Home Improvement

April Garden Tips

  • Feed citrus during bloom and fruit set.
  • Check for yellowing between leaf veins and azaleas and camellias and apply chelated (soluble) iron if needed.
  • Check irrigation systems. Fix blocks and leaks in drip systems.
  • Clean out fountains, pond bottoms, stream beds, pumps and filters.
  • Feed bulb plants after flowers fade. Do not cut back leaves until they are brown. These leaves make the food stored in the bulb for next year.
  • Hand pick snails and slugs. Trap earwigs and snails with rolled newspaper, unrinsed tuna cans, or pans of beer.
  • Fertilize any trees and shrubs not treated in March with slow-release fertilizer.

On the cover – Home Improvement & Remodeling Magazine – April 2010

When you walk or drive through a neighborhood, what catches your eye? Beautiful blooms in complementary colors, gorgeous greenery, a water fountain or pond, a welcoming walkway, a balance of shade trees and shrubs? Certainly, that type of landscaping is attractive and appears to be skillfully created to enhance the home and its style of architecture.

Contrast that with a house where plants are haphazardly placed with­ out any pattern or plan. Or the one that appears to lack care with flowers that are fading, colors that clash or trees that are gasping for water. The first home is like a painting done by a professional artist. Every detail is picture­ perfect. The latter is like an unfinished or unframed canvas. (more…)

March Gardening Tips

  • Feed Citrus
  • Check often for powdery mildew on roses, grapes, crape myrtle and other ornamentals. When growth is 2 to 4 inches, spray a mixture of 1Tbs. baking soda and 3 drops of liquid soap in a gallon of water. Do not spray if temperatures rise above 90 degrees.
  • Seed bare patches in lawns.
  • Watch for black spot, mildew, or rust on roses and spray if needed.
  • If aphids appear on roses, rinse off with a strong spray of water or insecticidal soap.
  • Feed camellias when the finish blooming.
  • Fertilize roses, annual flowers and berries with a slow-release fertilizer when spring growth begins.
  • Paint trunks of young trees with diluted water-based white paint to prevent sunburn and borer problems.
  • Prune and fertilize spring flowering shrubs and trees after bloom.

Home Improvement & Remodeling Magazine

by: Julie DeVorss

After years of waiting to remodel the interior and exterior of their home, an El Dorado Hiill’s couple decided it was time to take advantage of the slower economy and use their saved up funds to invest in remodeling their front and backyards. Five years ago the homeowners got a bid on replastering and re-tiling their pool and decided to wait. A year ago they’re neighbors across the street got a front yard “facelift” for their yard, which inspired them get a quote to remodel their own outdoor spaces. They knew that they could take advantage of lower pricing and probably get more for the same amount of money they would have spent five years ago on their pool. For example the cost of two-colored stamped colored concrete in 2005 was anywhere from $9-12 per sq. foot. You can now find that same quality concrete $6.50-$7.50 per sq. ft.

The homeowners started by contacting the neighbors’ landscape contractor, Don DeVorss of Green Valley Nursery & Landscape (“Green Valley”). Green Valley set up a meeting with their landscape designer, Jill Hardesty of Beyond the Gate Landscape Design, to create a plan for their front and back yards that would solve their More >