How to Maintain Your Beautiful Canadian Vacation Home Year Round

Whether it’s a lakeside cottage, a mountain chalet, an oceanfront bungalow, or a cabin nestled on the broad Canadian prairie, a vacation home is a retreat from the world with all the comforts of home. It’s a place to put your worries aside, so why would you want to worry about it when you’re not there.

Even if you’ve taken precautions to make sure the interior of your vacation home is going to remain as problem-free as possible, the lawn and landscaping are still going to be doing what nature intended, which is to say, growing and maybe even becoming unruly.

To stay on top of vacation home maintenance and leave yourself free to enjoy your time when you’re there, have you considered hiring someone to take care of things for you? A professional lawn care company, for instance, with people trained in the complex science involved in keeping your yard healthy as well as beautiful. Aren’t there dozens of things you’d rather do when you’re on vacation than get out the lawn mower?

Here’s what a good lawn care service should do:

Analyze Your Lawn

Photo CC MCdeMtl

Like any other living thing, grass thrives best in a friendly environment that suits its needs. That’s where the science of lawn care comes in.

• Soil analysis. Testing the soil is an essential first step to discovering and correcting imbalances in pH and the vital nutrients phosphorous, nitrogen, and potassium that grass needs to put out healthy roots and grow.

• Lawn usage. A study of how you use your vacation home lawn will play a part in deciding what kind of seed to sow. A front lawn that’s meant to do nothing more than add a beautiful welcome when you and guests arrive doesn’t have the same requirements as a backyard lawn that’s expected to host big barbeques or be a play area for children and pets.

• Climate and microclimate. Within the main categories of cool season, warm season, and transitional zone types, there are many varieties of turf grass. Analyzing the geographic conditions, the purpose of your lawn, and the look you’d like to achieve, a professional can select the kind of grass that will best suit your needs and thrive with the least amount of problems.

• Disease diagnosis. With so many potential causes, you really need an expert’s knowledge and experience to diagnose and treat lawn diseases. It’s vital to know not just what kind of disease you’re dealing with and what kind of treatment to use, but also when to use it to maximum advantage. Using the wrong product at the wrong time can cause more harm than good.

Create a Treatment Plan

Establishing a lawn isn’t a one-time thing. At various times throughout its growing cycle, it needs to be fertilized, aerated, over-seeded, and treated with pre-emergent and targeted weed control as well as preventative pest control. You won’t have to give any of that a moment’s thought if a good service is staying on top of your lawn’s needs.

Customize for Every Season

The more temperate months are when intensive lawn care really kicks into gear, but even in winter when the ground is covered with snow, the lawn at your vacation home needs checking on to make sure it will come back and thrive when the weather warms up.

Watering and mowing requirements need periodic revision based on the weather despite the season, and scheduled service will maintain your lawn’s health throughout the year.

Guarantee Services and Satisfaction

As long as Canada’s wonderful birds keep flying over your vacation home and dropping weed seeds they’ve picked up in their travels, there’s no guarantee that your lawn will remain problem-free. But a service should visit as often as necessary to take care of any continuing issues and to deal with new ones as they occur. A reputable service will stay current on the condition of your lawn and be available between scheduled visits to make sure that both you and your lawn are happy.

With your lawn taken care of, there’s plenty of time for the kind of outdoor fun a vacation means, whether for you that’s napping in a hammock or having friends over for a backyard game tournament.