintenance but there is more to that when it comes to landscaping maintenance.

Landscaping Maintenance

Maintaining beautiful landscaping takes much more than simply mowing the grass and blowing leaves. With summer temperatures rising, how about letting the professionals take care of your landscape. We can visit your residential or commercial property once or twice a month. Whether one of our designs or not we strive to not only maintain your landscape but to protect your investment.

Join me as we go into detail about our landscaping maintenance service and how we keep your landscape looking the best it can all year long. 

Mowing

Of course we still need to mow the lawn. But we don’t stop there, we care about every detail. Our mower’s blades are kept razor sharp to prevent ragged edges that make the lawn look grayish-brown. We’ll mow around the perimeter of any obstacles first before creating straight lines and angles in those areas.

Once the grass has been trimmed we begin to edge your lawn. Following the path of the driveway or walkway to improve the overall look, and keep paths clear.

Finally we work clean. We’ll make sure to clean up after mowing so you can go back to enjoying your day.

Weeding

Everyone hates seeing weeds growing in their landscape, most weeds are taller and grow faster than more pleasing plants. Weeds can make lawns and gardens less attractive and look like they’re not cared for.

Weeds can damage the health and beauty of your entire landscape, they use soil nutrients that are vital for the plants and grass you’re growing. Getting rid of weeds while they are still small increases the chance of your landscape to grow healthy and minimizes the amount of fertilizer you may need in the future.

We’ll get rid of any weeds we see when doing our maintenance to keep your landscape looking as good as it can.

Sprinkler Monitoring and Optimization

On every one of our visits we’ll turn on your irrigation system and check for accuracy and any leaks. The last thing you want to deal with is getting reported for having too much water run off due to bad hardware.

We’ll make sure all irrigation sources are releasing water uniformly to ensure no water is going to waste. If some areas are being overwatered this can affect the health of your plants. We’ll also make sure to water any and all potted plants, or plants not being irrigated.

Plant Care

Not just gardens and lawns are part of your landscape, therefore we also take care of other plants on the property like bushes, hedges, and trees. By pruning bushes and trees, it helps to stimulate new growth while getting rid of dead or diseased parts of the plant. Not only revitalizing them, but also helping them keep their shape and aesthetic.

Occasionally some features may need to be replenished such as mulch or bark. If we notice some of your plants aren’t healthy, we’ll fertilize and care for them. If the plant or tree is dying or was affected by disease we’ll remove and replace them as needed. 

How would you feel with a yard expressly designed to fit your unique home and personality?

Our staff is dedicated to delivering unique landscapes that 100% fit the needs of homeowners. Each yard is designed in-house by our landscape designer. Our expertise and experience in the cities of Long Beach, Lakewood, Seal Beach, Rossmoor & surrounding communities allows us to custom design the perfect landscape for you.

Your project is carefully managed by our team of experts. Whether you are looking to turn your front yard into a showpiece, creating the backyard of your dreams or looking to maintain its beauty we are here to help. Fill out our Landscape Design request today or feel free to call us at (562) 225-9460 or get a free quote for the project you have in mind.

This beautiful backyard woodland garden features a maintenance free lawn made of realistic looking artificial grass, a huge landscaping trend for small spaces.

Should you Paint Your Lawn?

by with No Comment Drought Resistant Lawn
Drought has changed the way lawn can be taken care of and how to best help them survive water restrictions.

Options for Lawns To Be Drought Resistance

Did you know there is a way to keep your lawn green while saving water? The majority of LA county has been in a severe drought for the last month according to drought.gov. And with the drought predicted to continue for the time being, the stress to your lawn with the heat and irregular waterings may cause it to brown.

Maybe you should look into painting your lawn, the idea of painting your lawn as though it were a wall inside your home can seem odd to many homeowners. But it conserves water, and is far more commonly done than you may imagine. Did you know that because golf courses need to keep their grass green year round, golf courses often paint their turf when it becomes dry and brown.

Today we’ll share some of the reasons why in Los Angeles County painting your lawn has increased in popularity.

An Innovative Solution to Care for Your Lawn

As watering limitations are implemented in Long Beach CA to watering twice per week, many lawns begin to suffer as they begin to dry out due to the heat and lack of moisture. Not everyone has the ability to re-sod drought resistant grass that can thrive under these conditions. And many drought resistant lawns still have a dormancy period during the winter when they’ll begin to dry out as well.

Depending on the rate of growth and mowing, painting your lawn with green turf colorants can last for up to 3 months. Regardless of if your lawn is going through a dormancy period, fighting disease or pests, green lawn paint will keep your lawn looking healthy. Getting your lawn painted is not only an affordable service, it saves time and money by not needing to fertilize, water or maintain your lawn as often you would traditionally.

What is Grass Paint Made of?

When we say paint your lawn, we don’t mean buy a can of spray paint and get started. Though the process is similar, grass paint is nothing like the typical paint you buy at the paint department of a home improvement store. The product is called “turf paint” or “turf colorant”, it’s a non-toxic pigment made of dyed pulverized stone or decaying plants. It is pet friendly and lays on the surface of  your grass giving it a boost in color while recovering to its natural green. The paint doesn’t block out the sun’s light giving you peace of mind knowing you’re not doing any further damage to your lawn.

Benefits of Painting Your Lawn

Painting your lawn is a short term solution that mainly is used to cover up or hide imperfections in your lawn. It can hide climate stress, aging, discoloration while leaving you with a beautiful green color you enjoy. This is meant to be a temporary fix while you seek more permanent solutions, waiting for your grass to leave its dormancy period, or simply to cover up spots caused by dog urine, disease, or dry patches. Even the best kept lawns have to deal with some issues occasionally and having an immediate solution reduces stress while dealing with the issue. 

By painting your lawn you can reduce the use of your sprinkler system. Saving you money on your water bill and avoiding water run off. Sprinklers are a great tool to use when trying to save time, but aren’t very efficient and typically use far more water than necessary.

Everyone is looking to save money, and lawn care can be expensive and time consuming. In some cases dealing with browning lawns can be too much to handle and homeowners opt to pay to have sod installed. With grass paint you get the vibrant green color back while you deal with the root problem of your lawn.

The benefits of painting your lawn go further than just the grass itself. It makes the house look appealing year round. It gives instant curb appeal if you’re looking to rent or sell the home. It can be re applied as needed and is very do it yourself (DIY) friendly however, if you’re not experienced you should hire a professional service to reduce overspray as the turf paint can be permanent.

How would you feel with a yard expressly designed to fit your unique home and personality?

Our staff is dedicated to delivering unique landscapes that 100% fit the needs of homeowners. Each yard is designed in-house by our landscape designer. Our expertise and experience in the cities of Long Beach, Lakewood, Seal Beach, Rossmoor & surrounding communities allows us to custom design the perfect landscape for you.

Your project is carefully managed by our team of experts. Whether you are looking to turn your front yard into a showpiece or creating the backyard of your dreams we are here to help. Fill out our Landscape Design request for a landscaping redesign to be water conscious today. Feel free to call us at (562) 225-9460 or get a free quote for the project you have in mind.

A Drought Resistant Lawn Solution

by Drought Resistant Lawn
A Drought Resistant Lawn Is a Great Option For Your Home

The Right Lawn For The Right Home

Have you ever been frustrated by dry patches on your lawn? Is Southern California’s inconsistent weather causing your lawn to be brown, and dry instead of a beautiful, lush and healthy green? Would you like to learn how to solve this challenge?

Especially during the hot summer days throughout Los Angeles County where some cities are limited to watering their lawn once per week. There are some ways to help alleviate this problem, join me as we discuss potential causes and solutions to get to the root of your lawn troubles.

Poor Soil Quality in Long Beach

In some cases, even with adequate watering, your lawn can still begin to dry up. The reason being that the soil under the grass may be compacted. Compacted soil doesn’t allow water to penetrate it leaving puddles of water on the surface where it eventually evaporates. Compacted soil can lead to a lack of moisture driving away small organisms which help the soil to stay healthy. 

One of the most effective ways of loosening your compacted soil is with core aeration. Where small bits of soil are pulled up through the lawn. The space created by core aeration relieves pressure, softens and creates small gaps in the compacted soil to allow water to penetrate the surface and roots to grow deeper. Though aerating your lawn can be done on your own, it’s best left to professionals. Aerating your lawn is labor intensive and season dependent. If the timing is wrong, aerating can further damage your lawn.

Amending Your Soil

A healthy lawn can only be grown on healthy soil. Healthy soil should be more than just dirt. If you have noticed dead or dry patches in your lawn, you may need to amend your lawn with compost. Adding organic material can help retain moisture under the surface of the soil. If you are seeding your lawn, consider mixing organic compost with any dry patches of soil you see. In severe cases you may need to have your entire lawn amended before reseeding. When seeding, moisture is crucial which makes it difficult during a seasonal drought. 

Drought Resistant Grass  

Being prone to droughts makes landscaping your home difficult. Fortunately, finding drought resistant grass is not as hard as it used to be. As there has been a widespread adoption of drought resistant grass in Southern California in recent years. With water restrictions becoming more strict these drought resistant grasses require less than 25% of water compared to traditional grass.

Zoysia grass is a low-growing grass that grows so dense it can prevent weeds from growing. Zoysia grass spreads fast, and resists insects and diseases that could harm other kinds of grass. A shortcoming of zoysia is that it’s not green year round and in our weather it can remain dormant for longer than some people would like.

Bermuda grass has a few variations though most commonly grows 1 – 4 inches long and has rough edges. It also is a fast grower and can tolerate heavy foot traffic. Like zoysia, bermuda grass also goes dormant during the colder seasons. Although drought tolerant, bermuda grass needs plenty of sun and doesn’t do well in shade.

Kikuyu grass thrive in hot weather due to them growing deep roots combined with disease resistance, kikuyu grass can remain green year round. Rapid growing and resilient to neglect the kikuyu grass can quickly recover from heavy foot traffic making it ideal for homes with children and pets. 

Buffalo grass grows up to 8 inches, is dense and spreads through horizontal root- forming stems called stolons and it can tolerate heavy foot traffic. Newer cultivars are more drought tolerant and  resistant to weeds compared to traditional buffalo grass, though may still require weed care. Like many other grasses on this list, buffalo grass also goes dormant during the winter which can be a deal breaker for some.

Grass alternatives

If you don’t expect any foot traffic on your lawn, and want to conserve water while still having something beautiful to look at there are alternatives that can be used instead of grass. Creeping thyme can produce a vibrant color with violet flowers. Usually used around pathways and areas smaller than a traditional lawn. Another popular option is to use plants native to Southern California such as:

  • California Fuchsia
  • California Poppy
  • Kidney Weed
  • Chalk Liveforever
  • Sedum

Being native, they are drought tolerant and rarely need extra care to thrive. 

How would you feel with a yard expressly designed to fit your unique home and personality?

Our staff is dedicated to delivering unique landscapes that 100% fit the needs of homeowners. Each yard is designed in-house by our landscape designer. Our expertise and experience in the cities of Long Beach, Lakewood, Seal Beach, Rossmoor & surrounding communities allows us to custom design the perfect landscape for you.

Your project is carefully managed by our team of experts. Whether you are looking to turn your front yard into a showpiece or creating the backyard of your dreams we are here to help. Fill out our Landscape Design Free Quote today.