Tulsa Landscape Design Challenges - Slopes

Slopes in your landscape can make designing your perfect outdoor living space much more of a challenge. Numerous Tulsa residents find themselves with this type of landscape design problem because so many Tulsa homes were built on the area’s beautiful hillsides. These steep hillside slopes can be rather tricky to garden, but it’s important to landscape these areas to prevent costly and possibly even calamitous erosion and drainage complications. What are some ways to landscape slopes to prevent these kinds of issues?

Make some walls.

Erosion takes place when surface runoff moves downhill taking with it loose soil. The faster the water flows down a slope, the more soil it likely will take with it. Thus, to effectively control erosion, the rate at which water flows downhill must be decreased, and yet still allow for drainage. Carefully constructed retaining walls and terraces can be very adept at preventing soil erosion and flooding. Retaining walls can be made using a variety of decorative hardscape materials such as natural stones, brick, interlocking blocks, concrete, wood, or cinder blocks. Because of their decorative appearance, retaining walls can add dimension and character to your landscape. They can be textured and aged or smooth and symmetrical, adding a decorative structure and organization to the landscape while holding back an embankment and creating level areas of land.

However, retaining walls must be properly built so they can withstand the pressure of weather, time, and other elements. These retaining walls need to also complement your property’s drainage and irrigation system to be effective. Several shorter terraces are often more effective than one or two larger segments because the more gradual the slope, the less chances there are for runoff.

Put nature to work.

Woody shrubs and trees that have a deep network of roots can help bind the various layers of soil together. Over time or through construction, these soil layers can become weak and less compact. Thus, plants with a strong root system can help keep the soil layers intact and slow water runoff. Hardy, drought-resistant plants like succulents, groundcovers, and native plants that are plentiful in Oklahoma will help reduce erosion and even help combat weeds. These plants are also usually more low-maintenance plants, providing easy maintenance for you landscape.

Rocks and boulders provide another decorative means of slowing the flow of water down a slope. Add native plants or shrubs behind these stone hardscapes and you’ll create a beautifully natural landscape. Make sure boulders are packed tightly into the soil.

Steps that stabilize.

Meandering steps can be used to help guests up what would otherwise be a difficult slope. You could make a series of steps in a winding or zigzag pattern that adds personality and charm to the hillside. Plant colorful shrubs or groundcover next to the curving stairway to create even more interest and help prevent surface runoff.

Use Water to the Full

While surface runoff can cause much erosion damage, you can work with the water by diverting it through a stream, waterfall, or other water feature along a shallow slope. Fill in the stream with rocks and you have a natural creek bed. Thus, your babbling brook can safely allow water to flow downstream and form another visual piece for your landscape.

Because of the delicate nature of slopes, soil, and their proper drainage patterns, it’s often best to seek the advice of professional landscape designers before making any major adjustments to your slope or hillside. The Tulsa landscape designers at Oklahoma Landscape will be glad to help you correct or prevent drainage and erosion issues by properly landscaping your hillside or slope.

We provide a complete range of landscape architecture, drainage, irrigation, and hardscape services to help you ‘find yourself outside’ in your beautiful and engaging landscape.

Tulsa Outdoor Fireplaces - Transform Your Outdoor Living Space

Nothing creates in your outdoor living space the warmth - figurative and literal - that an outdoor fireplace can. Many Tulsa residents are putting in outdoor fireplaces to their outdoor living areas as they see the increased flexibility and value they offer their space.

Outdoor fireplaces also permit you to extend your time outdoors both earlier in the spring and later in the fall. This accounts for why fireplaces are one of the most popular outdoor living additions. When the nights start getting colder, outdoor fireplaces create the perfect place for warm conversation in a relaxed atmosphere. Or to have an elegant dinner party for clients or a cozy night by the fire with family and friends. Extending your outdoor living season with a fireplace allows you to extend your time in your outdoor kitchen as well. An outdoor fireplace is the perfect counterpart to your outdoor kitchen, pool, or spa.

An outdoor fireplace can instantly transform any backyard into an upscale outdoor living space. A plain patio can transform into a sophisticated lounge area with the romantic ambiance of a stone fireplace. They can become the dramatic focal point of any outdoor area and really anchor the outdoor environment. Outdoor fireplaces turn regular outdoor living spaces into a kind of luxury resort retreat. By adding a sense of style and luxury to your outdoor space, this outdoor element can thus expressively increase the value of your home and property.

Outdoor fireplaces can be made using a variety of hardscape materials like concrete, stone, and brick and be custom-designed in a variety of styles to match the architecture of your home. From Mediterranean, Old World style, or with a Spanish theme, outdoor fireplaces can be as basic or ornate as you would like. Adjacent seating can be installed for pleasant  conversation or dining by the fire.

A stone, brick, or concrete wall can be added to the fireplace to create a “dividing” effect to different areas of your outdoor space. A pergola, roof, or other outdoor structure is can built to encapsulate the fireplace to provide protection from the weather. Thus, you can comfortably sit by the fire and watch snow cover the rest of your landscape.

These visual design elements offer a wide variety of uses in a wide variety of entertainment settings. Providing warmth, light, and sometimes cooking, depending on the design and fuel sources, outdoor fireplaces offer great flexibility.
Offering a distinctive ambiance and luxurious style, outdoor fireplaces were among the ‘most wanted additions’ in the 2013 Outdoor Living Trends survey conducted by the American Society of Landscape Architects.

The Tulsa outdoor fireplace designers at Oklahoma Landscape would be glad to design and build a custom fireplace for your outdoor space. We can coordinate it to perfectly match your home, lifestyle, and entertaining needs. Our custom outdoor fireplaces are built with quality design features and materials so that your family can enjoy them for many years to come. Check out our Outdoor Living Gallery for outdoor fireplace and fire pit design ideas.

How to Keep Rabbits And Deer From Getting Into Your Tulsa Garden

We may enjoy watching beautiful deer and rabbits in the wild, but they’re not always so pretty when seen eating the flowers and vegetables in our backyard. Are rabbits and deer constantly feasting on your garden? What can you do to keep these critters away?

One way to ward off rabbits and deer is to plant foliage that is uninviting to these animals. You may try planting some aromatic perennials that rabbits and deer don’t favor. Here are few: catnip plants, echinacea, chives, lavender, garlic, yarrow, peony, , and columbine or honeysuckle. Although humans often enjoy the smell of many of these perennials, wildlife like deer and rabbits can actually be repelled by the strong scent of these plants. You can plant these perennials around the border of your garden or property to help repel these animals.

Along with plants that have repelling smells to certain wildlife, many fragrant soaps can act as repellents. You can hang these bars of deodorant soap, preferably wet, on trees or plants around your landscape to repel pests.

Some gardeners also make natural deer and rabbit repellents combining ingredients like red pepper, hot sauce, garlic powder, eggs, etc. and making them into a mix that these animals do not like and applying it to various plants in the garden.

Along with deer and rabbit repellent plants, many gardeners also use deer or rabbit-resistant plants. These are trees, shrubs, and plants that animals do not like to eat so they don’t disturb your garden in the first place. Deer-resistant plants, trees, and shrubs include blue spruce, juniper, birch, boxwoods, iris, daffodil, lilac, barberry, and holly. Plants that are rabbit-resistant are a little harder to tell but some include daffodils, birch, hydrangea, elderberry, lilac, sedum, and yucca. Planting shrubs that have thorns, fuzzy leaves, or thistles is also a good deterrent.

 A good fence around your garden is must in terms of effective ways of keeping these animals out. To keep rabbits out, you’ll need to have a fine mesh fencing around the lower 2 feet. Fences will need to be around 8 feet high to keep out whitetail deer, or they can be slightly lower (around 6 feet) but be slanted. Solid wooden fences will of course be the best deterrent for deer so that they can’t see what’s on the other side.

Your much-loved dog or cat might also be one of the best deterrents for deer and rabbits.  Other tactics include scaring the animals away with radios, scarecrows, loud wind chimes, and motion-sensitive floodlights.

Talk with the Tulsa landscape design specialists at Oklahoma Landscape for more tips on how to protect your garden from deer, rabbits, and insects.

Tulsa Lawn Care Tips - Getting Ready For Fall

With fall approaching here in Oklahoma, you may be thinking that this year's Tulsa lawn care days are almost over. It may be true that you won’t have to mow the lawn as much now, but there are some necessary fall Tulsa lawn care items you may need to still need to handle to get your lawn prepared for winter.

It's important to take care of your lawn in the fall as it will help to ensure that you'll have a vibrant and healthy lawn in the springtime. Here is a few fall lawn care tips to help you get started.

Lawn Fertilization

Likely the heat of summer has taken a toll on your lawn, so fall is a good time to replenish nutrients in the soil with a slow-release fertilizer. This lawn fertilization in the fall will build the underground root system so that the roots are stronger and the grass recovers faster from drought and heat. This lawn fertilization for your Tulsa lawn will also help the soil to have the nutrients it needs to be strong in the spring. It’s ideal to fertilize your lawn four-to-six weeks before the first frost is due to occur.

Overseeding Tulsa Lawns

Often a lawn can start looking a little thin and worn-out, which can happen because of summer’s heat and just the passing of time. Overseeding in the fall will help it to be lush again. Overseeding or seeding your lawn with a new layer of cool-season grass over existing turf will fill in any thin or bare spots and help your lawn be more resilient to diseases and weeds.

Fall is a great time to overseed your lawn because the soil is still warm enough for the seeds to germinate, and yet the air is cool enough to prevent weeds from cropping up. There are many other reasons why fall is often the best time for overseeding.

 Lawn Aeration

Before overseeding your lawn, you might need to aerate the soil, which involves removing small core patches of dirt, thatch, grass, and if the soil is compacted aerating the lawn will help the soil and roots get more water, oxygen, and nutrients. This will help the roots of the new grass seeds to grow strong and healthy.

Some wonder if they need to rake all the leaves in their yard. Commonly, if the leaf coverage is covering the lawn so much that the grass can’t be seen, then the leaves need to be raked because they can prevent air and sunlight from reaching the grass. Thus, it’s best not to wait until all the leaves have fallen before you begin raking. A light layer of mulched leaves applied later in the season can provide the lawn with nutrients and protect it from colder weather. However, if the mulch is too thick or gets too moist before it decomposes, it can begin to choke out the grass or cause lawn disease.

Watering

Even with the weather getting colder, your Tulsa lawn will still need regular irrigation in the drought conditions. While the ground temperatures are above freezing, lawns can have infrequent, deep watering to help roots grow deep into the soil.

The Tulsa lawn care experts at Oklahoma Landscape can take care of all your fall lawn maintenance needs, giving your lawn the right fertilization at the right time, as well as aerating, and overseeding your lawn so that it will look healthy, beautiful, and ready for the coming spring!

Beautify Your Tulsa Landscape With Plants That Add Color In The Fall

Fall is in the air and soon leaves will change colors and the cool fall breeze will brush through the Tulsa landscape. People love the fall season for the display of colors that can be seen across all of Oklahoma, but especially here in Green Country. For an even more colorful fall season, many homeowners plant shrubs, trees, and perennials that are known for their amazing colors in the fall.

The Virginia Sweetspire is a showcase-worthy shrub with great ornamental fall colors. Growing in either shade or sun, the Virginia Sweetspire will display little white flowers in the summer, and then its green leaves will turn to a bright red, yellow, orange, or even rich burgundy color during fall.

A tough deciduous shrub that affords an outstanding display of fall color with orange-red fall foliage is the Chokeberry. This shrub thrives in open sunlight but can tolerate partial shade as well. The Amur Maple offers nice red color during the fall and can act either as shrub or a small tree depending on how it’s managed. Also, different varieties of Sumac provide stunning displays of fall color with yellow, scarlet, orange and foliage. These Sumacs are hardy shrubs that thrive in full sun and shouldn’t be confused with their poison sumac cousin.

Naturally, Maple trees will add a nice display of color to your Tulsa landscape this fall. From the widespread Red Maple to the Japanese Maple, these trees are known for their crimson colors and elegant, unique shapes. The Autumn Purple Ash tree is another fall favorite with reddish-purple leaves that change earlier in the season than other trees. Dogwoods afford great color during any season with white and pink flowers in the spring and purplish-red leaves in the fall.

Sedums are a vibrant perennial for fall color as are Helenium, Fall Crocus, Asters and the brilliant Colchicum. These are all wonderful perennials that bloom in the fall and can bring a boost of color to your garden late in the season. For a little contrast, the Russian Sage is a perennial that has a collection of purple-blue flowers from mid-summer to fall.

Beautify your Tulsa landscape this fall with some of these brilliant late season trees and shrubs.

For more ideas on how to add a splash of amazing color to your fall landscape, contact the Tulsa landscape design specialists at Oklahoma Landscape. We can create a unique color palate for your Tulsa home and garden and create brilliant interest in your landscape throughout the year.

Lawn Care Tips - Tulsa Irrigation System Maintenance

Irrigation systems are excellent for helping keep your lawn healthy and looking great all summer long by providing your lawn the right amount of watering. Lawns that are healthy tend to be less susceptible to disease, insects, weeds, and drought. Healthy lawns help to lessen soil erosion and surface water runoff. Thus, your Tulsa irrigation system plays a key role in maintaining a healthy, vibrant lawn, as well as helping with water conservation and reducing the time needed to maintain your lawn.

But, just as your lawn needs regular maintenance, your irrigation system also needs maintenance in order to function correctly. What can you do to make sure your irrigation system is working properly?


Your automatic irrigation system will need a thorough check-up and maintenance overlook both the start and end of the season. It’s often best to have a professional Tulsa irrigation company perform the spring start-up maintenance and then also winterize your irrigation system in the fall.
But throughout the season, regular inspection of your irrigation system will ensure it’s still functioning properly and help to prevent more expensive sprinkler repairs.

So, every month or so, it’s important to inspect your irrigation system for any broken components or leaks.

Make sure sprinkler heads and nozzles are not broken and are aligned correctly, watering the specific area of the lawn. Brown spots or constant damp spots in your lawn are both indications that your sprinkler system may have a damaged component or that the sprinkler heads are facing the wrong direction. You may need to adjust the sprinkler heads a little to ensure they are watering the lawn and not the sidewalk or home. Also check to see that the sprinkler’s spray is not blocked by plants or other things.

Replace any broken or damaged sprinkler heads. These components can often be damaged accidentally by lawn equipment, become clogged, or just wear out over time.

Inspect your entire irrigation system for any leaks and for the right amount of water pressure. When checking your automatic irrigation system for leaks or improper water pressure, it’s good to run the system one zone at a time so that you can easily pinpoint any problem spots. Low pressure can often indicate a line break.

Proper winterization of your Tulsa irrigation system is vital to ensure pipes do not break during the cold winter weather and that everything will work correctly again come springtime.

The Tulsa automatic irrigation system specialists at Oklahoma Landscape are skilled at designing, installing, checking, and maintaining your whole sprinkler system. We can handle all of the maintenance and regular system audits as well as winterization of your irrigation system to make sure it’s always working at the optimum level of performance. We service all brands of irrigation systems and sprinklers and can effectively diagnose problems so that you conserve water and your lawn continues to be, lush, vibrant and healthy.