At Five Star, we think the DIY mentality that is making a comeback is great. It leads to many creative and interesting ideas. Everything from making a solar water heater to building cement cobble stones for the back yard. The internet is a powerful resource for creation and information, however, it isn’t infallible. Often, projects can go sideways costing you both the time and the materials. Sometimes a project seems straight forward but there’s a lot of complicated factors. Here are a couple projects we think are best left to the experts.

A grand entrance: Nothing make an impact like a beautifully landscaped entrance. This can be a variety of things: an allée of trees leading to your front door or perhaps a plant covered archway. This one may seem simple enough. After all, you just have to go to the nursery, buy a bunch of trees, dig a bunch of holes, and done – right?

Maybe not. There are so many varieties of trees in the world! It can be hard to figure out which ones are going to meet your needs. Probably you’ll want trees with far reaching crowns to make a beautiful allée, but perhaps you want trees that go straight up and look more like leafy pillars. You also need a tree that isn’t going to give up and die once the February windchill hits it. And how much shade do you want provided? Do you want the shade to hit your house? How much light do you even receive? Different trees have different preferences and some are going to be better suited for your yard. Other things to keep in mind is how much maintenance do you want to do, are there overhanging lines you’ll have to dodge, and what are the root structures like?

Questions like these are best figured out before you have ten trees growing in your yard and causing problems.

Working with Water: There’s a reason waterfront property sells for so much. Water, whether it’s ocean, lakes, ponds, or creeks, is gorgeous. It makes sense that people would want water on their property for just the aesthetic points alone. However, with the right know-how, a practical pond that serves as a swimming hole in summer and an ice rink in winter could also be created. Adding this sort of practicality demands experience though. In order to keep everyone safe, the depth and shape must work together. Beyond that, the water feature must be placed where it’s not going to have a bunch of runoff draining into it. This is true even if your pond is only for decoration. It’s our responsibility as people to make sure that our actions don’t negatively affect the environment. That means we can’t have fertilizers and pesticides running into our water where they’ll potentially leach into the ground and join the water table.

But working with Five Star is about protecting yourself as well as the environment; before you build a water feature, you need to be sure that your home is safe from spring flooding.

Whether you like to get your hands dirty and do a project yourself or prefer to sit back and let the professionals handle your landscaping, sometimes it just makes sense to call the experts. If you’re thinking of tackling a big project or if you ever feel unsafe when working in your yard – it’s time to call in the professionals. Call Five Star Landscaping today at 403-203-4058.