It’s springtime, and summer will be here before you know it. Spring cleaning is in full effect, and trips to home improvement stores to grab products to improve our landscapes will soon be a weekend norm. There’s much to do to get our lawns spring and summer ready, including applying a weed preventative, pulling weeds, sprinkling grass seed, and refreshing our garden beds with fresh blooms and mulch. We take great pride in our landscaping, ensuring it looks its best to please HOAs and neighbors and attract potential homebuyers.
With how much time we spend on our lawns and landscaping, don’t you want to do everything you can to protect it? From watering the lawn and bushes during dry weather to weekly mows to maintain a fresh-cut lawn, you work tirelessly to ensure it stays in great shape. Unfortunately, an unlikely suspect can damage your landscaping – your gutters.
Overflowing gutters can damage gardens and landscaping, overwatering them to the point where they either wash away or die from excess water. However, you can protect your garden and landscaping by performing routine gutter maintenance and installing gutter guards. Keep reading to learn more!
How Clogged Gutters Damage Landscaping
Soil Erosion
Soil has many layers besides grass, each playing an important role in sustaining vegetation and helping to drain excess water. The bottom layer of soil is bedrock, made of unweathered rock that supports the other layers. Next is regolith, mostly made of broken bedrock and little organic material. The third layer from the bottom up is subsoil, full of clay and other minerals like iron and calcium carbonate. The fourth, from the bottom up is the eluviation layer, containing silt and sand. Next is the topsoil, where roots grow and seeds germinate. The top layer is called humus, which contains leaf litter and other organic material that decomposes.
Soil erosion occurs naturally or by humans. Heavy rainfall or wind washes away or blows the topsoil out of place, preventing plants, trees, and flowers from growing. Humans can also speed up the process of soil erosion by weakening the topsoil by removing vegetation. Clogged gutters overflow, rapidly increasing soil erosion and washing away that second layer of soil, ruining your landscaping. Therefore, gutters should remain clog-free to prevent overflowing water that causes soil erosion.
Uneven Drainage
Clogged gutters cause uneven drainage, forcing water to continually flow over the sides of the gutters, always landing directly underneath them. Eventually, this water will create a trench, causing uneven drainage and excess standing water. This excess water will saturate the top layer of soil, eventually washing away both the humus and topsoil, making it impossible for grass, flowers, shrubs, and bushes to grow and flourish.
Overwatering
Have you ever set up the sprinkler in the front yard only to accidentally forget to turn it off when you were supposed to? If so, you know how drenched your lawn can get, causing overwatering and leaving you with a soggy yard. The same occurs when you have clogged gutters, which are only worse. Overflowing water has nowhere to go other than over the sides, landing in the same spot continually, saturating the grass and landscaping surrounding the gutters. As a result, your landscaping will be overwatered and unable to grow and flourish.
Proper Gutter Maintenance
Protecting your landscaping starts with proper gutter maintenance to avoid clogged, overflowing gutters that force water to spill over the sides and overwater your plants and lawn. Half-round gutters and gutters without gutter guards need more maintenance than other systems since the inside of the gutter is exposed, allowing debris like leaves and pine needles to enter the system.
Follow these tips for proper gutter maintenance:
- Deep clean your gutters at least two times per year to prevent clogs
- Trim trees that are close to or overhang your roofline
- Regularly check your gutter system for damage
- Remove ice dams
- Install gutter guards
Proper gutter maintenance is crucial for keeping gutters clean and allowing water to flow through the system optimally and efficiently.
How Gutter Guards Protect Landscaping
Gutter cleaning is a great way to protect your landscaping, but it’s a temporary fix that needs to be repeated often. If you’re tired of cleaning your gutters and want a permanent solution to avoid landscape issues caused by faulty gutters, consider installing gutter guards.
Gutter guards eliminate the need to clean your gutters, especially if you install K-Guard Gutters from K-Guard Heartland. Our gutter product blocks debris from entering the gutters or downspouts, eliminating the risk of clogged and overflowing gutters. Installing K-Guard keeps water flowing through the system quickly, keeping up with heavy downpours and rapid ice melt while withstanding severe weather like strong winds and hailstorms. K-Guard Gutters will never overflow, preventing erosion and landscape damage. Therefore, K-Guard is the best option for homeowners in and around Kansas City.
Our gutter guards are also sleek, adding curb appeal to any home. Whether you have a multiple-story colonial, new construction, historic, or a single-story ranch, K-Guard will complement the beauty of your home and add value. Our gutters are available in many colors including earthy neutrals to vibrant blues and greens. We have plenty of color options in stock and access to 25 extra color options, making it easy to customize your K-Guard Gutters.
From the most extreme weather like hailstorms and severe thunderstorms to high humidity levels, K-Guard will last for the home’s life. Our aluminum gutters are so durable that we offer three-lifetime warranties, including a lifetime no-clog warranty, a paint warranty, and a workmanship warranty. K-Guard is better than other gutter guards and gutter covers, protecting your home from water damage year-round.
We also have a convenient estimation calculator that gives you a ballpark estimate for installing K-Guard Gutters. In just minutes you can get a free quote without having to schedule an estimate to get a feel for the installation cost. Our installation process is simple with three easy steps to get lifetime gutters. Contact K-Guard Heartland today for a free estimate, a detailed analysis of your current gutter system, and estimated costs for installing K-Guard on your home.
