by Emily Vogler | Jul 17, 2023
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As a homeowner, you always want to do whatever you can to increase your home value. If you‘re thinking about selling your home in the near future, or if you just want to make sure your home is worth as much as possible, there are a number of things you can do to improve its value. One of the best ways to do this is to focus on your landscaping.
Here are four landscaping tips that will help increase your home value:
1. Invest in curb appeal
One of the most important things you can do to increase your home value is to focus on curb appeal. This is the first impression potential buyers will have of your property, so you want to make sure it‘s a good one. There are a number of ways to improve your curb appeal, including:
– Planting flowers and shrubs
– Adding mulch or stone to your flower beds
– Power washing your driveway and walkways
– Painting your front door
– Adding new house numbers
Don’t want to do the planting yourself? Schedule a landscaping consultation with us and let the pros do it!
Backyard walkway
patio
2. Create an outdoor living space
Another great way to increase your home value is to create an outdoor living space. This is a space where you can relax and entertain guests, and it‘s a major selling point for potential buyers. There are a number of ways to create an outdoor living space, including:
– Adding a deck or patio
– Building a pergola or gazebo
– Installing a fire pit
– Installing a water feature
– Adding outdoor furniture and/or a grill
increase your home value
wooden stair that leads to a sitting area
3. Install an irrigation system
If you want to make your landscaping low–maintenance, one of the best things you can do is install a sprinkler system. Your plants will thrive with regular waterings, and our professional irrigation team can help you with that! They’ll save you time and money in the long run, and it‘s a major selling point for potential buyers.
sprinkler watering the plants
4. Use drought–tolerant plants
If you live in an area that is prone to drought, one of the best things you can do for your landscaping is to use drought–tolerant plants. These plants require less water and maintenance, and they can really help improve the look of your property. Read our blog on drought-tolerant plants here.
colorful succulents
By following these landscaping tips, you can be sure that you‘re doing everything you can to increase the value of your home! To start a conversation with one of our designers about your dream landscape, schedule a phone consultation! You can also read more about the property value of plants from this helpful article from Garden Center Magazine!
by Gloria Ballard | Jun 19, 2023
Compost tea is the superfood that gives your landscape a boost – a rich brew that uses the science of Mother Nature to improve soil. And as spring rolls into sultry summer, it’s a good time to plan for how doses of this rejuvenating liquid can help your landscape. Gardens of Babylon’s landscape maintenance team provides a new “recipe” to keep soil alive and healthy.
“I learned about the importance of compost tea at least 20 years ago, and it just made sense to me,” says Gardens of Babylon owner Mark Kerske, who oversees the brewing of compost tea for clients’ landscapes and gardens.
“The soils in Tennessee are not only compacted due to heavy clay, but also depleted by the constant use of toxic fertilizers, Kerske says. “Plants are now dependent on the fertilizers for growth, which have wiped out all the good, beneficial microbes in the soil. Using compost tea is the best way to put the ‘good guys’ back in.”
It’s a mixture teeming with life that nourishes your landscape without the use of toxic fertilizers. The life in the soil allows plants to manage their own nutrient needs. “Without a healthy soil food web, the pesticides and herbicides kill those good guys, and the crawly creatures that are in there working,” Kerske says. “If we don’t have that food web, soil structure deteriorates, and pathogens and disease start to take over.” With synthetic fertilizers, you kill the soil, he says.
What’s brewing?
By “good guys,” Kerske refers to the micro-organisms that make up the nutrients in compost that improve soil. The tea is a liquid form of compost, but it has the extra boost from a buffet of treats — fish hydrolysates, humic acid, kelp, bacteria, fungi and other ingredients – to encourage those organisms to reproduce at higher levels.
Gardens of Babylon’s new “recipe” used for the tea application depends on what’s best for your landscape: “If you want to grow a better lawn and annual flowers, you want to use more of a bacterial type of compost tea,” Kerske explains. “A fungal type of compost tea is better for trees, woody plants and perennials.”
It takes about 24 hours to brew a batch of compost tea, Kerske says. It’s an aerobic process: “When we’re brewing the tea, we’re injecting oxygen.” Moreover, the mixture remains oxygenated in the tank on its way to a clients’ landscape. “When you start to decrease the oxygen, the microbes start to die off,” he says. “Our tea is healthy, happy and full of oxygen when it’s sprayed on the yards.”
When? And how?
Spring, summer and fall are good seasons to give your landscape a dose of compost tea, Kerske says. “It’s usually applied once the soil temperature gets above 50 to 60 degrees.” It’s a good idea to first aerate a lawn, pulling out plugs of soil and allowing the tea to go deeper into the ground, “so it’s working a lot faster that way.” Spring is a good time to aerate, as well as fall, especially if you are overseeding the lawn ahead of winter, he says.
Compost tea is applied to established lawns, but is especially good for new lawns started from scratch. If soil is compacted, Kerske recommends three applications a year. “It’s taken years to make your soil bad, so it will take a couple years of applications to improve it.”
The amount to apply is measured per square foot; usually, a typical residential lawn benefits from 50 to 100 gallons of compost tea, Kerske says.
The Gardens of Babylon landscape team can provide a total maintenance package with tea applications – “weed and green applications is how we refer to it,” he says. “It’s one of the tools we use throughout the year to keep peoples’ lawns and landscapes healthy.”
Ready to rejuvenate your soil with a dose of compost tea? Book a consultation with the Gardens of Babylon Landscape Maintenance team here
by Gloria Ballard | Jan 15, 2023
As any writer or artist knows, when you start with a blank page or a clean canvas, anything is possible. That’s also what happens with a landscape design that starts from scratch. The owners of this home in West Nashville had ideas for what they wanted, and called on the Gardens of Babylon team to bring it to life.
“I really enjoyed working on this project,” says designer Matt Kerske. “The owner was excited about the plan we proposed, and was happy with the way everything turned out.”
We asked Kerske to give details on the success and challenge of this custom design:
What did the homeowners want? “They were looking for better ways to utilize the backyard,” Kerske says. “They could envision a space where they could relax and enjoy sitting and visiting with friends and family.” The wish list included a seating area protected from the elements, and a gazebo was the natural choice.
What was the biggest challenge? “The backyard was nothing but grass. It was a blank slate,” the designer says. Building the gazebo that suited their needs was key.
The 15×15-foot square structure, built primarily of western cedar, is a clean-lined, contemporary design with a crushed granite gravel floor and a gabled roof. Trellis panels at each corner provide a sense of enclosure and privacy without shutting out the outdoors, and a ceiling fan installed inside the peak of the roof stirs the breeze in summer. The homeowners furnished the gazebo with comfortable seating, making it suitable for a cozy gathering of friends or a quiet outdoor getaway.
What do you think is the best feature? Besides the gazebo, the overall design called for a backyard landscape makeover, Kerske says. “It’s a mix of native plantings: oakleaf hydrangeas, encore azaleas and a sweet bay magnolia tree.” The plantings are in beds that flank the back yard along new pine fencing that was part of the design, and in a gracefully curved bed between the house and the gazebo. Large flagstone stepping stones lead from the home’s backyard deck to the gazebo.
“The gazebo is what really brings it all together,” Kerske says. “The owner gets really good enjoyment from the new backyard feature.
Do you plan to upgrade your outdoor spaces in 2022? Click here to book a consultation with a member of Gardens of Babylon’s landscape design team.
by Emily Vogler | Oct 10, 2022
Fall landscape cleanups are a vital step to take to ensure spring success in your lawn and garden beds. They also protect your investment – your landscaping! Plants need proper preparation to endure the rigors of winter. Our landscape company offers landscape cleanups and plant enhancements throughout the year, which includes removal of fall leaves and debris, pruning and trimming at the proper times, creating fresh bed edges to prevent turf grass creep, and installing fresh mulch for protection and also curb appeal. So keep reading! We’re sharing three main reasons why fall cleanups are so important. (Not to mention now is a great time to get the landscape looking tidy for the holidays…)
A fall landscape cleanup protects your turf.
We love the natural look and feel of fallen fall leaves on the lawn, but if turf health is the goal, it is important to remove them and toss them in the compost. A layer of soggy fall leaves creates a barrier on top of the turf blocking water, sunlight, and healthy air flow, which can create disease and unsightly brown patches. Therefore, we regularly remove leaves and compost them when working in all our clients’ landscapes, and recommend our DIY gardeners do the same.
Fall cleanups reduce disease spread in spring.
Not only does a landscape cleanup in the fall reduce diseases in turf, but it keeps your landscape plants and vegetable gardens healthier when the temperatures rise. Removing old, dead, and diseased plant material in fall will reduce the spread of fungal and bacterial infections in spring. Any rotted and unharvested fruits, dead branches & limbs, and diseased plant parts can all be composted to create a healthier winter environment before temperatures rise again.
Fall cleanups protect plants.
After removing plant debris such as fallen leaves from your landscape beds and vegetable gardens, it is important to replace it with a disease-free mulch. Mulch protects the roots of perennial plants and the topsoil during winter’s harsh conditions. Our landscape company installs a variety of mulches in our client’s landscapes, but mostly a natural no-dye pine-bark mulch to retain moisture, vital nutrients, and leave the landscape looking fresh. In vegetable beds, cover crop such as clover that double as a mulch and also a spring fertilizer when tilled into the soil are best. Pruning excess limbs and branches during fall also protects plants from winter’s snow and ice and reduces breakage.
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If you would like to speak to one of our landscape experts about your fall cleanup project, schedule a free phone consultation.
by Emily Vogler | Jul 11, 2022
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When it comes to landscaping in Middle Tennessee, there are a few key things to keep in mind. The first is that the climate can be hot and humid, so you’ll want to choose plants that can withstand that. The second is that the soil here is generally clay–based, so you’ll want to avoid plants that need a lot of water or that are susceptible to root rot. With those things in mind, here are a few of the best landscaping plants for Middle Tennessee:
1. Crepe myrtle
This heat–loving plant is perfect for Middle Tennessee, as it can tolerate both the hot summers and the clay soil. Plus, it comes in a variety of colors and can grow to be quite large, making it a great focal point for any landscaping design.
2. Japanese holly
If you’re looking for an evergreen that can add some year–round interest to your landscaping, Japanese holly is a great option. It’s tolerant of both the heat and the clay soil, and it can be pruned into a variety of shapes, making it versatile for any landscape.
3. Butterfly bush
Butterfly bush is a great choice for Middle Tennessee landscaping because it attracts butterflies and hummingbirds, adding a touch of beauty to your yard. It’s also tolerant of the heat and clay soil, and it can be pruned to keep it under control.
4. Oakleaf hydrangea
This native plant is perfect for Middle Tennessee, as it can tolerate both the heat and the clay soil. It has beautiful white blooms that appear in the summer, and its leaves change color in the fall, making it a great addition to any landscape.
5. Rose of Sharon
Rose of Sharon is a heat–loving plant that can add a touch of color to your Middle Tennessee landscape. It blooms in the summer, and its flowers can be white, pink, or purple, depending on the variety. It’s also tolerant of the clay soil.
With so many great options to choose from, you’re sure to find the perfect plants for your Middle Tennessee landscape. Just remember to choose plants that can tolerate the heat and clay soil, and you’ll be sure to have a beautiful yard that you can enjoy for years to come. If you are looking for plants that will thrive in your Middle Tennessee landscape, stop on into the gar den center – we’re stocked on all kinds of plants that will thrive in your landscaping. Our staff can help you choose the perfect plants for your area! Or, to start designing the landscape of your dreams, schedule a consultation!
