Front Yard Landscaping

Planting and taking care of a landscaping plant or shrub is a little different then taking care of a tree.  For planting, early spring is usually the best time so that the landscaping plant can take advantage of a long growing season and get established before winter weather sets in. This may not be as important to a landscaping plant in more mild climates where transplanting can be done throughout the winter season.

The main cause a landscaping plant dies or grows poorly from transplantation is allowing the roots to get too dry during the process.  You can avoid letting the roots get too dry by digging a root ball with each landscaping plant and wrapping it in burlap and keeping it wet, or heeling it in, which simply means temporarily setting the landscaping plants in an area where the roots can be covered with dirt and kept moist.

If you get a landscaping plant from a nursery, be sure to water it immediately.  Other steps you can take to ease the process of transplantation for a landscaping plant are:

Provide some shade for the first little while.

Mulch the ground around the landscaping plant to help keep it from drying out.

Prune the landscaping plant back significantly (the older the plant, the more it should be cut back).

Although there are some landscaping plants that can be moved while they are in flower (Forsythia & Azalea for example) most landscaping plants should not be transplanted while in flower.
 
Another important step to help each landscape plant survive during the winter months is to water them deeply in the fall so that they have a source of moisture when the top of the ground freezes.

Pruning a landscape plant helps keep it more vigorous as it gets older.  That doesn’t mean just cutting off all the branches at the same length by topping the plant.  Pruning means cutting out the older branches and any damaged branches.  In early spring cut out any branches that have been damaged by winter-kill. 

Not all landscaping plants need pruning every year, but it is a good idea to check each landscaping plant to make sure that it is healthy and is not growing out of control.

Read our other posts to learn more about transplanting and maintaining a landscaping plant.

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