Landscaping Renovation

Garden installation mid-town Toronto

Adding mulch, decorative groundcover, flagstone, edging , and plants to your landscape

A note about expectations when it comes to softscaping: A home’s softscaping is a frustrating maintenance task. Landscaping fabrics fail quickly allowing weeds to penetrate through. Mulch fades and gets blown away during fall maintenance. Weeds grow everywhere regardless of how often you cut or pull them. An installation looks beautiful on day 1 and by day 2 you’re regretting the hole in your wallet as everything starts to look a little less impressive. It’s important to set expectations when it comes to landscaping, and if clients ask, I try to inform them about how long any particular project they have will hold up and maintain its appearance and functionality.

Adding Topsoil, Peat Moss to Garden Beds

A note about garden soil, mulch, compost, and peat moss: Soil, mulch, and amendments can all be added to the top layer of a garden to give it a fresh, new appearance. All are beneficial to a garden bed but each has its own function. Peat moss holds moisture (useful when overseeding); soil provides a base layer for planting (useful for perennial and grass planting); compost provides soil texture and nutrients (useful when installing annuals and vegetables or amending soil); and mulch prevents retains moisture on a surface level and thick layers keep weeds down (useful for keeping plants alive throughout the year and invasive species at a minimum).

Artificial turf replaced with mulch

Artificial turf notes: Artificial turf is considered hardscaping. Before installing it, double check with the city to see how much of your front yard softscaping you can remove to replace with artificial turf. The turf is installed on top of a 4 inch minimum layer of crushed gravel and set in place with lengthy metal spikes.