BLOG
Spark New Landscape Ideas
Dive into our blog and discover inspiring ideas, expert tips, and creative solutions for all things landscape design and maintenance. Whether you’re dreaming of a lush oasis or a sleek outdoor living space, our posts will guide you every step of the way.
Benefits of a Lawn Care Program
It won’t be much longer until the Hively Landscapes team is out in full force in order to ensure our clients’ lawns are the greenest on the block. Can you believe winter’s on its way out already? Yay!
Come Visit Us at the York Builders Home & Garden Show
Hively Landscapes is proud to be a part of the fiftieth anniversary celebration of the York Builders Association Home & Garden Show. It’s a great event which we’ve found to be both fun and informative. If you’re interested in attending, take a moment to check out the details below.
January & February Landscaping Tips
Happy New Year! With 2018 just around the corner, it’s time to start preparing your landscape to look its best in the spring. While it is easy to hide away from the cold winter weather here in Pennsylvania, be sure to spend some time in January and February knocking out some simple yard work- beyond taking down the decorations you put up for the holiday season.
Up Your Curb Appeal with Professional Landscaping Services
It’s no secret that curb appeal landscaping can increase the value of your home and the likelihood that it will sell successfully. However, moving is already a stressful time for any homeowner and you may not have the time to sort through curb appeal ideas, let alone implement any of them.
Add Color to Your Landscape with These Fall Flowers
Leaves are falling and Autumn is knocking at our door. For most fall color means the browns, reds and oranges of those falling leaves, but if you are wishing for more color, plants that are hearty enough to withstand the falling temperatures. To get you started, we’ve created a list of our favorite fall flowers.
Prepare Your Landscape For Winter with Fall Lawn Care
Cooler weather will be here before we know it! And while it’s tempting to assume that the change of seasons means you can take fall lawn care off your to-do list, this isn’t the case. Continuing upkeep and maintenance on your landscape is essential during the cooler months, especially if you want to have a healthy, lush lawn by the time spring rolls around. Here are some simple steps to winterize your landscape.
Lawn Aeration in the Fall Creates Healthy Landscapes
Turf grass, like any plant, needs a strong root system to thrive. However, turf grass is pruned far more frequently than most plants– every time the grass is cut! This means grass spends most of its energy growing new foliage, instead of strengthening its root system. A poor root system means a plant, including grass, can’t get the nutrients it needs, is not able to survive extended dry periods, and is less resistant to pests and pathogens.
Container Gardening Tips
Container gardening isn’t just for the urban landscape, or those of us with attention deficit issues. Containers and planters are a great way to add POP to your landscape and create visual focal points that might be hard to achieve with traditional landscape techniques. Planters can also be used to rotate seasonal flowers and decorations, even in the cold winter months.
It’s Hot! Keep Your Landscape Happy with These Summer Weather Tips
It’s the time of year when the air conditioning is cranked up and working outside is the last thing you want to do. Our region has experienced a mild and wet spring but summer is officially here and you can bet heat waves are in our future. While you can hide out in your AC, your landscape is stranded out there in the heat. How can you keep your landscape happy on the hottest of summer days? Follow these simple summer landscaping tips to help your plants survive the season.
Choosing the Right Herbicide for Ultimate Weed Control
Spring has arrived and with it will come all the joys of being outside enjoying your landscape…and weeds. Crabgrass, thistle, nutsedge and all of our other favorite perennial weeds will thrive this spring, especially because the of the mild winter that was not cold enough to permanently damage existing dormant seeds. Great! So, now what?
Spring Garden and Landscape Preparation
In order to keep your landscape looking its best year-round, now is the time to put your springtime prep work in. The experts at Hively Landscapes came up with the following list to help you focus your efforts and save time during your spring garden and landscape preparation, so you can spend more of it enjoying the fruits of your labor.
How Warm Winter Weather is Harming Your Plants
Warm, 60- to 70-degree February weather in south central PA feels wonderful for those of us longing for spring, but your lawn and landscape don’t share the same sentiments. In fact, drastic changes in temperature can do quite a bit of harm to your lawn, trees and shrubs, and affect their health throughout the entire growing season.
Rock Salt Alternatives: You Won’t Believe What is Destroying Your Walkway
We’ve been blessed (or cursed, depending on your point of view) with snow-filled winters in Pennsylvania in recent years. While fun for some, those winters wreak havoc on our roads and landscapes. If you have concrete or natural stone walkways at your home, you may even have noticed their condition deteriorating.
Winterizing Your Deck, Patio and Other Outdoor Spaces
As the recent burst of cold fall weather has reminded us, winter is just around the corner. With the Thanksgiving holiday over, it’s time to winterize your deck, patio and other outdoor living spaces before the weekends get any colder! Here is a short list of things to do, compiled by our staff, to prepare your landscape and outdoor areas for the colder months ahead.
Winter Planning Leads to Early Spring Installation
We don’t blame you for putting your landscape on the back burner during a busy holiday season, where you certainly want your home looking great for those extra guests who will be stopping by. We encourage you to not forget your landscape, however, as this is your best opportunity to get a jump on next year. Here are just a few reasons one of the best kept secrets to landscaping success is as simple as and preparation.
5 Steps to Better Fall Lawn Care
It appears cool weather may finally be here to stay after a hot, dry summer and early fall. Along with fall maintenance tasks such as swapping your screens for storm windows, reversing your ceiling fan, and cleaning rain gutters, you should prepare your home’s landscape for what’s coming.
Add a Dash of Color to Your Fall Landscape
Whether the local thermometers agree or not, fall is underway here in Pennsylvania. Summer 2016 was another scorcher, and while York, Lancaster and Adams counties aren’t currently in a declared drought, many of our neighboring counties are.
Improve Ambiance, Comfort & Safety with Simple Landscape Lighting
One of the often forgotten and generally underused secrets of a beautiful landscape is landscape lighting. Used properly, landscape lighting brings out a property’s beauty in a way that’s much different from the way in which natural lighting highlights that same beauty.
Ensure Landscape Success with Simple Soil Testing
Many landscape owners believe that the problem is simply the inevitable result of this year’s extreme heat and irregular rain, but something else may be having an effect, and even with ideal temperatures and rainfall, that factor can prevent lawns and landscapes from being fully healthy and looking great.
Natural Pest Control
In celebration of Shark Week 2016 kicking off this Sunday (June 26), we wanted to draw attention to a real danger to humans here in Pennsylvania… mosquitoes! You may be surprised to learn that the deadliest animal in the world is also one of the smallest in size.