Landscape Around a TreeCall: (402) 302-1969
Instead of trimming a bunch of limbs off that I really don't want to do either, I think it would be better to just do some landscaping around there, put in some extra plants, put in some color and hopefully it will look a lot better. So on our trees specifically out front, I wanted to keep the back section of it kind of exactly like the shape it was. I didn't really want to change too much there. So I use a piece of string tied that around the trunk and I bring it to the back section there.
And then I just measured exactly how far I wanted it to go and that way. Going around that curve around the back, I can just move the string and keep the same angle, keep the same distance. And that way, I don't have to guess when I'm cutting around the tree. And then upfront, we will be adding more of the landscape to the front side. So there's what it kind of looks like with a straight circle kind of around the tree. But I'm not sure that I really want a straight circle, kind of want a little bit of a pattern to someone to play around with these stakes a little bit and kind of leave the back section with that curve kind of like that and then see if we can make a little bit of a different shape and see what it looks like. Took me a little while longer than I thought it would to kind of decide on something. My wife came into look at it as well and then we kind of just had to visually go off of those stakes and kind of imagine what that pattern is going to look like. There's really no right or wrong answer there on what your you want your pattern to look like. But since we have landscaping out front, the kind of curves around the house a little bit, we wanted something that looked kind of similar and wasn't just a straight round shape. You can do whatever you want, but that's just kind of what we chose to do. From there, it is time to actually cut the edge. And I have this edging tool here. I will put a link in the description to the one that I'm using. I've had it for a few years. I've used it quite a few times on projects like this for landscaping or cutting edge around the border of landscaping or something like that. I really like this tool. It works great. It doesn't get used all that often. But for these types of projects, it's a nice tool to have. So you want to use something like that? |
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You definitely can. Otherwise, you can probably use a spade or some kind of shovel. I just followed along our steaks here. My wife kind of guided a pattern around there and we just cut out all that was a little bit painful. But I did survive so far. Are about to rip out the turf. So this is definitely the hardest part for me because I didn't want to remove too much of the grass if we didn't have to. But it was starting to look pretty bad, as I said.
So we needed to get rid of some of it and we needed space to put in our plans without everything being just super crowded to the tree. We cut out all that turf that was there and I find that it's easier to have someone kind of holding onto the side as you kind of remove it with a spade and rolling it up as you go. It's hard to do with one person. So this is definitely one spot. We're having another set of hands.
It's very nice. But if you kind of get underneath that and start to actually get those roots out of there, it will roll up pretty easily. And if you made a well-defined edge, you can just follow that along. And it should be in really nice straight cut right there as well. In the past, I've kind of just left a live edge there. Not put in any bordering around that edge. But this time we decided to use a little bit of a border to kind of hold the mulch in.
And hopefully the grass won't grow too quickly into this because on those life beds, you have a tendency to have to cut those quite often in order to keep that edge and in order to keep it from growing into there. We tried a border system here. I'm not sure how it's going to work out long term as I've never used a specific one before. It does help to hold in the mulch. So far, that's what I'm finding. And hopefully that will stay put fairly well and I won't have to keep cutting that edge.
This one is easy to just kind of roll it around there. There's a couple of steaks that come with it. So you just roll around your edge and you can actually use this one above ground if you wanted to create a border aboveground without digging anything out. I kind of wanted a different look there, though, with this one. So we did end up digging out just a little bit and putting this in the ground. And so you can do it either way.
I'm pretty sure it would work well above the ground as well. But we just didn't do that method with this one. So now it's time to place your flowers or your plants in there, kind of evenly spaced everything out and do your best there to miss any of the tree roots. Now, this tree has been established for quite a while, probably about five years now. So there's definitely some established roots in there. And anytime we're cutting around this tree, you want to be very careful to not damage a bunch of things.
So we had to kind of pick and choose few areas where we thought maybe we were gonna put a plant. If we found a large root in there, we just kind of moved it a little bit off to one of the sides. Just make sure that you're watching out for that. But otherwise, just digging your plants. Look at the instructions on the plants to see how big of a hole it actually needs. When you planted, most of them are around the container size that it comes in.
Some of them wanted to be a little bit bigger. So just check on those labels of the actual plants that you have. We also use here some newspaper to put over there as kind of a weed barrier. Now what I prefer to probably use maybe a landscaping weed fabric. Yeah, that would be a good option too. We just didn't have any on this actual day that we were doing this project and I didn't really want to go back to the store and get something else.
So we put a thick layer of newspaper on there. This will help to hold back those weeds for a while and we'll see how long it lasts. But that's another way that you can do it. And if you're going to try to use that as a weed barrier, really put on the newspaper thick, whatever you use then to cover around the plants is kind of up to you to cover that newspaper and make it look decent. I like to still use and mulch here, put on there not too thick, but on a layer that will keep some of the weeds away as well, keeps them the moisture in and it has a great look to it as well.
So I do like using some colored mulch. So we're really happy with our finished product here. And how it turned out made a lot of difference in the way that the front yard looks, makes the yard look better. And also, like I said, add some color, which is nice. So I hope that gave you some information on what this project was with our landscaping around this tree. Have any questions? Let me know. Thanks so much for watching.
We'll see you next time. It's a pretty good piece of territory here. Can I show you? This is kind of three quarters of an inch and a pretty good root system on there still. So it's pretty dry right now, needs to be water again.
So we needed to get rid of some of it and we needed space to put in our plans without everything being just super crowded to the tree. We cut out all that turf that was there and I find that it's easier to have someone kind of holding onto the side as you kind of remove it with a spade and rolling it up as you go. It's hard to do with one person. So this is definitely one spot. We're having another set of hands.
It's very nice. But if you kind of get underneath that and start to actually get those roots out of there, it will roll up pretty easily. And if you made a well-defined edge, you can just follow that along. And it should be in really nice straight cut right there as well. In the past, I've kind of just left a live edge there. Not put in any bordering around that edge. But this time we decided to use a little bit of a border to kind of hold the mulch in.
And hopefully the grass won't grow too quickly into this because on those life beds, you have a tendency to have to cut those quite often in order to keep that edge and in order to keep it from growing into there. We tried a border system here. I'm not sure how it's going to work out long term as I've never used a specific one before. It does help to hold in the mulch. So far, that's what I'm finding. And hopefully that will stay put fairly well and I won't have to keep cutting that edge.
This one is easy to just kind of roll it around there. There's a couple of steaks that come with it. So you just roll around your edge and you can actually use this one above ground if you wanted to create a border aboveground without digging anything out. I kind of wanted a different look there, though, with this one. So we did end up digging out just a little bit and putting this in the ground. And so you can do it either way.
I'm pretty sure it would work well above the ground as well. But we just didn't do that method with this one. So now it's time to place your flowers or your plants in there, kind of evenly spaced everything out and do your best there to miss any of the tree roots. Now, this tree has been established for quite a while, probably about five years now. So there's definitely some established roots in there. And anytime we're cutting around this tree, you want to be very careful to not damage a bunch of things.
So we had to kind of pick and choose few areas where we thought maybe we were gonna put a plant. If we found a large root in there, we just kind of moved it a little bit off to one of the sides. Just make sure that you're watching out for that. But otherwise, just digging your plants. Look at the instructions on the plants to see how big of a hole it actually needs. When you planted, most of them are around the container size that it comes in.
Some of them wanted to be a little bit bigger. So just check on those labels of the actual plants that you have. We also use here some newspaper to put over there as kind of a weed barrier. Now what I prefer to probably use maybe a landscaping weed fabric. Yeah, that would be a good option too. We just didn't have any on this actual day that we were doing this project and I didn't really want to go back to the store and get something else.
So we put a thick layer of newspaper on there. This will help to hold back those weeds for a while and we'll see how long it lasts. But that's another way that you can do it. And if you're going to try to use that as a weed barrier, really put on the newspaper thick, whatever you use then to cover around the plants is kind of up to you to cover that newspaper and make it look decent. I like to still use and mulch here, put on there not too thick, but on a layer that will keep some of the weeds away as well, keeps them the moisture in and it has a great look to it as well.
So I do like using some colored mulch. So we're really happy with our finished product here. And how it turned out made a lot of difference in the way that the front yard looks, makes the yard look better. And also, like I said, add some color, which is nice. So I hope that gave you some information on what this project was with our landscaping around this tree. Have any questions? Let me know. Thanks so much for watching.
We'll see you next time. It's a pretty good piece of territory here. Can I show you? This is kind of three quarters of an inch and a pretty good root system on there still. So it's pretty dry right now, needs to be water again.