Great Uses Of Low-Maintenance Plants In Tulsa Landscape Design

In Tulsa, and really all of Oklahoma we know first-hand how tough it can be for plants, wildlife, and even us to survive the heat of summer. To combat the effects of a long drought and overall help with the global conservation of water and resources, many Tulsa landscape designers are using low-maintenance landscaping techniques.

This type of Tulsa landscape design makes use of plants native to the area that are already better suited for the Oklahoma weather and also drought-resistant plants. Native plants are also typically more resistant to local disease and insects. Using these types of plants can often lessen your landscape’s need for irrigation and maintenance. Succulents like cacti, aloe, and sedum are very tolerant of dry weather, although they do need more water during their growing season and do best in soil that drains well.

Ornamental grasses such as blue oat grass, feather reedgrass, and purple fountain grass are another kind of decorative foliage that can, withstand conditions with less water. Some groundcover plants and shrubs can also do well in these conditions. Groundcover can also be used on slopes to replace lawn areas that are difficult to mow.

Using low-maintenance or xeriscaping techniques can also include grouping plants together with similar watering and sunlight needs so that less water is wasted when caring for these plants. This form of landscape design also groups together plants that tend to require a similar amount of maintenance, which in turn will make landscaping and lawn work overall simpler.

Hardscapes are also used in low-maintenance landscaping to cut back on the resources and energy used for landscape maintenance. A stone walkway or paver pathway can lessen the amount of regular maintenance while also creating an added dimension to your landscape.

Another part of low-maintenance landscape design in Tulsa is preparing the soil well for native plants and shrubs. Making sure the soil is healthy with regular lawn fertilization will help reduce its need for water. Using mulch or compost can also help your soil retain water better in addition to preventing erosion and weeds.

The Tulsa landscape design architects at Oklahoma Landscape would more than glad to help you create a low-maintenance landscape design plan that’s geared to your particular landscape with the perfect plants, shrubs, and hardscapes to complement your home and lifestyle.

How To Use Plants For Edging In Great Tulsa Landscape Design

In landscape design we often find nature combined with artistic expression. Using a variety of plant colors and textures makes a landscape look like a living piece of art and generates the peaceful ambiance where friends and family can have fun and relax.

One aspect of Tulsa landscape design is creating definition to a space with edging. Many different plants and materials can be used to edge a landscape or separate one space from another. Sometimes hardscapes such as brick, stones, or pavers are used as edging around a flower bed or along a pathway. But there are a number of plants that work great for landscape edging.

Better Homes and Gardens highlighted a good amount of flowers and plants that are perfect for edging. Here are a few of their picks for best garden borders:

Known as “nearly the perfect plants” by Better Homes and Gardens, sedums look great from the day they sprout with different varieties hosting pink, red, orange, and white flowers. Varieties such as Matrona, they noted, create a cool edge with taller plants behind them. These plants are also very drought-tolerant and need little care.

Japanese forestgrass is a terrific fit for the shade, it thrives in it and creates “compact mounds of gracefully arching foliage” that makes a nice accent along borders. Lady’s Mantle is great for “softening the edge of a shaded path or creating a groundcover” with its groups of chartreuse flowers and scalloped leaves.

Alyssum, they revealed, is a nice annual edging plant. With its compact design and dense spray of tiny pink, white, or lavender flowers, the alyssum makes quite a colorful bouquet of edging for your flower bed.

The thrift plant, “Covering itself with adorable bobbing pink flowers,”  makes a delightful edging plant or groundcover. This perennial has grassy foliage combined with little clusters of colorful flowers.

Some herbs like English lavender, sage, and thyme also make great edging plants. Other edible plants for edges and borders include strawberries and rhubarb.

 The Tulsa landscape design professionals at Oklahoma Landscape can help you design the perfect garden for your home. We can help you choose the edging plants that are right for your pathway or border to create a crisp, polished look for your Tulsa landscape.

Tulsa Lawn Care - All Stage Weed Control

Every gardener knows just how fast weeds can take over a lawn, stealing water, nutrients, and sunlight from the surrounding grass. So it makes good sense to have an effective Tulsa weed control treatment in place for every stage and season of a weed’s life. With just a few weed control applications throughout the year, your lawn can be healthy and look beautiful and effervescent.

In the early spring, you’ll want to start by controlling broadleaf weeds like dandelions and ragweed as well as annual grassy weeds like crabgrass (all of which will grow rapidly in Oklahoma) by using a pre-emergent weed control herbicide. Use one that is toxic to both types of weeds, broadleaf and grassy weeds. Apply this using a broadcast spreader after you have mowed the lawn a couple times at the beginning of the season. Apply the herbicide also along sidewalks where crabgrass often tends to grow more. This weed control treatment will help to abate these weeds before they even develop and overtake your lawn.

Later in the season, you might still see a few dandelions or crabgrass weeds that don’t want to go. Most of these can quickly be dealt with using a spot-treatment post-emergent weed control herbicide. Concentrated herbicides that you mix with water yourself are commonly a better value. These can be used with a handheld sprayer to spot-treat any weeds or crabgrass. You can find a spot-treatment herbicide that kills both broadleaf weeds and grassy weeds, but you may have to use different weed control spot-treatments for broadleaf and grassy weeds as well. Follow the directions on the package for prepping and when to apply the weed control treatment, usually when temperatures are below 85 degrees F. for a few days.

Interestingly, one of the best ways to keep weeds away doesn’t involve weed control herbicides. Keeping your lawn well-maintained with proper lawn fertilization, irrigation, and mowing will help to crowd out pesky weeds and stop them from overtaking the lawn. Healthy lawns can better defend against weeds so having a good lawn care and maintenance schedule is really key to preventing weeds.

If weeds have already overtaken your lawn late in the season, you may need to spray the entire weedy area with a post-emergent weed control herbicide using a sprayer attached to a hose, getting the weeds wet. You may need to apply a different herbicide for broadleaf and grassy weeds. Again a concentrated post-emergent herbicide that you mix yourself will be a better value. Apply the herbicide on calm days so that the herbicide is not inadvertently carried to other plants and flowers that it could also harm.

If you would rather not have the hassle of applying weed control treatments, the Tulsa weed control experts at Oklahoma Landscape can take care of all your lawn care needs. We offer a custom 6-step Tulsa weed control and fertilization program for your lawn that will keep it lush, vibrant, and weed-free all year. Call us today for more details!

Tips for Tulsa Lawn Care - Using Mulch

Mulch may not be the first thing you think of when pondering how to enhance your garden, but it’s actually one of the best things you can add. Mulch can help in many ways; It protects plants and their roots from extreme temperatures and helps them absorb and retain water better. Mulch keeps a garden healthier, more resistant to drought and is great for weed control while improving soil quality. Adding mulch to your garden can save much time and energy and help to simplify your other Tulsa lawn care tasks.

But how much do you need and which type of mulch should you add?

There are various types of inorganic and organic mulch. Inorganics, like stone or gravel can be good to use around areas that are likely to get washed out, and black plastic and landscape fabrics are helpful in vegetable gardens to help warm the soil and hold moisture.Organic mulches like cedar bark, wood chips, shredded leaves, hay, compost, and grass clippings will add nutrients to the soil as they decompose.

Organic mulch is often best because in addition to its other benefits it also adds nutrients to the soil. Different types of organic mulch though can be better for specific areas. For instance, fresh organic mulch will be more effective at controlling weeds than aged mulch, but will take longer to decompose, TheFamilyHandyman.com noted. So fresh mulch won’t add nutrients to the soil as fast as aged mulch to help encourage plant growth, but on the other hand, will last longer. Therefore, fresh mulch may work better around trees and shrubs that need more weed control than nutrients in the soil. Like fresh mulch, large pieces of mulch like wood bark will take longer to decompose and thus will last much longer.

Mulch for your flower bed might consist of shredded leaves from your lawn. Grass clippings can add a great deal of nitrogen to your vegetable garden. These organic and free mulches can help make your gardens healthy and beautiful.

How much mulch should you apply?

A deposit of mulch about 4 inches in depth will often be enough to discourage weed growth and help retain moisture although 2-3 inches may be enough in shadier areas. On slopes, more mulch may be needed to help it stay in place, possibly around 6 inches as it may shift around more frequently.

Before you apply mulch to an area, be sure to weed the soil. Keep about a 6 to 12-inch area around woody stems free from mulch as well as about a 1-inch area around the base of plants and vegetables free from mulch to prevent rapid decay.

While organic mulch helps the soil to retain moisture, it can also prevent the soil from warming in the spring. Thus, mulch will need to be pulled away from around perennials in the spring to allow them to better grow.

The Tulsa lawn care specialists at Oklahoma Landscape can take all the hassle out of lawn and garden maintenance with our custom lawn maintenance, weed control and fertilization programs. Call us today for more information!

Unlock Your Landcape's Full Potential With Tulsa Outdoor Lighting Design

Want to enjoy your backyard past just daylight hours? Carefully positioned landscape lighting for your Tulsa outdoor environment can create an enchanting area to entertain or relax in, well into the evening hours. Here are some Tulsa landscape lighting considerations to get you started.

To begin, decide what you want your outdoor lighting accomplish. That might sound simple…just create more light for at night, right? Well, to have an effective Tulsa outdoor lighting arrangement, you’ll want to consider different spaces of your backyard and what lighting effects are needed for them or what features of your landscape you want to enhance.

For instance, do you want pathway lighting perhaps to help your guests safely navigate to the backyard? Or do you want to showcase a focal point in your landscape like a fountain, pond, or statue? Does your deck or patio need accent lighting to outline the area? What tone or mood do you want your lighting to create for your whole outdoor living space?

Each of these different facets of your landscape can be borne with different types of lighting or different lighting arrangements. Key points like a statue or fountain may need a spotlight. Pathway lighting will of course call for several smaller lights arranged in a row.

Accent lighting needs to be situated so that it highlights but doesn’t overshadow the outdoor living space. This requires a balance of light between the landscape, different hardscape features, and the home itself. Pathway lighting can easily be overdone and begin to look like a runway, so lighting placement is essential.

Tulsa landscape lighting also needs to work well with natural or man-made changes that could occur to the landscape over the course of time like growth of foliage, hardscape additions, and seasonal changes. Outdoor lighting can look very different and out-of-place when these things start to happen if changes were not accounted for in the initial lighting design.

Low voltage lighting can be used to shape pathways, and it's safe, cost-effective, and environmentally-friendly.

For more outdoor lighting design tips, call the Tulsa landscape lighting specialists at Oklahoma Landscape. Our outdoor lighting experts can help you get the right tone and style for your particular landscape and home architecture, creating a custom outdoor lighting system that will help you ‘find yourself outside’ and fully enjoy your outdoor living space both during the day and at night.

We came across some very nice, well-balanced lighting designs as can be seen in these photos from our fellow lighting designers. The first photo is from London-based designers My Landscapes. The second photo is via Portland, Oregon designers: Beautiful Bones and Purple Stones.

Selecting Hydrangeas for Your Tulsa Garden

For good reason hydrangeas are one of the most popular landscape shrubs. These beautiful, blooming shrubs are known for producing ball-shaped clusters of small flowers nice mix of colors like pink, blue, purple, and white. Gardeners in Tulsa often love them for their rich blooms that seem to blanket a garden with color.

But with the sometimes extreme and often inconsistent Oklahoma weather, life can be difficult for hydrangeas here. They commonly need a great deal of care to survive the intense Oklahoma heat. So, which varieties of these gorgeous shrubs seem do best in Oklahoma you ask?


There is a reblooming kind hydrangea that blossoms every few weeks in the summer and fall; known as The Endless Summer hydrangea, it can endure the winter weather in Oklahoma better than other varieties and can bloom on both new and old wood. These do best in a partly-shaded area that gets morning sun and afternoon shade. These hydrangeas, like other varieties, need  rich, moist soil that drains well. While they need a lot of water, they don’t do well in soggy or constantly wet areas.

Another kind of hydrangea known as, The Annabelle hydrangea is said to be one of the hardiest with some of the longest blooms.

Examiner.com tells us, “With adequate moisture, ‘Annabelle’ laughs at the Oklahoma summertime,” “Further, because ‘Annabelle’ flowers on new growth, she is never badly hurt by late freezes.”

Annabelles generally bloom from early June through September in Oklahoma. These beautiful landscape shrubs bloom to a bright white before they turn to light green again. The Annabelle is seen to be more drought-tolerant than others and has great disease resistance.
The Oakleaf hydrangeas is also said to be an easier hydrangea to cultivate. Instead of the ball-shaped or “mophead” flower type, the Oakleaf has a unique cone-shaped clusters of white flowers and oak-like leaves that turn a beautiful reddish-purple in the fall.

Because all of these hydrangeas require moist, rich soil, Englishgardens.com recommended adding fertilizer to them during summer while they’re growing. And the vast majority, if not all hydrangeas, will do better planted in the shade or partial-shade, out of the hot afternoon sun.

For more assistance in landscaping your garden, please contact the Tulsa landscape design specialists at Oklahoma Landscape. We can design and build a landscape with the perfect flowers and shrubs for your home’s architecture and that will thrive in the Oklahoma climate.

Tulsa Landscape Ideas - Adding Edible Plants

Do you desire a beautiful landscape to complement our home? Elegant landscape design creates a peaceful place where we can enjoy summer evenings with family, unwind on the weekends,or hospitality entertain friends. But more homeowners are choosing, not just beautiful landscapes, but delicious, edible landscapes elements as well.

With the trend toward organic gardening, homeowners are seeing the many benefits of Tulsa landscape design that includes edible plants, which are as pretty as they are tasty. Edible landscaping is not just about planting a garden in your backyard, but more about including a variety of edible trees, plants, and shrubs throughout your landscape to provide cost-effective, healthy food right at home.

In fact, Better Homes and Gardens (BHG) wrote an article online about how to include edible plants in your landscaping. Here are some of the tips they gave:

A pretty plant that fits well in the flower bed or along the border is Rhubarb, especially when paired with purple-leaved Ajuga or a similar low-growing groundcover. Strawberries are another good groundcover or edging plant for a flowerbed or even planted on a sunny slope as a groundcover.

Miniature and dwarf fruit trees are available that grow about 4 or 5 feet tall and even grow well in pots. These are great for use in smaller yards. Raspberries, the article noted, do great in light to medium shade, making them easy to grow at home.Currant bushes and blueberry make great decorative (and delicious) shrubs.

Instead of traditional vines to grow over an arbor or trellis, the article suggested grapevines or short vining-type vegetables like cucumbers, zucchini, and melons. Gorgeous grapevines will grow well over an arbor, plus you can use the leaves for decoration on platters or to top cheeses and salads, BHG said.

Vegetables often do well in containers, the article mentioned. Lettuces come in a different colors, making them ideal for window boxes and along edges of flower beds. Hot peppers also add rich color variety to the landscape, especially when paired with marigolds and vinca. Swiss chard is another vegetable that comes in a “rainbow of colors” that can be paired with other vibrant flowers to create a beautiful Tulsa landscape design.

For more great edible gardening tips, check out the Edible Landscaping article on BHG. If you’d like help to incorporate more edible plants into your landscape, call the Tulsa gardening and landscape design/build experts at Oklahoma Landscape.

Getting Kids to Help with Lawn Care

It's easy to see yard work as a bit laborious, but children can often get excited about helping out with lawn care. Having them help with the yard work is a good activity to do as a family, and helps kids get more exercise, gets them away from electronics, and can help teach them responsibility. So how can you get your children involved with your residential lawn care?

Idealhomegarden.com listed ways to help encourage kids to join you in caring for the lawn. Getting children involved with yard work at an early age (even if they can’t do much) could help them to want to do it as they grow up. Young children especially, as the article said, always want to help their parents, so simply spending time with you while you do yard work can help you draw closer as a family. And as the children grow older, yard work will be associated with good times as family.

Even though young children can’t use lawn care equipment yet, giving children little chores that make them feel needed can go a long way to helping them enjoy lawn care when they get older. Children could possibly be put on weed control, helping to pull weeds in the garden, picking up sticks or any trash in the yard, or even planting or broadcasting seeds. As children get to be around school age, they may be able to help with raking and bagging leaves.

As children get older they can begin to help more with mowing the law and even trimming shrubs, under supervision. Teenagers who are eagerly waiting for their license may be especially excited to get behind the wheel of a riding lawnmower. This can give them some initial training and practice at driving and shifting gears.

Seeing your positive attitude about yard work as parents, as the article noted, can greatly affect how children think of yard work as they grow up. If you have several children, making lawn care into a simple game or contest can help them enjoy it more (and possibly get things done faster).
And while teaching children to get involved with yard work and manage chores is essential, they will also need some playtime, and of course, they need to stay well-hydrated.

“It’s important that any fun that goes on also includes Mom or Dad. You need to have some fun just as much as the children do, and the kids will love every minute of it,” the article noted.
So when you go outside to take care of your Tulsa residential lawn care chores, take your kids along too. The whole family can have an enjoyable time doing yard work together.

Tulsa Lawn Care - How to Choose the Right Lawn Mower

Some Tulsa landscaping companies like Oklahoma Landscape offer residential lawn care and maintenance, yet some homeowners like to mow their lawns themselves. If this is true in your case, a reliable lawn mower is a necessity. But there are many options when it comes to lawn mowers in Tulsa. Which one is the best? Well, it may depend on your particular lawn, how much time you want to devote to lawn care, and other ecological concerns.

Gas, Electric, or Reel Mowers. Lawn mowers come with a variety of power choices. Manual reel mowers, of course, are great for the environment and are good exercise; however, they don’t cut off as much of the blade (1/8” – 1/4”) in one mowing. Thus, with a reel mower, you will probably have to mow more often. There are several kinds of electric mowers, which can be ideal for smaller yards. Some electric mowers are battery-powered and some come with a cord. Some gas-powered mowers have both an electric start and a pull cord making them easier to start if the battery is charged. However, with a battery-powered or electric start mower, you’ll need to keep track of the charger to make sure you can recharge, and it recharges enough to mow the whole lawn. And of course gas mowers will be more powerful than electric or reel mowers and may be a wiser choice for larger or hillier landscapes.

Bag or Mulch mower. You will also need to consider whether you want to collect your grass in a bag or use a mower that mulches the grass and leaves it. Mulching can help to protect the lawn from heat in the summer, retaining more moisture, and provide the lawn with nutrients. However too much mulch, usually from cutting too much grass at one time, can cause large clumps of mulch to accumulate on the lawn. These large clumps of grass can spread disease and fungus which causes the lawn to have yellow areas. With any mower, it’s best to remove no more than 1/3 of the blade during one mowing. If you choose a bag to collect the grass clippings, a rear bag will be easier to maneuver and mow using.

Size and Landscaping of your Lawn. Do you have a large, medium, or small yard? Are there a number of trees and hills in your landscape? Of course, a riding mower or even lawn tractor would be good if you have a large or maybe even a medium-sized lawn with few trees. But for many medium or small lawns, a self-propelled walk-behind mower works well. These mowers may be front or rear-wheel-drive. Front-wheel-drive mowers are easier for mowing around objects like trees or shrubs, whereas a rear-wheel-drive mowers do better at mowing uphill but are not as nimble around obstacles. A walk-behind push mower with a gas engine will mow down taller grass than electric or reel mowers, but they’ll still need to be pushed, so these may be best for smaller, more flat areas.

Also, when choosing a mower, think about where you will be able to have it maintained. Thus, choosing the right lawn mower for your Tulsa landscape will depend on the amount of time and energy you want to put into your yard as well as the size and topography of the lawn itself.

If you decide mowing isn’t for you or it’s taking up too much of your weekend, the Tulsa lawn care experts at Oklahoma Landscape can take care of all your residential or commercial lawn maintenance.