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The Top Choice Austin Landscaping Blog

Lawn Fertilization in Austin: Why, When, and How to Do It Right

By The Top Choice Team / October 1, 2025

In Austin, fertilizing your lawn isn’t really that optional (unless you don’t want to have a nice yard).  Think of it as feeding your grass the right diet with the proper micro nutrients. Timing, product selection, and application matter a lot more than most people realize. Get it wrong, and you’re wasting money (or worse,…

What to do about winter weeds in Austin Texas

By The Top Choice Team / September 30, 2025

Many people associate weeds with spring or summer when it seems like everything is coming to life. In fact, there are plenty of winter weeds in Texas that deserve our attention while temperatures are cool. Let’s look into what these weeds are and what you can do about them. Step 1: Identification Most weeds fall…

Drip Irrigation: The Smarter Way to Water in Central Texas

By Nolan Gore / September 11, 2025

Short Version: Drip irrigation delivers water underground — right to the roots — saving water and boosting plant health. It’s perfect for Central Texas landscapes, especially in mulched beds, slopes, and even those narrow lawn strips by the street. What Is Drip Irrigation? Drip irrigation (also called subsurface drip) uses a network of tubing buried…

What Is Backflow Prevention — And Why Should Homeowners Care?

By The Top Choice Team / September 11, 2025

Short Version: Backflow happens when water flows the wrong way and takes contaminants with it. A backflow prevention device keeps fertilizers, pet waste, pool chemicals, and more out of your drinking water. If you have an irrigation system in Central Texas, this is one of those things you don’t want to ignore. So… What Is…

The Shaded Retreat: Designing a Lush and Low-Maintenance Shade Garden in Austin

By Nolan Gore / September 9, 2025

As a residential landscape company in Austin, Texas, we understand that not all garden spaces receive direct sunlight throughout the day. Whether you have towering trees or a north-facing yard, creating a lush and low-maintenance shade garden is achievable with the right approach. In this post, we’ll share our top secrets to designing an attractive…

5 Best Shade Trees for Austin

By The Top Choice Team / September 9, 2025

Best Shade Trees for Austin Texas Here are 5 of the best shade trees in Austin and Central Texas. It is hard to say that one is better than another, it really depends on the micro-climate and your specific needs. This is meant to be a quick overview. If you want more information, we are…

What is a Native Plant in Central Texas? A Real Talk Recap

By Nolan Gore / August 21, 2025

A couple of weeks ago, I sat through a full day of landscaping classes at a Texas Nursery and Landscape Association (TNLA) expo. One of the most thought-provoking sessions was about native plants—a topic we all think we understand… until we start defining it out loud. The presenter was sharp. She lives in Fort Worth,…

The State of Lawn Robots in Austin, Texas: A 2025 Reality Check

By Nolan Gore / August 20, 2025

Last time I wrote about lawn robots, I opened with “Robots coming through!” That was back in 2018 when we introduced Willie, a Husqvarna Automower we named because Willie Nelson means grass, which we thought was hilarious. Well, spoiler alert: they’re still not good enough to use in most yards. They have reached a point…

How to choose the right plants

By Nolan Gore / May 6, 2025

Don’t put a plant in the ground until you’ve thought through these. Seriously. We plant thousands of plants every year—and we’ve seen just about everything. Over time, we’ve developed a go-to list of questions we ask ourselves before putting any plant into the ground. It helps us avoid the most common mistakes we see from…

Silkworms in Central Texas

By Nolan Gore / April 10, 2025

Silkworms in Central Texas: What Are Those Worms Crawling on You? Have you ever been in a serious conversation—maybe even a meeting—only to feel something crawling on your neck? You do the jump-and-slap combo, thinking it’s a spider, and it turns out to be a tiny, green worm. Welcome to springtime in Central Texas. Those…