We love landscaping, but we also enjoy sharing the lessons we've learned from our years designing, installing, and maintaining Boston's most beautiful properties. Below are a few posts from our (amazing) team. If you would like to learn more about our design, installation, and maintenance services, please contact us today.
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Protecting Your Family and Property from Mosquito-Borne Illness
With recent news about Triple E and West Nile Virus, it’s more important than ever to protect your family from mosquito-borne illnesses. Here’s how you can minimize risk, protect your home, and safely enjoy your outdoor spaces:
Hardscaping vs. Landscaping: What You Need to Know Before Hiring a Landscape Company
If you're considering a renovation or upgrade, you may have come across the terms "hardscaping" and "landscaping." Understanding the differences and similarities between these two elements can help you make informed decisions when hiring a landscape company.
Four Keystone Plants That Are Good for Your Garden and the Planet
One simple way to add ecological function and biodiversity to your property is by planting one or more keystone plants.
Design Ideas: Drought Tolerant Plants
We've compiled a list of some of our favorite drought hardy plants so you don’t have to choose between a beautiful yard and preserving a precious resource.
Reclaimed Stone: A Well-Worn Path
At a Blade of Grass, we strive to find materials that are environmentally sensitive. Reclaimed stone exists at the perfect nexus of traditional look, high quality material, and environmental responsibility.
Design Ideas: For the Love of Ferns!
Gardeners that think outside the box, and are open to planting something other than the usual shade suspects, should consider the ferns!
Historic Gardens for Victorian Homes
“Victorian” is a broad category within which there are multiple iterations of some common stylistic components reflecting the cultural and sociological changes happening between approximately 1830 until 1910.
Which Mulch is Best: Leaf vs. Bark
Learn why mulch is such an important aspect of our landscapes, and why you
Design Ideas: Pollinator Gardens
In this blog post we review the steps required in establishing a pollinator garden. Top among that list are time and patience.
Droning On: Getting Started with Landscape Aerial Photography
As landscape architects and designers, a view from above is one of the only ways that we can see the finished landscape from the same perspective that we’re designing it, from a top-down plan view.
Design Ideas: Winter Silhouette Gardening
Recent years have shown a new (and in some cases a renewed) interest in growing native plants in the garden, and are most frequently seen in the form of pollinator gardens.
Low Care Natives for The Woodland Garden
Recent years have shown a new (and in some cases a renewed) interest in growing native plants in the garden, and are most frequently seen in the form of pollinator gardens.
Gardening in 2020: The Pandemic Effect
Through all the negative things that happened in 2020, there was plenty that occurred as a result that was inspiring. The green industry alone saw an activity spike that included such things as enthusiasm for growing vegetables at home, garden centers sold out of just about everything, and a wait of months to get playsets installed as families remained at home and spent the summer outside.
The Advantages of Leaf Mulching
Does the thought of not raking, blowing, piling, bagging, and disposal of all those Fall leaves make you jump for joy? Good! Ditch the rake and do the right thing – mulch those leaves right back into your lawn, the way nature intended. By mulching and returning the leaves back into the turf canopy we create a healthy environment for the lawn to thrive in and absorb throughout the winter, preparing the lawn for the arrival of Spring.
How to Design a Flower Bulb Garden
Spring bulbs are wonderful in every way. Many of them bloom early, while most other plants haven’t dared to break bud. They have interesting shapes, colors, and textures and there is something magical about the fact that they are planted in the fall and then lay dormant until they poke up through the earth at the first sign of the spring thaw.
Design Ideas: Five Fall Plants for Your Garden
Autumn is truly when New England shines. So many quintessential pieces of the area’s identity come out in fall: apple picking, the Patriots, and of course the amazing foliage transformations. But changing leaves aren’t the only source of color in the fall garden. Here are a few of my favorite ways to brighten the landscape in autumn.
Design Ideas: Three Flowering Shrubs
There are countless shrubs to choose from, with more being developed yearly by plant breeders. It’s tempting to fall for the newest or shiniest variety, but it’s wise to build the structure of your garden with tried and true performers. For me, there are three flowering shrubs that stand out amongst the landscape, as it were.
Bring the Heat with Outdoor Fire Features
We all have an ancestral connection with fire that persists, even as technology plays an ever-increasing role in our day-to-day life. Fire is elemental, essential - it gathers us round to inspire with its dazzling dance, protect for the unknown in the dark, and soothe our psyches with its warm embrace. As landscape designers, we love to include fire features — pits, bowls, rings, and even grills — for exactly these reasons.
An Entryway Makeover in Wellesley, MA
In 2009, a Blade of Grass began work on a beautiful home in Wellesley, Massachusetts. The 1916 house had recently been renovated, and as part of that process, the front portico was rebuilt and extended. While beautifully done (though maybe a little bit imposing in scale) the portico now landed directly upon a worn asphalt driveway that had been cut and patched when new utilities were installed.
Easy to Grow Perennials: Ornamental Grasses
Are you tired of tending to your perennials to keep them looking good throughout the growing season? What if I told you there's a plant that needs care only once a year and requires only that you cut it down? And that once established, you don’t even need to water it? Yes, it’s true, this unicorn exists! It’s not just one plant; it’s a family of plants: ornamental grasses.
How to Design a Low Maintenance Garden
Clients often request “no maintenance" or "low maintenance” plantings for the design of their garden. Let’s just agree right off the bat that there is no such thing as a no maintenance garden. Even if you cover your land with a pad of concrete it still needs to be swept occasionally, to keep from building up debris. Low maintenance, on the other hand, is a goal that can be achieved.
Design Ideas: Three Ornamental Trees
When you get down to it, the landscape design process is really about creating solutions to solve the challenges Mother Nature throws our way – trees to provide screening and shade, flowering shrubs that won’t be eaten by deer, perennials that can survive hungry rabbits, and so on.
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