Landscape planting clean up

Its time to get the ornamental planting beds spruced up as the perennials begin to pop their heads out of the ground for the season.  We use power pruners to cut all the stalks and dead plant material away from the base of the plants before they get too large.  A rake and blower assists in removing the dead plant material and oak leaves that seem to gather in almost every bed. 

As you know, some perennials can become invasive and move out of their assigned spot in the hierarchy of plants.  We will be rejuvinating a couple of the beds, especially in the member grill entrance, sunroom and patio area of the club.  Achillea and Daisy's have multiplied, divided and conquered a little more space in the grill planting than I would like to see.  We also have some invasive plants that have come into a couple of our beds either from the mulch or some plants that were placed in the garden a few years ago.  These invasive plants have required many hours of weed pulling to remove them from the bed.  I will be making some selective chemical treatments to help control the weeds before the desirable plant material gets too large and could be damaged from the spray.  Ornamental plantings need some revitalizing every few years.  We will  be fertilizing, preemerging and will place a light cover of mulch in place for water retention and weed prevention over the next few weeks. 

Ladybug checking out my handy work and looking for a vole(mouse) that sometimes can invade our plantings.

The aftermath of raking, hand pulling and blowing. I will add pictures as the improvements continue to be made.