Are you planning to renovate your home’s exterior this summer? Before you begin your exterior painting project, consider the impact it will have on your lawn and plants. Not only do the plants, shrubs and trees you grow around your home contribute to its value; they also offer you the perfect shelter in the overwhelming heat of Florida’s summers. Moreover, the trees and shrubs around your home significantly reduce the amount of sunlight reaching your house, which means that you’ll have to use less energy to cool down your space.
If you’re looking for a way to revive your home’s exterior without damaging the plants and trees around it, here are a few useful tips that can help you out.
Protection during Preparation
One thing you can do to avoid damaging your plants is plan a route that goes around them. If you have any shrubs or plants in pots, pull them away from the work area. As well, if you intend to hire a contractor, let him know that all the plants and trees are important to you.
No matter what kind of finish and application method you opt for, you need to have free access to walls, window frames and roof overhang. To make painting easier and safer, prune out dead, damaged and diseased branches near your home. If you’ve already pruned your shrubs and trees, removing the healthy branches that block movement around the perimeter of your home is better than breaking them with the ladder or scaffolding later on. Also, you can raise and tie some of the branches or install flexible plastic fencing to create a more workable space.
Coming down to preparing walls for exterior painting, pressure washing surfaces with plain water is by far the most effective method for removing dust, debris, dirt and grime without harming your plants. Don’t use chemicals, or you risk killing most of the plants that grow alongside your home.
If you have to remove existing paint, loosely covering your plants with plastic sheeting and the ground with drop cloths or plastic tarps will help you catch paint chips and prevent the infiltration of chalky residue into the soil. To minimize damage, don’t use regular drop cloths to cover delicate, fragile plants and shrubs. If you have enough plastic sheeting to cover all of your plants, watering the ground very well beforehand will help you prevent plant dehydration. Bearing this in mind is critical especially if you intend to maintain the plastic sheets in place until the completion of your exterior painting project.
Though doing all these things can take a fair amount of time and effort, it’s the only way to keep your plants alive and looking great against your newly painted exterior.
Protection during Painting
Keeping the plastic sheets and drop cloths in place or moving them from one area to another, as you move the ladder or scaffolding, will protect your lawn, plants, shrubs, trees and walkways against potential paint spills and splatters. To protect your tree trunks, you can apply the same plastic sheets or stretch wrap, starting at the bottom of each three and working your way up. Also, try to place scaffolding or ladders away from trees. An injured tree can become more susceptible to insects and diseases, which may lead to its demise. Once the work is done, remove all the sheets and wraps right away.
A word of caution: protecting your trees, shrubs and plants is important; but more important than that is to protect yourself. Always practice safety when painting. This basically means using sturdy, well-maintained ladders or scaffolding, watching out for things that can make ladders become off-balance, and wearing protective clothing and safety glasses to avoid injury.
At Performance Painting Contractors, we love humans, pets and plants. Therefore, if you’re looking for a premier painting contractor who is ready to complete your interior or exterior painting project, while protecting everything inside and outside your home, don’t hesitate to contact us today. Whether your property is small or large, our professional color consultants and painters can make it look amazing without blowing your budget.
