Houzz Inc., the leading platform for home renovation and design, today announced the community’s picks for Best Of Houzz 2017, a homeowner-to-homeowner guide to the top home builders, architects, interior designers, landscape pros and other residential remodeling professionals on Houzz from cabinetry or roofing pros to painters.

“We are so pleased to receive for the second time the Best of Houzz 2017 award, which sets us apart among our peers" said Luc Limbourg, head designer and owner of Green Team Solutions, LLC.  “I'm so glad to know that our busines was singled out for recognition by our community of homeowners for helping to turn their home improvement dreams into reality."

The Best Of Houzz is awarded annually in three categories: Design, Customer Service and Photography. Design award winners’ work was the most popular among the more than 40 million monthly users on Houzz. Customer Service honors are based on several factors, including the number and quality of recent client reviews. Architecture and interior design photographers whose images were most popular are recognized with the Photography award.

A “Best Of Houzz 2017” badge appears on winners’ profiles, as a sign of their commitment to excellence. These badges help homeowners identify popular and top-rated home professionals in every metro area on Houzz. Winners will be announced globally throughout the month. 

About Houzz
Houzz is the leading platform for home remodeling and design, providing people with everything they need to improve their homes from start to finish – online or from a mobile device. From decorating a small room to building a custom home and everything in between, Houzz connects millions of homeowners, home design enthusiasts and home improvement professionals across the country and around the world. With the largest residential design database in the world and a vibrant community empowered by technology, Houzz is the easiest way for people to find inspiration, get advice, buy products and hire the professionals they need to help turn their ideas into reality. Headquartered in Palo Alto, Calif., Houzz also has international offices in London, Berlin, Sydney, Moscow and Tokyo. Houzz and the Houzz logo are registered trademarks of Houzz Inc. worldwide. For more information, visit houzz.com.

Watering your mature, healthy lawn every day, or even every other day, is the definition of overwatering. This is wrong no matter what other people tell you or what your neighbors do! What is wrong with watering like this?

Overwatering drowns the plant's roots
Grass plants do not need, and cannot use, this much water! The soil underneath your sod is composed of sand, silt, and clay particles - as well as porous spaces. When it rains, water fills those porous spaces by pushing out the air. Daily watering keeps those pores filled with water instead of oxygen, which is vital to plant growth. Without oxygen, the roots of the sod will suffocate and die, leaving the plant with a very shallow root system.

Shallowly rooted plants are easily stressed
When the roots of the turf plant die due to lack of oxygen, the plant is put under stress. This, in turn, makes them more susceptible to disease and insect damage. Minor disease and insect problems can become major lawn disasters when a lawn is shallowly rooted. Even though the roots are not easily visible, they alone determine the health and beauty of the plant.

Overwatered lawns have more weeds
To compound the problem, the weeds that overwatered lawns often have are the kinds that are more difficult to control. This is especially noticeable on a lawn that has been overwatered for more than two years.

Overwatering wastes time and money and contributes to pollution
Ground water is a natural resource. Wasting water on plants that do not need it just doesn't make sense. Pumping this unneeded water also wastes electricity. Established lawns do not dry in drought - they go dormant and start growing again after a rain. Your lawn will not die if you underwater it. Fertilizer that is applied to overwatered lawns is washed past the roots before it can be absorbed by the plant. Ultimately, this results in nitrate pollution of the groundwater.

Excessive fertilizer applications are needed
Since the fertilizer that you have applied is washed through the root zone before absorption, the lawn will lose color faster. The natural response, of course, is to then apply more fertilizer. In reality, one application that is absorbed, and not washed out, is all that is needed.

How to properly water a lawn
Homeowners want to believe they can have a beautiful lawn all year long by setting their sprinkler system once in the Spring. This is simply not possible because the only settings on a system are how often and how long a zone is watered. What really determines if grass needs water is how dry the soil is. Soil moisture is determined by air temperature, humidity, wind speed, rainfall frequency and amount, soil type, and overall grass condition. These are complex and interrelated factors and the type of equipment needed to take all these factors in account is not available to homeowners today. Until this technology comes along at an affordable price, homeowners will have to take a hands-on approach to lawn watering if they truly want to have a nice looking lawn.

​The proper way to water a lawn is very simple: thoroughly but infrequently. When the soil is dry to a depth of five inches, water the lawn long enough to wet the soil five inches deep. When a homeowner has a new lawn and or a new automatic sprinkler system, he or she should take the time to become acquainted with both. The important area to explore is how much water does the sprinkler apply in, say, 30 minutes and how deep in the soil will this water go down? A garden trowel can be used to dig in the soil to see how dry it is. A screwdriver can be used to poke in the soil. By digging and poking, you can soon learn to equate how much effort it takes to poke the screwdriver in the soil with how dry the soil is. This saves you from constantly digging up your yard. Twelve hours after watering is long enough to see how deep in the soil the water traveled. Each zone should be checked the same way because there are usually differences in the amount of water each zone needs and how much water each sprinkler applies. A lawn can be watered any time of day but it is best to avoid watering in the late afternoon or evening. Early morning is a good time to water.

How do you know when to water?
Walking in your yard and looking for visual signs that it needs water is also important. St. augustine grass will get a bluish color, the leaves will look narrow, and your footprints on the grass will remain for a long time when the grass is dry. Ideally, the lawn should be watered the day before the visual symptoms occur.

Watering correctly seems complex, but all it takes is a little practice. Remember, your lawn will not die if you underwater it. There is a larger penalty to pay for overwatering than under watering!

All over Southwest Florida homeowners are getting ready for hurricane season by trimming their trees, and while trimming dead leaves keeps trees healthy, the hurricane haircut does not.

"With hurricane season on the way, I am seeing increased activity of landscaping. Overpruning palms with the "hurricane cut" removes nutrients, especially potassium, which keeps palms green and thriving. So never cut off green leaves. The more you cut, the more browning you will cause as the palm tries to absorb the lost potassium from fewer fronds. Eventually your palm will die."
Certified arborists know how to prune a palm yet they let the homeowner boss them around. The homeowners should listen to the professionals.
Removing the green fronds takes away the tree's ability to get its nutrients, especially potassium. Without this palms can die. Taking off the palm's boots can also cause damage. The boots carry nutrients and provide support during high winds.
Palm trees have only one growing point, unlike oak trees and ficus and other shade trees that have many growing points. Cutting off the green on these one-point growers is even more damaging than doing it to other greenery.