Home and garden tips: Are you backyard-ready for spring?

Your family yard is extension for your home – providing a respite from stress, offering an outside entertainment area, expanding your living space, and giving kids and pets a safe place to play. Research shows children, and grownups, reap numerous health, social and personal benefits from spending time outside playing.

Here are TurfMutt’s top tips to help homeowners get backyard-ready this spring, courtesy of the TurfMutt Foundation.

Plan for fun: Depending on your lifestyle and climate, consider an outdoor room with turf grass for a game of croquet and a place for kids to run and play, trees and shrubs for privacy and a game of hide and seek, fire pit, pergola, sandbox for kids and dogs to dig in, outdoor furniture, or a decorative water feature.

Plant for kids and pets: There are many species of turf grass to choose from to create pets’ and kids’ play spaces. Your local garden center or landscaper can help you identify what will work best for your climate zone and lifestyle. And don’t forget to avoid toxic plants if pets are part of your family.

Remember wildlife and pollinators: Grass, trees, shrubs and flowering plants provide food and habitat for birds, small mammals and pollinators, so plant to support them.

Take stock of equipment: Do you need to update, upgrade or replace your outdoor power equipment, like a lawnmower, hedger/trimmer or edger? Want to install a water solution like a smart irrigation system? Invest in outdoor power equipment now so you are ready to roll for spring!

For more information, go to www.turfmutt.com and www.savinglandscapes.com.