Painting & Home Maintenance | South Jersey Residents

Garden Maintenance You Might Not Have Considered

When we think about garden maintenance we tend to focus on the basics, those regular tasks that we need to keep on top of to ensure that our outdoor space remains neat and tidy. These include mowing the lawn, weeding, hoeing, planting trees, shrubs and flowers, changing the soil, pruning and perhaps caring for any wildlife we might have living in our pond.

While all of these tasks are important, there’s a great deal more exterior work we can do in our gardens to provide an instant facelift and keep them looking as fresh as the day we began designing them.

Water features

The sound of running water is all that’s needed to turn the most lifeless of gardens into an attractive and relaxing outdoor space for the entire family to enjoy. This is why many people choose to invest in a water feature. It goes without saying that water features need to be looked after, particularly because it’s easy for algae to build up. While there are a number of ways of effectively cleaning your water feature, dish soap, a toothbrush and vinegar are three inexpensive equipment items that can make it easier to remove algae.

Power washing

We tend to pay a fair amount of attention to the look and feel of the interior walls in our homes, but we’re perhaps less attentive when it comes to the maintenance of our exterior surfaces. Even if your garden is impeccably mowed and your plants are in full bloom, a dirty, uncared for exterior garden wall can detract from the rest of the garden’s flourishing beauty. This is when it’s time to turn to the positive effects of power washing. As well as cleaning exterior walls, power washing is a useful technique for giving paths, decking and all other outdoor surfaces the deepest of cleans possible.

Exterior painting

Once you’ve given your exterior walls a thorough soak, it’s time to get the paint out. It’s surprising the difference that a new block of color can make to set and frame the beauty of your garden. The renovating effect of a fresh lick of paint doesn’t have to be reserved for exterior walls alone. Decking, fences, garden furniture and plant pots can all be given a new lease of life with a couple of coats of paint. By renewing all painted areas a couple of times a year, you can keep your garden space looking like new.

Wood Treatment

Another garden maintenance tip that does wonders for the look and feel of your garden in an instant, but that often gets overlooked, is the use of a decent wood treatment on fencing, decking and garden furniture. Outdoor wood has a tough time of it, having to stand up against many different kinds of weather conditions. A couple of coats of wood treatment across all surfaces a couple of times a year can really help to brighten the look of your entire outdoor space.

Lighting

As outdoor lighting takes a little bit of planning and sometimes the help of a professional electrician, it’s not something that we all choose to invest in. The key to creating interesting spaces through lighting is to use a variety of styles that will highlight the different textures and depths of your garden by illuminating at different levels. Lights that hang from trees, line the edges of a patio or make the surface of a water feature glisten are just three ideas. LED lights are also better than halogen as they use less energy and so last longer. Also, bear in mind that warm white, rather than cool white, tends to create a more intimate atmosphere.