Sweeneys Custom Landscaping Articles
Interpreting the Secret Language of Weeds
The air was slight and gauzy one day, and leaden and damp the next as Spring fought to get a foot hold. Nevertheless, trees were beginning to leaf out as spring ephemerals faded, and plants were pushing forth green shoots and buds. Unfortunately, weeds were only too quick to…
Earth Day: 5 Easy Ways to Celebrate
Sloughing off the final olive-drab layers, downy-white flowers unfurled upon the Bradford Pear as the Redbud’s ethereal blooms cast a cheery glow unto the scene. Swelling buds and spring ephemerals dotted the landscape as the grass grew green and lush. Nature was fully engaged. It’s no coincidence that we celebrate…
8 Tips for Hiring a Landscape Provider
Softening silhouettes and nascent pastels have replaced the once austere and barren landscape. Nodding daffodils bob in the breeze as new life emerges in the warming sun. Spring is undoubtedly a lovely time of year but can also be incredibly trying. Lawns and gardens require our attention under the looming shadow…
Water Mitigation Tools and Tips
The water was utterly still, glass-like, and the deepening sky reflected off its surface as the fog rose slowly and tumbled towards the shore. The water made not a sound as the wind fizzled to a whisper, and the lake and the sky and the shore seemed as one, devoid…
Got Mulch?
Swelling Redbuds, drifts of Squill, and nodding Daffodils began to pepper the bleak canvas of early Spring with bursts of life and color. Hope was lifted. Along with Spring Clean Ups and Lawn Renovations, we must turn our attention to one of the most important additions to the landscape….
Making Your Way: Creating a Garden Path
March’s reign seemed wholly indecisive and fickle. Her tumultuous rule left the landscape feeling confused and disoriented. Had she lost her way? Had she veered off the path to Spring? Garden paths can be purely aesthetic, functional or both. They can be invitations to the garden visitor to explore…
7 Health Benefits of Gardening
The air wafted, sweet and warm, through the budding branches, over the greening grass, in and about the burgeoning ephemerals. The earth was softening, and the landscape was preparing to burst with color and life. Nature was beckoning us outdoors into her lovely, therapeutic realm. Spending time in green spaces…
The Healing Power of Green Spaces
Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, Spring ephemerals pushed through the remnants of snow, undaunted and assured, much like the human spirit, despite the tenuous and ambiguous environment, both literally and metaphorically. As we continue to face our “new” normal from the fall out of COVID, rising inflation and…
First Steps: Spring Clean Ups
Like a receding glacier, Winter began to wither and melt, leaving behind a scarred and battered landscape. Its tenuous grasp was loosening, and its legacy becoming more apparent, but March would surely deliver us unto Spring. Spring officially arrives March 20th, and Winter will be nothing more than a distant,…
Winter Damaged Turf: What to look for. How to fix.
The landscape lay waste to February’s warm arrival and took on a most pathetic look. The once beautiful, pure white blanket of snow had been reduced to the dirty, grungy spoils of a Winter warming, but that wasn’t all that remained in the receding snow. As the landscape below the mounds of snow began to reveal itself,…
Sing for Your Spring: The Promise of the Birdsong
Shadows grew long on January, and she disappeared into the gray. February arrived with sun upon her shoulders and spring upon her lips. Although the groundhog predicts another six weeks’ of Winter, there is a glimmer of hope, an inclination that the season of renewal is not so very distant. …
Feeling the Burn of Winter Scorch
Winter settled in comfortably, as it’s apt to do, lounging upon the couch of life, shoes on, leaving an empty pantry in its wake, and hogging the remote. Winter is here to stay, and will undoubtedly leave its mark. Winter scorch, due to extreme cold, drying winds, and even…