With Memorial Day weekend just around the corner, now is the perfect time to start thinking about how you can prepare your landscaping for a fun and relaxing holiday celebration. And what better way to do that than with a Memorial Day BBQ?
This blog post will take you through some essential landscape prep tasks to ensure your outdoor space looks its best. We’ll also suggest some entertainment activities to incorporate into your Memorial Day BBQ to keep your guests engaged and having fun.
Landscaping Prep for Memorial Day Celebrations
Cleaning Up Yard Drainage Problems
If you plan on having a Memorial Day BBQ, but your yard turns into a pond during heavy rain, you must contact your drainage contractors to repair that area.
Our drainage contractors at Campbell and Ferrara will correct water problems, such as water in your basement, downspout burials, extensions, water pooling, and your yard’s low spots.
Read more: Why Should I Build a Seatwall?
Our drainage contractors can transform your landscape from a swampy area to a beautiful landscape feature by installing a river rock stream bed to divert water from poor drainage areas on your property.
Adding Hardscapes to Enhance Your Memorial Day BBQ
Add walkways to connect different hardscapes and features for a harmonious landscape design this spring.
You can also include patios with an outdoor kitchen, dining and living rooms. You can make your backyard an extension of your home with outdoor rooms and comfortable furniture.
You can add garden structures to your backyard as an extra room for your friends and family to enjoy looking at your flowerbeds or taking in a Zen landscape.
Why You Need a Retaining Wall
A retaining wall helps with soil erosion and water drainage. A retaining wall also creates leveled areas in your landscape.
But retaining walls don’t have to be boring. Your landscape designer can incorporate steps, seatwalls, and landscaped spaces into a functional outdoor living space.
Freshen Up Your Landscaping
Before your Memorial Day BBQ, ensure your flowerbeds and other landscapes are clear of weeds and spent blossoms. If you didn’t finish your spring cleanup in your flowerbeds, now’s the time to do it.
Clean out your beds of dead flowers, cut back spring bulb greens, and split your perennials. Then, add any annuals or new perennials to your gardens. Finish up with a fresh layer of mulch.
Cleaning Up the Lawn
While you’ve been mowing for the past several weeks, it’s an excellent time to see if you need to overseed any bare patches, add fertilizer, and cut your lawn right before your Memorial Day party.
Learn more: Landscape Tech for Outdoor Entertainment
Entertainment Activities to Keep Your Family and Friends Engaged on Memorial Day
If you’re having a big bash on Memorial Day, you want to ensure you have plenty to do to keep everyone happy. Here are some outdoor activities to add to your party.
Include fun outdoor games such as cornhole, a trampoline, volleyball, and swimming pool games. You can also have these outdoor games available, so if someone wants to pick up a game with a few people, they can. Don’t feel pressured to organize every moment.
At nighttime, or if Memorial Day is cool and cloudy, you can set up your firepit to roast marshmallows and hot dogs; don’t forget to make s’mores too.
If it’s a more intimate gathering on Memorial Day, include outdoor blankets and pillows to snuggle up in front of your outdoor fireplace. And don’t forget to add outdoor lighting so you and your guests can enjoy your outdoor living space well into the evening!
Prepping Your Outdoor Kitchen for a Memorial Day BBQ
Your outdoor kitchen will come in handy on Memorial Day! You can have your entire party outside by cooking a feast with the built-in grill, refrigerator, pizza oven, BBQ smoker, and side burners to help you.
Here are three areas where you must prep before your Memorial Day BBQ:
- Clean the Grill – Scrape food residue from the grill grate to the drip pan, remove inside parts, vacuum inside the grill, degrease the grill and drip pan, and put on new liners.
- Prepping Your Outdoor Kitchen – Clean the sink, refrigerator, pizza oven, warming drawers, bar area, and other outdoor kitchen parts. Stock with beer, wine, and soda for Memorial Day.
- Plan Your Menu – What will you serve at your Memorial Day BBQ? Ask your guests if anyone has any food sensitivities (gluten-free, lactose-intolerant, diabetes), and plan to have a variety of food available to meet those dietary needs.
Improve Your Outdoor Living Spaces with Campbell and Ferrara
We offer hardscaping services at Campbell and Ferrara and a retail garden center catering to Alexandria, Annandale, Arlington, Fairfax, Falls Church, Mount Vernon, and Springfield, Virginia homeowners.
We help homeowners with their outdoor living spaces. If you’re planning a Memorial Day BBQ, call us today at 703-775-4331 or fill out our contact form.
Sources:
AmericanSale.com, 8 Backyard BBQ Tips for Memorial Day.
BBQGuys.com, Outdoor Kitchens.
GardenSeason.com, 7 Great Garden Activities You Can Do Over Memorial Day Weekend.
HorizonLandscapeCompany.com, The Perfect Backyard for a Memorial Day Barbeque: Memorial Day Weekend Is the Unofficial Start of Summer.
Unilock.com, How Do Retaining Walls Work?