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Keep your home and family safe during the holiday season

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Flickering candles. Tiny twinkling lights. The fragrance of fresh-cut pine. A crackling fire in the fireplace. Our senses are alive with the aromas of the holiday season. Most likely you will begin your Christmas decorating soon. We are looking forward to this time of family and friends too, but we also want you to be safe and avoid a fire-related tragedy during this festive time.

The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) has some excellent holiday safety tips we’d like to pass along.

  • Holiday decorations should be flame retardant and non-flammable. That means modern that meets current safety standards. Holiday decoration fires are most likely to happen in the living room, family room or den because they are placed too close to a heat source.
  • Light your way. Replace any string of lights with worn or broken cords. LED lights. While they are an up-front investment they are cooler and a long-term investment. We were rummaging in the basement for our lights and found an antique string of bubble lights. Remember them? As much as we’d like to recreate our childhood memories for our children, the bubble lights will stay in the box.
  • The Christmas tree is always the centerpiece. Select a tree that has a sticky trunk, green needles and branches that are hard to pull back. Ask for a fresh cut and when you bring the tree home, immerse it in water immediately. It will be very thirsty and needs continual watering throughout the holiday season. Keep your tree at least three feet away from heat sources.
  • Ahh, the glow of candlelight. So romantic and cozy. However, according to the NFPA, unattended candles cause more than half of home fires during the holiday season. Place lit candles on stable surfaces, away from flammables, children and pets. Don’t leave your candles unattended, even if you place candles in the fireplace instead of firewood. Extinguish ALL candles before you turn in for the night.
  • Fireplaces are the center piece of a room. They are also a potential fire hazard. We recommend hiring a chimney sweep to check it out every autumn. Clean chimneys don’t start fires. Use only seasoned wood; don’t burn wrapping paper, cardboard boxes or pine branches. The Chimney Safety Institute of America also cautions that, while a chimney helps your home to breathe, it requires special care and maintenance to avoid carbon monoxide fumes and fires behind the lining.

This holiday season is also a great time to check your smoke alarms and review your home escape plan in case of an emergency. With a few precautions, we’ll all have a safe and happy holiday.

Selling your home this Halloween season? That can be spooky, but toning down the decorations goes a long way to a quick sale.

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And so it begins with Halloween–the holiday season when home decorations, both outdoor and indoor–proliferate through the new year. If you home is on the market now, you can still bring out the decorations, but with some cautions.

Curb appeal is the first step to entice buyers through the front door. First impressions alone can sell your home. Little goblins and ghosts are accompanied with parents who may be in the home buying frame of mind. Be prepared to make the most of your curb appeal by toning down the decorations, especially for Halloween, so that potential buyers can actually see your home. Here are some helpful tips.

Safety first. Always. Keep the walk in front of and to your home clean and debris-free. Make sure the walkway is well lighted to avoid accidents. This Halloween, go more for the fall look with pumpkins and flowers rather than a collection of screeching bats, frantic witches, and lose that yellow caution tape. You’re selling a home, not a disaster site. And, no towering, spooky inflatable lawn ornaments. Please.

You’ve had all of your windows washed, right? Let the light in. This year, avoid taping paper decorations to your windows. Turn the lights on and create a warm autumn atmosphere inside your living room. This cozy tableau will help buyers see themselves sitting by the fire.

Decorations do not linger. The day after Halloween, take down all decorations. It’s back to staging the best curb appeal possible. Sellers who leave decorations up long after the “sell by” date can be perceived as not caring much for their property.

The day after the decorations go down, check your property for trash, trampled flowers and stray candy. Freshen your landscape again–trim bushes, rake leaves, wash the driveway and add a beautiful autumn wreath on your front door.

Even though you may be known in your neighborhood for the biggest, spookiest, rockin’ Halloween decorations, keep in mind you can do that all over again next year in your new home. This year is all about attracting buyers.

Putting your yard “to bed” in the fall means less work next spring

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Taking good care of your lawn at the end of the season makes good sense

Our lawns and landscaping have taken a beating this summer. Extended high temperatures and no rain have done us no favors. Landscape designer Jeanne Baker has some tips for you to look ahead to next spring’s renewal.

While it may not be as rewarding up front as planting new spring flowers, getting your lawn and gardens ready for winter will be a real time saver come next year. Here are some tips to help you organize a fall cleanup.

  • Dead-head perennials. Remove spent annuals after the first frost, but resist the urge to prune perennials to the ground as this can invite insects and fungal infections. Always wait until spring when the first new growth appears before cutting perennials back.
  • Dig tender plants such as canna lily, dahlia and annual geraniums right after the first frost. Air dry plants and store in a cool dry location for the winter.
  • Don’t forget to water trees and shrubs, especially evergreens. The general rule is one inch of water per week. So check your rain gauge.
  • Collect soil samples from several locations in your lawn and around your trees. Have both samples tested. If lawn samples indicate a low pH apply lime now. Fertilize trees if soil samples indicate a deficiency.
  • If you are planning on reseeding or over seeding your lawn be sure to do it by mid-October.
  • Cool season grasses benefit from fall applications of fertilizer. Nurserymen recommend three applications during the fall months. Cool season grasses include bluegrass, fescue and rye grass. Warm season grasses include zoysia, buffalo and Bermuda grass.
  • Broadleaf herbicides can be applied now to control cool season weeds.
  • For those who garden organically and shy away from herbicides and petroleum based fertilizers, a lush lawn is attainable. Organic fertilizers are available. Bradfield Organics, a local company, produces organic fertilizers specifically designed for lawns. If you choose an organic use a 3-1-5 fertilizer in the fall.
  • Rake your lawn to help keep it healthy. Your grass can actually be smothered when covered by a deep layer of leaves.

Both you and your landscaping will feel much better next year.

Don’t go to extremes taking care of your lawn during long high heat spells

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This extended heat wave has most of us ragged around the edges, waiting for that dip in temperatures to the mid 70s¬–during the daytime, not at night!

High heat also affects our lawns and gardens, and is of particular concern if you have your home on the market this summer and want to maintain green, fresh curb appeal. The goal for summer lawn maintenance is not to stress your grass, but not just let it be either.

Summer is not the time to fertilize. Forcing grass to grow in extreme heat is counter- productive and will lead to burnout. Your grass shouldn’t be mowed too much either. Grass will lose valuable moisture through the tips and the shorter the grass is, the closer the sun is to the ground, resulting in hard packed soil. Mow your grass sparingly to 2 ½ to three inches.

Hold off on the chemicals too, such as herbicides. They burn your grass as well as the weeds, and really aren’t that effective during periods of intense heat.

Watering should be done in moderation too. A lawn needs about one inch of rain or watering a week early in the morning to allow the moisture to evaporate during the day. A good soaking is better than a few sprinkles; soaking the grass keeps the roots growing down while superficial watering brings the root system up to the soil surface.

Missouri Botanical Garden experts also point out that lawns may turn brown in mid-summer, but that is not necessarily something to worry about. The turf grasses we use in Missouri naturally go dormant in mid-summer with too much heat, as we have now, and little water. Your lawn is still alive and will green up again in the fall. Just think of it as your lawn taking a break. You should still water on a regular basis and do routine maintenance. Look for your results in September.

Just as you don’t want to stress your lawn, don’t stress yourself either. This has been an extraordinary summer, but the grass will be greener in a couple of months.