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!

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.

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.

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.