Ahhh… landscaping. It looks beautiful when it is maintained properly, but it requires a lot of work. While we want our homes to appear aesthetically pleasing, it is important to keep in mind some guidelines.
1. Keep shrubbery is 3 feet away from your home.
At HomePro, we refer to plants touching a home as “insect ladders,” since insects can just crawl up the leaves and onto your home. Not good! Also, when plants are close to/touching a home, it is restricting air flow around the house and it is trapping moisture within your siding. Once again, not good!
2. Cut trees back 8-10 feet from your roof.
Once again, insect ladders! Another animal that would love to play on your roof is a squirrel. Squirrels will eat the flashing around your chimney (it is made of lead and sweet in flavor) which is not good. Also, they could potentially crawl down your chimney into your home and cause rodent-induced pandemonium.
In addition, when branches are pushed by the wind, they rub on your roofing shingles, which will damage the gravel coating of the shingle and ultimately shorten its’ lifespan.
3. Beware planting trees near power lines.
Tree branches entangled in power lines can cause huge issues. The obvious issue being that it could affect you and your neighbor’s electrical service by tangling the line, but also that once this happens, you must call the energy company to cut the tree (because, DANGER!) and that could be costly.
4. Avoid low siding.
When it comes to mulch, less is more. When mulch or soil is tall enough to reach your siding, you are encouraging moisture in your home. We recommend at least 4-6 inches of foundation to be exposed to avoid moisture wicking into the siding. Do this by digging down 8 inches, adding gravel, then mulch/soil so that moisture is directed where it should go, which is in the ground!
Bonus tip: For the sake of conservation, do not trim shrubbery/plants until the weather is consistently above 50 degrees. Some bugs like to burrow within plants during winter, so wait until the weather is warm enough for them to find a new home before you evict them.