Winter Home Security Tips from Tulsa Landscapers

Fewer daylight hours during winter can mean an increased security risk for your home and family. What can you do to stay safe this winter?

Make sure your home is well-lit. Landscape lighting not only allows you to utilize your outdoor living space more but can also help to deter thieves. Outdoor lighting for walkways and paths also help to keep guests safer as they walk up to your home after dark. Outdoor lighting systems connected to motion sensors and surveillance systems can also help to keep your home more secure at night. Lights and various electronics inside your home can be set on timers so that your home looks occupied throughout the day.

Keep your landscape well-maintained. Burglars often look for signs that homeowners are away, so keeping your landscape maintained, even when you’re away on vacation perhaps with help from a Tulsa landscape maintenance company, can help make sure your home looks occupied.  Also, make sure any trees or shrubs near your home do not become overgrown, providing a good place for burglars to hide or block visibility to your front door. Shrubs that have thorns planted next to the home act as a great deterrent for thieves.

Make sure all your doors and windows are locked. Many of us like to open our windows or patio doors this time of year when it starts getting cooler outside. When opening these windows or doors, be sure to place dowel rods or locking pins in the tracks to prevent someone from easily opening them further. And lock your front door, even if you’re just in the backyard or will just be away momentarily.

Always be mindful of your surroundings. With shorter daylight hours, many residents may not return home until after dark. Thus, it’s good to always pay attention to what is going on around you as you walk to your car or home and not be distracted by looking down at a cell phone. With school in session again, many teens may walk home from school or be out late with after school activities. Remind teenagers to always walk with a group if possible in well-lit areas and on well-known streets, avoiding short-cuts in alleys, etc. Make sure they know how important it is to have a safety routine when they get home, immediately locking the door and calling to check-in if they’re home alone.

Make sure valuables are out of sight. Can a burglar easily see your big screen television in your living room? Although large windows or glass doors are elegant and a nice home design, these easy-to-see-through home elements can attract the wrong crowd if they’re not covered. Thus, it’s good to walk around the outside of your home and make sure expensive items are not visible from outside.

Don’t tell burglars you’re not home. That may seem obvious, but often residents can unknowingly tell burglars they’re not home by announcing their vacation plans on social media sites and changing their message on their answering message to include their vacation plans. Burglars can also see many of these sites, and then one simple status update can let them know your home will be unoccupied for a week. Also, although it may seem convenient if you’re expecting someone and in a hurry, don’t leave notes on your door when you’re not at home.

Keep in mind these security tips to keep your family safe this season. And for help with your landscape design or outdoor lighting, call us today at 918.296.9679.  Oklahoma Landscape can take care of all your Tulsa landscape maintenance or landscape lighting needs.

Give Your Home a New Look with Professional Tulsa Landscape Design

Over time your landscape will need little renovations or even a complete ‘remodel’ so that it doesn’t look outdated. In fact, giving your landscape a makeover can help to make your home look more contemporary as well. So, what can you do to make sure your landscape and home look their best – even as they age?

Landscaping maintenance is key. 

If you don’t have time right now to give your landscape a complete overhaul, you can simply spruce it up a little with some detailed landscaping maintenance. Trimming overgrown trees and shrubs can do a lot to refresh a yard and prevent the entire home from looking older or even vacant. Simply planting new plants along the edge of your flowerbed, walkway, or as a container garden will add new life to your landscape and home. Putting new mulch in your garden or around trees is an easy way to spruce up your yard and make things look new. Also, adding a walkway made of pavers or a border for your garden using pavers can bring new decorative interest and dimension to your landscape.

Add an outdoor living space. 

To give your landscape a real makeover you could add a complete Tulsa outdoor environment to your landscape. These outdoor living spaces can be as extravagant or as simple as you would like. You could add a patio or deck to your backyard or go all out and build a custom outdoor kitchen, outdoor fireplace, custom pool, or all of the above.

Not only do these outdoor environments make you home and landscape look more contemporary and add incredible functionality to your space, but they can also significantly increase the value of your home and property. Often, as with any building project, it’s wise to seek the advice of a professional before you embark on such a project. Our Tulsa landscape designers and landscape architects can help create the perfect outdoor living space for your home. We can design the Tulsa outdoor environment to match the architecture and style of your home and create an outdoor space that’s not only beautiful but also practical for your lifestyle.

Use low-maintenance landscape designs. 

Many older homes may still have landscapes that were designed when the home was first built. Often, these landscape designs may not have utilized techniques that are now more readily available to conserve water or make the landscape more resistant to drought.

Low-maintenance landscaping can be used to help conserve water, time, and energy in maintain the landscape. Native plants and drought-resistant plants can be used that are more adaptable to our local environment. Plants that use similar amounts of water and need similar amounts of sunlight can also be grouped together to reduce maintenance. Some older homes may have had juniper trees planted close to them, which are very combustible. There are many plants and shrubs that are more fire-resistant. Some trees can be used around various parts of your home to shade your home or serve as a windbreak and even reduce air conditioning and heating costs.

Give your home and landscape a fresh look with a landscape design makeover!

Tulsa Landscaping Company Offers Spring Gardening Tips

Many Oklahomans love to plant a garden and see their delicious vegetables grow before their eyes. Some may plant right in the ground, while others may use a raised garden bed. Either way, you’ll have fun in your garden and relax while working with nature. Here are a few tips to help your Tulsa garden thrive this year.

Plan and start small. If you are a new gardener, many gardeners say that you may want to start small in how much you plant. In your excitement, you may see a ton of colorful things to buy at the nursery or garden store, but it’s good to be modest in your first garden planting. You may want to use more common warm weather varieties of plants that will likely grow well in Oklahoma like green beans, okra, squash, radish, and melons.

Plan out your garden, possibly even on paper, to decide where plants will get the best sunlight, when you will need to plant each type of seed or plant, if you’ll plant in the ground or in a raised bed, and how big the plants and garden will get when you’re finished. Allow plenty of room to work in the garden and for the plants to extend out as they grow.
Before you plant, it’s good to have all the gardening tools you will need including cages or stakes for climbing plants, string to tie the plants to the cages, tillers, pruners, and other equipment.

Prepare and nourish the soil. You’ll need to remove any weeds, rocks, and grass in the garden and may want to test the pH of the soil to know exactly what nutrients it’s lacking. A few weeks before you plant, you may want to add some compost to the soul to make sure it has enough nutrients to support the plants. Then you can turn the soil when you add the compost and just before you plant to make sure it’s aerated.

Follow directions. There will often be much helpful information on the seed packets or plants about when to plant the seeds, how far apart to space them, and when they should be harvested. The Old Farmer’s Almanac will also have helpful information on when the best time to plant each vegetable. On the Almanac website, you can search for your particular city or state and see the exact planting directions, planting dates, directions for planting by the moon, and estimated frost free date. Along with being tax day, many gardeners will say April 15th is around the frost-free date for much of Oklahoma.

Trim shrubs and trees. Along with planning your garden design and boundaries, you may need to prune any overgrown bushes and trees that may block needed sunlight to your garden. This will also help your overall landscape to have a more polished look for summer.

These are just a few Oklahoma gardening tips for this spring. Talk with the Tulsa landscaping and gardening experts at Oklahoma Landscape for more details on how they can help you have a successful garden this year.

Details of the Jenks Outdoor Classroom Shared By Tulsa Landscaping Company

In one of our earlier blog posts, we discussed how a “living classroom” is being created for Jenks Public Schools by Tulsa landscaping company Oklahoma Landscape.

More than a simple garden, this Tulsa landscape design will be an interactive outdoor space with a variety of features including rain barrels, butterfly gardens, Chimney Swift towers, granite trails, composts bins, a water feature, and more. Called the “Flycatcher Trail,” this outdoor classroom will help students learn how to manage a garden, plant vegetables, manage a landscape, and more. 

As a Tulsa landscaping company, we know how inspiring working with nature can be, so this project will help students increase their creativity and discover the sense of pride that comes from caring for gardens. 

What are some of the many details of the Jenks landscaping project?

The entrance of the classroom will have rain barrels for capturing run-off storm water and compost bins for creating organic-rich compost to use for vegetables and plantings.

Granite trails will be made using decomposed granite. This abundant, permeable material makes a pleasant, natural trail. The decomposed granite adds color and compacts very well while not breaking down like mulch. 

Chimney Swifts, which are a bird species that often nests and roosts in chimneys, are often identified by their gray silhouette, tiny body, and curving wings, but they also have a distinctive style of flight and a chattering call, one author noted. They can quickly maneuver over rooftops and rivers to catch insects. Chimney Swifts spend most of their time in the air. When they do land, they can’t perch. They cling to vertical walls such as those in chimneys and those in hollow trees or caves. So, with the decline of chimney use in North America, also came a drop in the Chimney Swift population. 

They were abundant in North America, but by the late 1980s, the amount of swifts migrating to North American from the Amazon River Basin had declined. A growing number of people across North America are now building nesting towers and are leading Chimney Swift conservation projects in their own communities. Bird conservationists have a step-by-step guide to making more habitats for the beneficial, insect-eating Chimney Swift.  This living classroom will not only give Chimney Swifts a habitat, but will also give students a great opportunity to study these amazing birds. 

Other features of the classroom will include a water feature, a butterfly garden, and split rail fencing. The butterfly garden is a specific space that utilizes butterfly-attracting plants, which yield flowers the butterflies are attracted to. These types of plants, like the butterfly bush, will attract a wide assortment of butterflies to the garden that the teachers and students can use to view and study. The split rail fencing is a cedar post and rail project that will give a rustic, open, and natural appeal to the space. 

This outdoor classroom will certainly give students a chance to take a closer look at nature and study all the splendor it holds. While the weather may have slightly delayed the project’s progress, Tulsa landscaping company Oklahoma Landscape - with the help of many other sub-contractors and suppliers who have also donated time, labor, and materials - will continue to plan and build this unique and exciting living classroom.  

Tulsa Landscape Design Ideas for Beautiful Spring Makeovers

Is your Tulsa landscape needing a little makeover? Even if winter left your landscape looking a little dreary, you can get your lawn looking amazing by summer. A few makeover tips can give your Tulsa landscape and your home itself a brand new look.

To revitalize and renew your lawn, a good Tulsa lawn fertilization and weed control program will give your grass the nutrients it needs to flourish. This Tulsa weed control program provides turf with the foundation needed to create a beautiful lawn and ultimately an attractive landscape. Along with these Tulsa weed control programs, mulch is an ideal, simple addition for gardens to give the area a more polished look while also helping to control weeds. 

Other homeowners may choose to remove the majority of their lawn in favor of a more low-maintenance Tulsa landscape design. These landscapes employ native plants and more hardscaping in order to use less water and thus need less maintenance. 

Building a pathway to your home’s entrance with stained concrete pads or stone pavers creates an inviting visual line to your home. Pavers come in a wide array of colors, styles, and textures to easily and quickly add sophistication and character to your front-yard. 

Lining this pathway with a garden of colorful, native plants, shrubs, and trees will enhance your entire landscape. In fact, you could almost fill your front landscape area with colorful foliage and plants – varying their size, color, and shape to create a lively mosaic that will welcome your guests.

Building an ornamental fence from wood panels or lattice that doesn’t necessarily block out all of the view but rather visually divides your landscape can create privacy and structure for your front-yard. This can also be accomplished with decorative walls or retaining walls of varying levels that will ornately create sections for your Tulsa landscape design. 

Adding a small decorative water feature such as a fountain can also help to transform your landscape.

These are just a few of the numerous ways to spruce up your front-yard this spring. Talk to the Tulsa landscape design specialists at Oklahoma Landscape to see how they can help renovate your landscape.

Summer Staycations - Made Custom By the Premier Tulsa Landscaping Company

Even before spring gets here, Tulsa homeowners are now planning for summer – planning their summer vacations, home improvement projects, and even “staycations.” Why take a staycation? And what can Tulsa’s Oklahoma Landscape do to give you the ideal summer staycation spot?

Staycations became widespread when the economy took a downturn, but even with the country’s economy on the rise, many have seen the benefits of a staycation. Not only is there the reprieve from packing and traveling through busy airports, but there are also the obvious economic advantages. Many have decided to invest the money they would have spent on a luxury vacation into creating an indulgent retreat right at their home. As an investment, these home-based retreats add significant property value and curb appeal to the Tulsa home. 

But what kind of retreat is possible? Just about anything you could want. That’s where the Tulsa landscaping company Oklahoma Landscape comes in. We can create the one-of-a-kind vacation retreat you’ve always dreamed of, and all in your own backyard. We also provide numerous other hardscaping, landscaping, irrigation, drainage, lawn care, drainage, and landscape lighting services.

With Tulsa outdoor environment staycations, we can design and build an outdoor kitchen complete with state-of-the-art outdoor appliances like refrigerators, grills, pizza ovens, burners, sinks, and more. You can have bar seating attached, creating the perfect entertaining spot, along with extra cabinet and storage areas so you have all your prep and cooking utensils right at hand. Many have a stylish dining area nearby to bring the whole outdoor living space together. 

Custom outdoor fireplaces and fire pits offer an excellent way to stay warm during the chilly spring or fall nights while providing a cozy spot for chatting with friends. Combined with all-weather outdoor sofas, coffee tables, and chairs, these outdoor living areas give Tulsa homeowners all the comforts of the home outside. 

Relaxing swimming pools and in-ground spas customized to your home and family needs add the finishing touch to any outdoor environment. Paver patios create the ideal foundation for these stylish outdoor living spaces. 

We also offer custom Tulsa hardscaping to build retaining walls, decks, walkways, bridges, and patios that are not only practical but add the design details that make your outdoor living space come together. 

Landscaping is at the center of what we do. We strive to bring out all the beauty that nature provides and create living works of art that Tulsa homeowners can enjoy for years to come. The basis of great landscaping includes keeping your lawn healthy, vibrant, and lush. That’s why Oklahoma Landscape offers a custom 6-step lawn fertilization and weed control program to make sure your lawn has the nutrients it needs to be ready for summer. These Tulsa fertilization and weed control programs are beginning now as the grass prepares for spring growth. Overseeding and aeration are also important aspects of turf care. 

Oklahoma Landscape also offers commercial and residential Tulsa lawn maintenance to relieve business and homeowners of the worry and hassle of regular lawn care. 

From designing luxury outdoor living spaces to creating custom irrigation and drainage solutions and everything in between, we can deliver all the Tulsa landscape design and build services you need to create the perfect home and the perfect summer staycation spot.

'Living Classroom' Coming to Jenks Public Schools - Landscape Design by Oklahoma Landscape

A unique project is currently in progress for Jenks Public Schools. A “living classroom” including Chimney Swift towers, butterfly gardens, rain barrels, and other landscaping features is being built near the Freshman Academy in Jenks, Okla. This interactive outdoor living space will serve as a fascinating way for students to learn about nature.  

The school and 9^th grade biology/ornithology teacher Todd Humphrey approached Tulsa landscaping company Oklahoma Landscape in Spring 2013 with the idea for a living classroom. Our licensed landscape architect Paul Strickland then got to work creating 3D concept models of how the finished classroom would look. 

As a Tulsa-area landscaping company, we can see the sweeping benefits a project like this could have. In thinking about the project, we felt this was a very unique school concept that could spread across the Tulsa area into other school systems, allowing kids the opportunity to learn more about landscaping, plants, caring for gardens, etc. 

“We are excited to see this continue to grow each week,” Oklahoma Landscape President Aaron Wiltshire said. “Ultimately, this will be an incredible and unique space.” 

We’re also excited that many of the Jenks families we’ve done landscaping for have children who attend Jenks Schools, so they’ll get to enjoy this natural space.  And the site for the project is actually just a mile or so from the Oklahoma Landscape office, so it really feels like it’s in our own “backyard.”

When the “Flycatcher Trail” classroom is completed, students will be able to plant vegetables, perennials, feed birds, and study insects. Students will also be responsible for the ongoing maintenance of the gardens, trails, and water feature. 

“This project can help students in many ways. It can teach them how to do things outside. We all know how electronics can dominate the time of our youth. This project helps kids to get their hands dirty, into the soil, so to speak. It helps them take pride in caring and nurturing plants and gardens,” Aaron Wiltshire said. “There’s a lot of pride that comes from nurturing living things and benefiting from the beauty that is created.” 

As a landscaping company, we know the benefits that come from working with nature and the creativity that can be awakened in the process, and we hope this project will continue to foster that sense of creativity in our children…and it could even inspire a future Tulsa landscape designer. 

“Some of our youth will become aspiring designers, architects, etc., and there are little opportunities we can make available to help put something in front of them that may guide them one way or the other,” Aaron Wiltshire added. 

What are some of the features this distinctive classroom will have? 

Entry structure with rain barrels and a pergola pass-through.

Water feature with streams and a stone bridge.

Compost bins

Butterfly garden

Upright Chimney Swift towers

Native landscape plants and trees

Fully automatic sprinkler system

Cedar split rail fencing

Extensive decomposed granite trails

While Oklahoma Landscape is spearheading the project, there are many others who have donated time, labor, and materials to make this happen. We felt like we could pull off this huge undertaking because of our reliable team of professionals and with the valuable help of our trusted sub-contractors and suppliers. 

“Tulsa and the surrounding towns have made Oklahoma Landscape what it is today, and this project is a great opportunity for us to give back to the community we all share!” Aaron Wiltshire noted. 

The Flycatcher Trail, located in a lot east of the 9^th grade center, is estimated to be completed in March or early April. Stay tuned for more information on how the work is progressing and the various features of the living classroom…