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If you're looking for landscape tips, here's a few simple ones I can offer you. Probably
the most important thing you need to note when you're out thinking about what to plant
and where to plant it, is where's the sun and where's the shade. Too often, people plant
sun-loving plants in the shade or shade loving plants in the sun. You really need to assess
how much sun is that spot going to get during the day. For full-sun plants, which are most
plants that we like to plant, you need at least six hours. If you only have four hours
of full sun and four hours of dappled sun, dappled shade that's going to be okay. You
really want to make sure that you have enough sun for a full-sun plant. If you have shade,
which many of us do, especially here in New York City around tall buildings, you really
want to focus on shade-tolerant plants and shade-loving plants. In this case, many of
these plants actually need to be in the shade, and if you planted them in full sun they would
suffer, the leaves would burn and the plant would wither.
The next thing I see amateurs doing a lot is planting a big plant, or something that
will become a big plant that's now very small, in a small space. You need to really do your
research and ask yourself honestly, how big is that plant going to eventually get? You
may go to the nursery or your local box store and buy a small, little plant, a small, little
tree that you think, "Oh, that fits that space perfectly," but if you read the label, and
they all have labels, you're going to see that tree will probably become 60 feet tall
and 40 feet wide. That little small space that you planted it in is, suddenly, going
to be that giant tree pushing up against your house. So be careful, and read the label.
If it's a large plant, even though it's small now, it will get large. Make sure you give
it enough room to grow. You don't want to have a plant that you have to keep pruning,
holding it back because it wants to get bigger than it is.
If you plant the plant in a space that will eventually grow into that's probably going
to leave a lot of open space around plants. While you're waiting for those plants to grow
in, you can fill in those open spaces with annuals, perennials or just ground covers.
You do want to make sure that you cover the soil in between the smallest immature plants,
because if you leave the soil bare, something will come and grow there. It'll be weeds,
you won't like it, and you'll have to pull them out. Plant the plant in a space that
has enough space to grow and fill in the vacant space with annual, perennials, ground covers
to prevent weeds. Those are just a few landscaping tips out of so, so many.