Your back yard is the one piece of ground you can always go to recharge. It’s where your kids play. It’s where you have a barbecue. It’s where you can lay out and read a book during a lazy weekend.

When you go outside for some peace and quiet, you want your environment to be as beautiful as possible. Landscaping and lawn care aren’t just about keeping up with the Joneses – they’re about taking care of your own mental health.

Here are a few ways to make your backyard as pleasant as possible.

Tip #1 – Plant Some Flower Beds

Flower beds are a great way to make your yard more vibrant. They’re best placed in corners, or along fences and walls. Instead of seeing a bare surface at the edge of your lawn, you’ll see a vivid splash of color.

Consider planting a mix of plants that flower at different times of year, so your flower beds can change with the seasons. It’s also a good idea to plant flowers that grow to different heights, like sunflowers and hollyhocks, in order to make your arrangement feel more alive.

Tip #2 – Add Texture With Ornamental Grasses

A lush, green lawn is something most homeowners strive for. But a huge green rectangle is visually boring. Consider a small patch of tall, ornamental grasses around trees or between flower beds.

The nice thing about ornamental grasses is that they’re typically low-maintenance. Once you’ve planted them, you can leave them be. All you need to do is cut them down every fall, in order to encourage fresh growth in the spring.

Tip #3 – Fertilize Regularly

The first lawns were areas around castles that were kept clear of trees for defense. Peasants were allowed to graze their animals in this area, and they did what farm animals do; they left their droppings all over the lawn.

Nowadays, most people don’t have goats and sheep in their backyard to keep it trimmed. While that means you don’t have to look everywhere you step, it also means that your lawn isn’t getting any natural fertilizer. It’s important to fertilize in the spring and the fall, to make sure your grass is getting all the nutrients it needs.

Tip #4 – Aerate Your Lawn

With rain, foot traffic, and natural setting caused by Father Time, the soil in your lawn becomes compacted. When that happens, it becomes harder for water to penetrate. It also means that fertilizer is likely to rinse away instead of soaking into the soil.

Before you fertilize, it’s a good idea to use a lawn aerator. These machines pull small plugs of earth out of the ground, loosening the soil and improving penetration.

Tip #5 – Install a Sprinkler System

It doesn’t always rain as much as you need it to. Droughts and summer heat can dry out your lawn, turning it into a sad brown display. You can solve this by running a sprinkler on a daily basis. But it’s a pain to go out every evening and move the sprinkler around periodically.

If you’d like to keep your lawn watered without a lot of headache, an automatic sprinkler system will take care of it for you. Omni Sprinkler Service specializes in installing and repairing automatic sprinkler systems. With their years of experience, you can be confident that your lawn is in good hands.