Why landscape your property?

Economic Benefits:

• Homes with attractive landscaping sell quicker-by as much as five to six weeks.
• Landscaping adds an average of 14.* percent to a home's value.
• Landscaping enhances property values, which add to the community's tax base
• As home improvements go, landscaping is an excellent investment. Recovery value at selling time can be 100-200 percent.

Environmental Benefits:

• Trees moderate urban "heat islands!" created by extensive paved areas. Lawns cool a home at the same rate as a one-ton air conditioner. Lawns also trap dust, absorb noise, and provide outdoor living areas for children and adults.
• One tree removes 26 pounds of carbon dioxide from the air every year and releases about 13 pounds of oxygen-enough for a family of four on a daily basis.
• Plants reduce noise pollution up to 50 percent.
• Plants control runoff and erosion. They allow soil to absorb water, returning it to aquifers, decrease runoff means less urban flooding.
• Lawns slow the spread of wildfires to homes.
• Plants provide food and habitat for wildlife, which contributes to biodiversity and a healthier environment.
• Landscaping creates green space for human rest, recreation and renewal.

Tips courtesy of the Ocean County Vocational Technical School Agriculture and Environmental Science Program and the NJ Nursery Landscape Association.

Things to do in the flower garden for October

In the flower garden:

• Finish planting spring-flowering bulbs except tulips.
• Wait another two wees to begin planting tulips.
• Shred fallen hardwood leaves and use for mulch.
• Finish planting, transplanting spring and summer-fowering perennials.
• Order dormant roses, lily bulbs for November planting.

In the food garden:

• Harvest Brussels sprouts from the bottom up.
• Plant radishes for Thanksgiving dinner.
• Leave leeks, carrots, beets, spinach in the garden for harvest as needed.
• Wait until after frost sweetens kale, parsnips to begin harvest.
• Bundle spent corn stalks for Halloween decoration.

In the house:

• Deprive poinsettias, holiday cactus of all light from sundown to sunup.
• Make succession plantings of paper white narcissus.
• Allow amaryllis to go dormant.
• Water succulents only every three to four weeks, just enough to keep them from shriveling.
• Pinch back leggy vines for fuller grownth.

On the lawn:

• Keep leaves raked from grass.
• Continue mowing until growth stops.
• Treat germinating checkweed with a selective herbicide.
• Lime any time between now and spring.
• Fertilize if none has been spread since September.

Lawnmowers and grasscycling

Lawnmowers & grasscycling

What is grasscycling? Grasscycling is the natural recycling of grass clippings by leaving clippings on the lawn after mowing. There is no need to bag them, just cut it and leave it! Grass clippings make up a significant part of our waste stream, and there are only limited areas to dispose of them. Be a part of the solution, while at the same time, save time and money plus have a healthier lawn! Proper mowing is essential. Avoid mowing more than one-third of the lawn height. To grasscycle, a special mower is not needed. Regular lawn mowers can be used to grasscycle effectively by removing the collection bag and adding a blade adapter, which will cut up and pulverize grass even more finely. Grasscycling provides up to one-half of the nitrogen needed by a lawn. When you rake them up, you rob your lawn of food.