If you’re considering a career in landscaping or you just wonder what landscapers do all day, I’m here to help. It’s not all about lawn care. There are many other seasonal tasks landscapers perform. Take my day from last week. It was classic. We installed 6 yards of Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) mulch, then 3.5 yards of 1-3″ round granite rocks and then, to cool down, we built up lawns with 6 yards of lawn and garden mix soil followed by the planting of boxwoods (Buxus).
A new raised bed
This raised bed was full of weak laurels (Prunus laurocerasus ‘Otto Luyken‘) and the strata asked for a thick layer of mulch and rocks on top. Sure. The mulch is nice and light and it smells great. This was the highlight of my morning. I wheelbarrowed most of the six yards into position.
Douglas fir mulch. It’s light and smells great.
Almost finished.
Then came the hard part. The 1-3″ round granite rocks are obviously heavier and they don’t smell great. But it had to get done.
Not shown are decorative rocks that were placed in this bed at regular intervals in groups of three.
Lawn build-up
After lunch we turned to lawn build-up. This involves covering existing lawns with a nice layer of lawn and garden soil mix which contains a large percentage of sand. Once you move it in, you rake it out nicely and then run a rolling pin over it to get it level and ready for overseeding.
To build-up this tired lawn we required several yards of soil.
Ready for Boxwood planting and overseeding.
Boxwoods
Planting boxwoods (Buxus sempervirens) is easy. The only challenge is not messing up the new soil with mulch from the plant pots. I placed a tarp nearby to help me. If you do this at home, definitely water in your new plants.
Vents
The lawn patches under the vents struggle as the constant air streaming dries out the grass. So we dug it up and put in leftover road base. Then we placed extra rocks from the new raised bed job on top of it. There, another permanent solution to a nagging lawn problem. The rocks won’t care one bit how much air streams over them.
The grass under this vent struggled all year so removed the top layer.
Next came road base layer because we had some leftover.
The rock on top finished the job and now we don’t have to worry about struggling lawns.
Conclusion
This was an awesome, sunny and busy landscaping day. The hours just flew by and the site looks much better. We created a new raised bed, built-up tired looking lawns, replaced dead boxwoods and we solved a nagging problem. Not a bad day.
