Prepare for a full weekend at the 64th Annual Greater Kansas City Home Show & Flower, Lawn, and Garden Show. This show is bursting at the seams with experts from every area of home improvement. HGTV’s Monica Pederson will be featured along with several other celebrity guest speakers at Bartle Hall March 23rd through 25th as well as NiteLites of Kansas City Outdoor Lighting.

Spring gives homeowners the opportunity to assess the look and feel of their home and landscaping. Home shows offer home improvement products and services to clean up the exterior of the property, plant grasses, attack weeds in the yard and flower bed, and to finish off the effort by spreading mulch. This home show will have professionals to address all the homeowners interior and exterior spring projects.

Mulching is a common, inexpensive way to give a fresh look to a landscape. Not only does mulch boost the beauty of a home and landscape, but it also provides many other valuable benefits for shrubs and trees. Adding organic mulch around plants, shrubs, trees, and landscape focal points such as sculptures and seating areas, is a great way to reduce landscape maintenance and to keep plants healthy.

Although mulch provides many benefits, it can be the source of serious problems. Too much mulch can lead to retention of too much moisture which can lead to root rot. Also, excessive mulch may create an unwanted haven for insects and tree or shrub disease. Most landscape professionals agree that a layer of 2 to 4 inches of mulch should be evenly spread for the landscape.

One more caution on the use of mulch – mulch should never cover the landscape lighting fixtures or their heat vents. All lights, indoor or outdoor, produce heat. An outdoor light that is covered in mulch has no means for the heat to escape. If the heat cannot escape the mulch may start to smolder from the extreme temperature build-up. In doing so, the heat can melt the PVC composite of the light, burn the insulation off the cable and eventually short out the lighting system. In essence, the lighting system will require several new lights, new cable and a repair bill that could have easily been avoided. So, no matter who spreads the mulch or what time of year the work gets done, caution should be used not to cover lighting fixtures or their heat vents.

NiteLites of Kansas City Outdoor Lighting recently earned a Kansas City Section Award by the Kansas City IES Board & Illumination Awards committee. They are honored to help educate homeowners and commercial builders about the importance of well designed, installed and maintained landscape lighting. Professionally installed LED landscape lighting by NiteLites is used to improve the overall attractiveness of properties and their landscaping. “Green” electricity saving outdoor LED lighting and organic mulch are a perfect eco-friendly pair.

Home show attendees are encouraged to assess the benefits of this new lighting technology which consumes much less energy and lowers energy bills, is resistant to heat, cold, and shock, and has a life span of up to 50,000 hours.

Here at NiteLites, we are a national outdoor lighting franchise specializing in high-performance LEDs for landscaping and the exterior of properties. Our systems are specification grade and are perfect for commercial buildings or residential homes.