MENUIf your green thumb starts itching on these sunny, snowless March days, resist the urge to get out and start working in the yard. Your yard isn’t as ready for spring as you are.
The soil is still very wet. And there’s still a chance for a hard, killing frost. Wait for temperatures to moderate before beginning your spring planting. There’s a reason why we consider Memorial Day to be the start of our growing season. We can have hard frosts well into the month of May.Once the ground firms up and you don’t leave footprints in the lawn, it’s safe to go out and begin your spring clean-up. But you should wait to begin planting. Even though the plants you select may be hardy in our zone, a hard frost while they are young and tender can kill them.I’m not suggesting that a Memorial Day start is cast in concrete but wait until it “feels” right to work in your planting beds. Let the lawn be one of your gardening barometers. If the grass needs mowing and the mower doesn’t leave tracks in the turf, then it is probably OK to begin working in the beds. The soil is another barometer. Take some in your hand and squeeze it. If little or no water comes out of the soil then it’s OK to work. If a lot of water runs out, it’s still too wet.Spring bulbs will provide you with early spring color, provided you planted them last fall. Spring flowering trees and shrubs will also brighten your landscape. You should wait until bulbs and woody plants are finished blooming before planting annuals. Annuals will be most susceptible to any late season frost, and our unpredictable winter may just bid us farewell with a late frost, or even a storm.You can use this time to get a head start on your spring clean-up so you’ll be ready to work the soil when the soil is ready to be worked. As you are cleaning, make a mental note of what needs updating or renovating in your landscape. Commit it to paper when you go back inside. You can also use this time to set up your patio or deck. Furniture and statuary can be placed. However, taking out your temperature-sensitive plants could do them irreparable harm.Although our growing season is relatively short, there will be plenty of days to work the soil. It may not seem like it, the season is actually more than half the year.
When your lawn has greened up for the season, you will be able to see any damage that it suffered over the winter. That’s the time to determine the cause and make any repairs. All lawn damage is mechanical, chemical or disease damage.
Mechanical damage is usually confined to the edge of your driveway or the road, and it’s usually caused by a snow plow. When the grass is firm enough to support you without leaving footprints, you can replace divots just as you would lay a new sod lawn. It’s done by roughing up the bare soil with a rake, cutting the divots so they fit together like a jigsaw puzzle, placing them on the bare spots, walking on them to make contact with the soil and, finally, watering them in.If the divots are damaged and unusable or you can’t find them, seeding is the most economical alternative. Begin by roughing up the soil. Then, spread compost or fertilizer, followed by seed. I suggest taking a small sample of your sod to the garden center so you can match up the seed composition with the rest of the lawn. After you’ve seeded, rake in the seed, and water your new planting. Keep watering until the new grass has become established.Most chemical damage is caused by road salt. Sodium chloride melts snow and ice and mixes with the resulting water. This is very toxic to plants. Passing vehicles then splash it on to your lawn. Chemical damage is usually confined to the grass in your tree lawn (the area between the curb and sidewalk), although splash can cause damage further into your front yard. This repair is made the same way as the seeding repair from mechanical damage. I recommend a hardy seed mixture that can withstand salt water for your tree lawn. It would be a good idea to overseed the whole tree lawn with the hardy mix as a preventive measure.Several fungal diseases attack lawns in winter, leaving patches of dead grass. Some have interesting shapes and colors. The thing they all have in common, though, is that they kill patches of grass. The most common reaction is to apply a fungicide. Resist the temptation. Fungicides won’t help. Instead, rake the dead grass out and throw it away. If the dead area is small, the healthy grass will fill in the area. If it’s larger, you’ll have to reseed, using the same method as you would for chemical damage. If mushrooms are present, manually remove them, especially if you have pets or small children, since these fungi may be poisonous. When reseeding, use a fungus-resistant seed variety. Overseeding the whole lawn with fungus resistant seed will help keep your whole lawn fungus-free next winter..If you need help nursing your lawn back to health, talk to of our lawn care professionals.
All winter long, your ornamental grasses have endured the wind, ice, snow and cold weather of winter. Spring is the time to reward these hardy plants with their annual hair cuts. This ritual isn’t just to make them look nice. It’s also necessary for their health.Other colorful plants may bloom around the trimmed ornamental grasses and hide them while they begin to grow new leaves. Soon the grass leaves will overshadow the companion plants and you’ll be ready to watch the fall and winter ritual of plants dying and going dormant for the winter while the ornamental grass begins to assert itself and tower over the planting bed.This annual ritual of cutting ornamental grasses back nearly to the ground each spring lets light get into the area where seeds are germinating to grow into new ornamental grass plants that will provide you with nice color this winter.The brown sheaths of grass you see above the snow each winter are actually dead, or more accurately, spent. Last spring, those sheaths were
nice and green as they grew to their extended height. Seedheads then formed on the tips and the mature seeds dropped to the ground. So, you are actually making way for new plants when you cut the old ones back.Grasses should be cut back to just inches from the ground. The tool you use is up to you. I’ve used manual hedge clippers, power hedge clippers and even pruning shears. If the snow pack has caused the grasses to flop over, tie them back upright with rope or twine before cutting them.Don’t wait too long to cut your ornamental grasses back or you may cut off some new growth. You may not be able to see new growth through the old growth, but small green leaves are starting to push up among the old sheaths. Once trimmed, you’ll be able to see the new growth in the remaining stubble.
The greenscape aspect of your landscape is enjoying a well deserved winter dormancy. But your hardscape isn’t. Walkways, decks, patios, retaining walls and other hardscape items are all out there in the elements year round. The constant pelting with ice, snow and road salt can take a toll on concrete, landscape pavers, stone, wood and other hardscape material. Hardscape repairs can be made on the nice, warm days that we should start getting soon.
Some of the repairs you’ll have to deal with include filling cracks and potholes in asphalt driveways, Concrete driveways, walkways, pool decks, and even some patios, can experience cracking and chipping. Landscape pavers can sink or heave, break, or shift. Wood deck surfaces can become rough and the protective coating can be worn off.You can do all of these repairs easily. Home centers sell asphalt and concrete patch that can be poured into cracks and holes and then troweled to a nice, smooth finish. To repair chipping and cracking, concrete patching material can be spread as a surface coat. Extensive repairs, such as leveling an entire patio and repairing a retaining wall, are best left to a professional mason or driveway contractor.If landscape pavers are broken, they have to be replaced. If they sink or heave, the stone dust or sand base has to be adjusted. Base material has to be either added or removed to make it level and then the pavers can be replaced and new stone dust or sand swept between the affected pavers and those surrounding them. If the whole patio is wavy, you’ll have to pull up all the pavers, level the base and replace the pavers. It can be a daunting job if you’ve never done it before. But our hardscape professionals can do what’s necessary to make your patio look like new. They can also handle concrete repair of small areas like sidewalks and pool decks.Repairing wood decks usually involves sanding down rough spots and re-applying the protective coating. Our hardscape professionals can also do this for you.If you check your hardscape now, you can begin preparing to do the job, whether it’s DIY or done professionally, and that concern can be behind you. Then, when the soil dries and it’s warm enough, you can begin your planting and landscape maintenance.
When discussing flower gardens, the term “seasonal color” is used often. Although some may interpret that to mean only spring or summer, it can also mean four- season color. Plants bloom in fall as well as spring and summer. However, you shouldn’t limit yourself to just one kind of plant. And in winter you need to depend on plants’ other color attributes. This means mixing woody shrubs, perennials, bulbs, annuals and even trees.
Spring is here, according to the calendar. Soon, the bright yellow blooms will appear on forsythia. The crocuses push their way up tnrough snow if there is any. Absent the white stuff, they just push up through the soil and announce that spring is here. Crocuses are followed closely by daffodils, tulips and hyacinths. Hellebores also bloom in the early spring.After the spring bulbs are through flowering, shrubs like azaleas, rhododendrons, peonies and, of course a Rochester favorite, the lilac bloom. Then, in summer, roses begin to bloom, as do hydrangeas, cone flowers, spireas and other perennials. Depending on the variety, you can expect viburnum shrubs to bloom in either spring or summer.Knowing the blooming time of these shrubs and perennials, you can plan which annuals you want to plant to supplement and complement them. Pansies are early bloomers here. And their flowers last for a long time. As spring becomes summer, you can plant the better known annuals like petunias, marigolds, geraniums, begonias, and the list goes on.As summer fades into fall, perennials like asters bloom, as do witch hazel and such sedums as Autumn joy. And then there’s the iconic chrysanthemums (mums), a symbol of fall. You can also enjoy fall blooming bulbs like fall crocus. Plant them in September and they bloom a few weeks later. Many people do a double take when they see these flowers, one of the first to welcome fair weather, also bidding farewell to summer.When winter arrives, your sources of color transition from flowers to colorful tree bark, conifers’ green needles, ornamental grasses and holly berries.Our designers can help you with the planning process and our installation professionals can help you with the planting to any extent you want.Enjoy!
Much emphasis is placed on backyard landscaping. That’s because it’s where we live. Let’s not forget about the front yard, though. It’s what visitors, passersby and neighbors see. Their reaction to your front landscaping is called curb appeal.Some believe that curb appeal is a real estate term that applies only to houses that are on the market. It doesn’t. It applies to all homes all the time. They say that we only get one chance to make a good first impression. Your front yard is often the first, and only impression visitors and passersby have, and that’s how they judge you and your family.
The photos are from one of our customer’s home. The long rock garden was planted when the house was built 17 years ago. It turned out to be high maintenance and eventually detracted from the curb appeal. The owner had us replace the over gown rock garden with the oval garden around the post lamp. Now this space is attractive year round, even in winter. This was all that was needed to improve the curb appeal.Now back to your front yard. Take photos now and again when everything is nice and green and in bloom. Take them from the curb but from different angles. Does your front yard look dull, drab or dated? If so, it’s time to spruce it up
this spring.Look for such things as overgrown gardens. unpruned shrubs and trees, grass growing into the sidewalk, driveway and planting beds. Broken, chipped, cracked or heaved pavers can be a hazard as well as unsightly. Overgrown shrubs may be blocking your house. A small tree that your child brought home from school on Arbor Day and planted in the front yard may now have grown so large that you can’t even see the house from the curb.Overgrown foundation plants can pose a security threat as well as a curb appeal issue. Security and law enforcement agencies warn that these plantings provide burglars and other unsavory characters with cover to lie in wait for you. If these plantings block a window, a burglar could enter your house undetected.If you would rather not update your home’s curb appeal yourself, one of our designers would be happy to visit your property, look at your photos and make recommendations for improving the curb appeal. If you agree with his verbal recommendations, he will then prepare a design for your approval and for our installation professionals to follow.
The winter snow and cold weather are holding many of us captive in our own homes. While cabin fever is tightening its grip, you can do more than just dream of living outside. You can begin planning a patio that’s an extension of your indoor space – an outdoor living room and kitchen that contain everything you would want in an outdoor living area.Outdoor kitchens and living areas continue to be among the most popular landscape features. As a result, our installation crews will be busy, starting as soon as winter breaks right through until Old Man Winter starts breathing down our necks again. To assure that you’ll enjoy a full season of outdoor living, it’s important that you make decisions now, during the winter.
Here’s a recommended process for deciding what you want in your outdoor living space:• You are indoors surrounded by all the comforts of home in both your kitchen and living room. Who wants to go out in this weather? Take your mind off the weather outside by making a list of the appliances and furnishings you absolutely can’t do without in your new outdoor space. Then make a list of those items that you don’t have indoors that you want outdoors. A wood-fired pizza oven and a fire pit are two items that come to my mind immediately.• Jot down what style of furniture you like best – modern, traditional, upholstered, rattan. Do you prefer more individual seating or group seating on couches? Remember, your goal isn’t to recreate your indoor living room outside, it’s to complement the inside room by extending the style across the threshold.• What other outdoor living items would you like to consider? A swimming pool, a hot tub, a sauna, an outdoor gym, or amenities that are uniquely yours?• Schedule a meeting with one of our landscape designers and bring your lists. Give the designer copies of the lists so they can develop a budget based on your selections.• Plan on a follow-up meeting to review the budget. Depending on the size of your lists and the amount you’re willing to allocate to this project, you may have to cut some items out or, better yet, prioritize. Have the space built as the funds become available.We can design your outdoor living space to be built all at once or in stages. If you select to build in stages, the space will be designed so that it looks complete after each stage.Our outdoor living season is short. You’ll want to spend every minute you can outdoors. For that to be a reality, however, you need to be ready to build as soon as spring arrives. Minimize the time that your precious patio space is under construction by planning ahead.
A lot is being written in both the garden media and the mainstream media about the status of pollinators in the environment. These stories all concentrate on bees, butterflies and hummingbirds. They aren’t the only pollinators but they’re the only ones we can help and they pollinate more plants than any other pollinators.
Allergy sufferers know all too well that some pollen is spread by the wind. Most trees are monoecious, which means they produce both male and female flowers on the same plant. The male flowers are at the top of the plant and the female flowers are lower down and gravity and wind take care of the pollination process. We can’t affect either the wind or gravity, so I’ll concentrate on those pollinators that we can help.Butterflies and hummingbirds are the most attractive pollinators but bees are the most productive. Any of these pollinators need three essentials – food, water and shelter. Beautiful butterflies are the most popular pollinators, followed closely by colorful hummingbirds. Docile, hard working honey bees have gotten a bad rap from some of their more aggressive relatives.Butterflies need flowering plants. The brighter the flowers the better. When butterflies land on flowers, it’s to extract sweet nectar. While doing that, however, pollen sticks to their feet and legs. When they land on another plant to imbibe on its nectar, the pollen drops on the new flower and fertilizes it. To supplement your flowers, especially when your garden is just getting started, butterflies would appreciate your putting out a dish of half rotted fruit. If you visit a butterfly conservatory, you’ll see this butterfly feast at strategic spots. Hummingbird feeders are also available for your yard.Butterflies and birds both need fresh water. Birds will use birdbaths but they are too big for butterflies. Butterflies can drown in a birdbath but some garden stores and online garden supply houses sell special butterfly puddling stones. A small, shallow saucer works, tooYou also have to consider the diet of immature butterflies – caterpillars – if you want to enjoy the delicate, flitting adults. These will vary with the species that you want to attract. The most common species in our area is the popular monarch butterfly, and their caterpillars eat only milkweeds, so you need milkweed plants somewhere in your landscape.Special butterfly houses and hummingbird houses are sold by some garden stores and online garden supply houses. But are they used? I doubt it. Butterflies rest in sheltered places like under leaves and hummingbirds rest high in trees and in shrub thickets.When you establish a pollinator garden, you can’t hang out a sign that welcomes butterflies and hummingbirds and directs bees to go elsewhere. However, you don’t have to put out the welcome mat. If you don’t establish a hive, any bees that visit will likely be from an already established hive. It could be right nearby or a considerable distance away. Unless you really want to become a beekeeper, my advice is to leave that to the professionals.Speaking of professionals, our landscape designers and horticulturists can design a pollinator garden with just the right plants to attract the pollinators who frequent this area, and our landscape professionals can complete the installation as soon as the weather breaks. All you have to do is enjoy the colorful show that these creatures put on.
Springtime isn’t the time to make repairs and do maintenance on your landscape tools. A good time to do it is now, during the winter when you don’t need to use them. Come spring, your lawn and landscape plants will burst forth and start growing regardless of whether or not your mower and other tools are ready.Your mower is, arguably, your most valuable piece of outdoor power equipment, and requires preventive maintenance at least once a year. The best time to do this maintenance is in the fall before putting the mower away for the winter. The worst time is in the spring when you need it to cut grass. If you didn’t do it last fall, that leaves winter – now.A push mower needs only an oil change, new spark plug, blade sharpening and under deck cleaning. You may also have belts and cables to check on a self-propelled walk behind. Riders are a bit more complicated. Check your owner’s manual for your brand’s maintenance requirements.On a warm winter day or in a heated garage, doing mower maintenance on a push or self-propelled mower is easy. Start by cleaning the underside of the deck. Tip the mower over on its side and scrape any accumulation of grass clippings off with a putty knife. I do this first because you have to remove the blade to sharpen it, the oil drain is on the underside of almost all mowers and I’d rather work under a clean deck.To sharpen the blade, remove it, being careful to note where the washers and shims go so you can replace them in the proper order. Place the blade in a vice and file the cutting edge until sharp. Try to remove approximately the same amount of metal from each side since the blade needs to be balanced. You can buy an inexpensive balancing tool at a hardware store or mower dealer. Just place the blade on the balancer. If it isn’t level, remove a little more metal from the side that hangs lower. When the blade is balanced, replace it. Be sure it’s tight. A blade can do a lot of damage to you and your surroundings if it comes loose and flies off.Next, put a little gas in the mower, take it outside and run the engine until it warms up enough for the oil to flow. Then, prop it up so you can remove the drain plug. Put a pan under the drain, remove the plug and drain the oil. Replace the plug and fill the crank case with oil before you forget it.Also, open the air cleaner, remove the filter and check to see how dirty it is. If it’s dirty, replace it.Finally, remove the spark plug. If it still has plenty of electrode, clean it with sandpaper. Read the instruction book that came with the mower for the proper spark plug gap. Check the gap and adjust it if necessary, reinstall the plug, attach the wire and start the engine to be sure everything works.Don’t forget to check your handheld power equipment like string trimmers. Most of these tools have two cycle engines so you don’t have to change the oil. However, spark plugs get carbon on the electrodes faster than they do in four cycle engines like the one in your mower. So, check the spark plug and replace if necessary. Check the air cleaner and replace the filter if it’s dirty.If you’re not a do-it-yourselfer, take the mower to a mower shop. But do it now. They get pretty busy as we get closer to spring.
Why would you want to plan for your lawn care and plant health now, when your more immediate need is snow and ice control? Because spring will be here before you know it and you’ll want your lawn, trees and shrubs to get off to a healthy start.
Our lawn care and Plant Health Care (PHC) renewals have been mailed to our customers. I urge you to send yours back as soon as possible to take advantage of any pre-pay discounts. More importantly, New York State law prohibits us from performing any of the recommended services until we have your signed contract. A signed contract renewal is required every year, even if you’re a longtime customer.Lawn care begins with an early fertilization soon after the last snow melts. We consider this application to be an essential jumpstart for your lawn as soon as it breaks dormancy. Pre-emergent crabgrass killer is also an early application.Plant Health Care programs start even earlier than lawn care. As soon as the temperature rises above 40° F, we begin applying dormant oil to trees and shrubs. Many insects overwinter in your plants. Dormant oil coats the pests while they’re dormant, smothering them. Some insects like gypsy moth overwinter as eggs and dormant oil coats the egg cases to prevent a whole new generation of this voracious pest from defoliating your valuable trees.Our dormant oil applications have to be completed before your plants leaf out. If applied to a foliated plant, the oil can interfere with the leaves’ ability to absorb carbon dioxide and transpire water.The timing for controlling weeds, insects and diseases in your landscape requires academic knowledge and local experience. Our trained, knowledgeable professionals relieve you of the need to identify the pests in your landscape and take the right action at the right time. This leaves you with less worry and more time to enjoy your landscape.If you’ve never had the peace of mind and the additional free time you’ll have when our professionals are responsible for your landscape’s health, there’s still time to begin a lawn care and Plant Health Care program for 2018.
What do you see when you look out your windows these wintery days? Piles of white snow with a few bare, brown/gray trees sticking out or colorful plants piercing through the snow banks? Even if you have the stark example now, you can have the colorful option at this time next year. But now’s the time to begin planning the transformation.
Ornamental grass (to the right behind the wind chimes in the photo) is the most common plant to consider for winter color and motion. It turns a tan color in the fall and stands tall above the snow. Many varieties have seedheads at the top that blow in the wind to add captivating movement to your landscape.Conifers are also popular. The conical shape and dark green color of pines, spruces and firs evoke images of a country forest scene, even in the suburbs. However, one conifer, the eastern larch (Larix laricinia), loses its needles in the winter. It’s the only native deciduous conifer, yet it provides year round interest from spring green to autumn gold to a beautiful winter silhouette.In winter, female hollies (Ilex sp.) show off their red berries just in time to be a symbol of the winter holidays. Be sure there’s a male plant nearby, in your yard or your neighbor’s, to provide the pollen needed to produce the berries. There are other plants that also produce berries in winter.Trees like dogwood (Cornus florida) have textured bark and red twigs that rise out of the snow to brightly dance in the wind against a backdrop of glistening white. Birch trees have interesting, exfoliating bark whose rough texture is in stark contrast to the smooth mounds of snow all around it. While white, or paper, birch (Betula papyrifera) has beautiful white bark, it also attracts deadly pests. River birch (Betula nigra) (to the left behind the wind chimes in the photo) is a good alternative. Its exfoliating yellow-brown bark may not be as spectacular as the paper birch but it doesn’t attract insects.Take lots of pictures of your yard now, especially the areas that could use some winter color and texture to make the cold, white snow more attractive. Use the images to see where new trees, shrubs or ornamentals would provide more winter interest. Then meet with one of our landscape designers to discuss your ideas. When we have a clear day with no snow, the designer may visit your property to see if the spots you’ve chosen are good places for your plant choices and if there are plants already growing there that were hidden by the snow.With all this information, our designer can then design your renovations and present them to you for approval. Once approved, the designer can start the wheels turning to schedule installation first thing in spring.
We’re always on the lookout for new landscaping terms and just came across this one: Adaptive Gardening. We’ve been practicing it for years but the need for it has increased to the point that it needed a name, and there’s always somebody to oblige.
Adaptive Gardening refers to modifications to make landscapes easier on senior citizens. The graying of America has increased the need for adaptive gardening so much that national landscaping trade magazines are taking note. I have read several stories recently that alert landscapers to the special needs that should be considered when designing and planting landscapes for seniors.There is even a certification that landscape contractors can earn to signify that they know the special needs of aging clients. In response to the Aging-in-Place movement, the National Home Builders Association (NHBA) created a course of study and examination for contractors to earn the Certified Aging-In-Place Specialist (CAPS) designation. NHBA is now expanding the credential to include landscape contractors.What are some of the landscape changes you should consider as you prepare for your later years?• Simplify your landscape. Select plants that are easy to maintain, and design your planting beds to minimize maintenance.• Install raised beds so you can sit down on the job.• Make your landscape more natural. Informal, natural landscapes are easier to maintain than formal designs that need constant trimming and shaping. Also use native plants and reduce the amount of lawn you have to mow.• Improve lighting. Be sure paths and patios are well lit to reduce the chance of tripping and falling.• Make paths wide and smooth with no steps or steep inclines.• Include shady spaces with places to sit. (See photo)If you are a do-it-yourself gardener, here are some additional adaptive gardening considerations:• Take frequent breaks and keep hydrated. Rest in shady places.• Dress for the occasion. Include a wide brimmed hat and long sleeve shirt, long pants, sunglasses and sunscreen. Wear darker clothes if you don’t want to attract insects,• Do different tasks for a short time rather than working at the same thing all day.• Invest in lighter weight adaptable tools with expandable handles and foam grips, knee pads or a stool, and a bucket to carry your tools in.• Hire out what you can’t do yourself. One of our professional designers can help you determine your needs now and in the future, and design a landscape that you can enjoy for decades to come. And our maintenance professionals can help you with maintenance to any extent that you want. It’s important to know when it’s time to share the fun and call in the pros.There’s a great blog that can provide you with more detail on each of the recommendations I have presented here plus more. It is: thegeriatricgardener.wordpress.com.
Time is running out to buy a real Christmas tree. Your timing is good for the tree, however, because, by Christmas Day, a tree that has stood out in the cold for awhile will be better preserved than one in your warm house since Thanksgiving.
When you go shopping for a cut Christmas tree, here are a few ways to be sure you get the freshest, most attractive tree possible:• Check the shape from all directions. Be sure there are no bare spots and that the tree is conical in shape. Flat spots indicate that they were planted too close together in the field.• Run your hand across some of the branches. A handful of needles will indicate that the tree was cut too early and you are apt to have a Charlie Brown tree by Christmas.• If running your hand across the needles is too rough on your skin, bend a few needles. They should bounce back. If they break, the tree was cut too early.• Tap the base of the tree on the ground. A “puddle” of needles on the ground indicates an old tree.When you get the perfect tree home, cut a quarter inch off the bottom and immediately put it in a bucket of water. Use a hand saw not a chain saw. The heat generated by the chain saw will “cauterize” the vessels that take up water, defeating the purpose of cutting a piece off the base.Keep the tree in the garage at least overnight so it gets acclimated to warmer temperatures. Don’t take it inside until you are ready to put it up. It’ll do better in the cooler temperature of the garage.When you do take the tree inside and put it up, be sure there’s always plenty of water in the stand tray. If your tree is already set up, check the water level and keep the tray full for as long as the tree is inside.If you have a live, potted tree, dig a hole for it now, before the ground is frozen and cover the backfill with a tarp to keep it from freezing. Cover the hole with a piece of plywood or other protection to keep people from falling in the hole. Keeping a live tree in the house for more than a week isn’t recommended. And, you should plant it as soon as you remove it from the house. It’s also a good idea to spray the tree with an anti-desiccant after planting.Here’s to a safe and happy holiday season!
We don’t usually think of plants as forming friendships but scientists tell us that they do, indeed. These friendships aren’t like those we humans make. Rather, the plants share mutually beneficial traits.
Scientists call these relationships symbiotic. We landscape professionals call them companion plants. The companion plant phenomenon isn’t a recent discovery. Native Americans here in the northeast realized that planting certain plants together resulted in greater yield from all of them. They planted beans, corn and squash together and called it them Three Sisters.The three sisters supported each other in several ways. Corn needs a lot of nutrients from the soil and beans enrich the soil with nitrogen. Beans grow on vines and corn provides the support for these vines while the squash, which lays on the ground, suppresses weeds between rows.There are many flower combinations that can be planted together for various reasons. Research shows there’s a chemical interaction between some. Others may keep weeds down or protect against insect attacks. Edibles, including onions and garlic, planted among your flowers can help control insects. (We don’t have a photo of onions and garlic growing in a flower garden but the photo with this post shows tomatoes.) Still other companion plants help fertilize soil and protect each other from rain, snow and sun.Some plants actually repel companionship. Black walnut trees, for example, have a substance, called juglone, that’s toxic to many other plants. This gives the trees a clear area around theirroot zones to assure that they’ll have enough nutrients and uninhibited space for themselves.If you’ve ever tried to grow grass under willow trees, you know that the trees protect their space by growing such a thick canopy that grass can’t get enough light.When selecting companion plants, first determine what you expect from the relationship. Then research the plants that meet the criteria you’ve established. If you don’t want to do all the research, turn the task over to our designers and horticulturists who are very familiar with the companion plants to select to meet all objectives. Our installation crews can take care of the planting for you, as well.
While the cold and snow mean more time inside for many of us, our arborists are hard at work outside because winter is the best time to prune trees. Here’s why:
• While we add layers of warm clothes to go outside, deciduous trees shed their leaves and spend the winter standing outside naked. This allows our arborists to see their skeletal structure and any defects that need correcting and repair.• Dormancy is like nature’s anesthesia. Pruning wounds begin “healing” while the trees’ bodily functions have slowed. When the pruned trees break dormancy in the spring, they’ll be healthy.• Insects are usually inactive during the colder weather, allowing the pruning wounds to heal without concern of insect damage.• The frozen ground enables us to get our heavy equipment into places we wouldn’t be able to when the ground is thawed.• With no leaves, there’s less debris, which keeps your property looking clean and is good for the environment.We prune to meet specific objectives. It may be to clean out or thin the crown by removing dead, dying, crossing, rubbing, broken or weak branches. Removing these branches will reduce the tree’s chance of sustaining damage during wind, snow or ice storms.Other pruning objectives include repairing trees that have been damaged by storms, reshaping those that have suffered such travesties as topping, opening a view, removing a hazard or reducing the size without topping.As I warn in all my posts on pruning, it’s NOT a do-it-yourself task, especially in the winter. On a warm dry day there are more ways to be injured or die while pruning trees than we have room to cover here. Add into the mix icy weather and frozen and brittle limbs and the danger level sky rockets. Our arborists are trained to check for all of the hidden dangers before leaving the ground. If the tree’s not safe to climb, they’ll choose to work only from an aerial bucket.
The search for sustainability is creeping into all corners of our lives, not the least of which is our landscaping. That’s because living plants lend themselves to sustainability better than inanimate environments.The Cambridge dictionary defines sustainability as the ability to continue at a particular level for a period of time. Applied to landscapes, sustainability is the ability of an environment to remain diverse and productive indefinitely.Creating a sustainable landscape begins with you deciding to work with Mother Nature rather than trying to have your own way. She always wins out in the end.[caption id="attachment_879" align="alignright" width="225"]
Ground cover is a good, sustainable alternative to turfgrass.[/caption]Start your cooperative venture by selecting the right plants for the right places. If the plants are happy with their locations, they’ll grow with minimum maintenance.Nursery tags on plants communicate their site requirements. Also do some research and avoid those prone to insects and diseases. Often, that means selecting native plants or introduced plants that have adapted well to our area. These plants have also adapted to the water that nature provides, except in times of extreme weather conditions, such as drought.Turfgrass is, arguably, the most thirsty plant in any landscape. It requires the most maintenance as well. That’s quite the opposite from sustainable, and it’s why an increasing number of people nationwide are replacing all or part of their lawns with beds of less thirsty plants that require less maintenance. Some western states, where water is scarce, have actually paid residents to replace their lawn with more sustainable plants.When planting new beds or refurbishing existing beds, install plants closer together. This will cut down on weed growth and reduce the need for pruning and the need to constantly replenish mulch. Remember, though, that plants grow so be careful not to plant them too close together.Be cognizant of companion plants when designing your sustainable landscape. Certain plants grow well together while others are mortal enemies. Check with a horticulturist at your garden store when buying plants to be sure they’re compatible.Finally, don’t forget the hardscape. Sustainability includes recycling or repurposing hardscape items, such as fountains, benches, bistro sets and statuary. They may need a coat of paint and a new home in a different part of the landscape but that’s better than tossing these items into a landfill and buying new.Sustainability is quite complex. If you want to modify your landscape with no work on your part, one of our professional designers would be happy to create a plan for the sustainable landscape of your dreams. Do it now, during the “off season” and we can then be ready to install it early in the spring so you’ll have the whole season to enjoy it.
Trees in the Rochester New York area have had to stand up to some mighty high winds lately. The weaker ones didn’t fare very well against nature’s fury. That’s
what has prompted a significant number of people to ask questions about fault and liability when a neighbor’s tree damages their property and what can be done to prevent the potential for damage.There’s enough interest in the subject for Rochester’s legal newspaper to run a story, recently, entitled, “Timber! Rights and obligations of landowners and their trees”. It was written by Robert Marks, a law clerk with Boylan Code, LLP.If you want to read all the case law and legal decisions cited in the story, you can read it Here. I’m more interested in how you can minimize the chance of one of your trees causing damage to your neighbor’s yard.Your trees are your responsibility. If they damage your neighbor’s property, you may be financially responsible. Mr. Marks writes that the tree owner needs to have “actual or constructive” knowledge of the tree’s condition in order to be responsible. How can a tree owner know that a tree has structural problems? By having it inspected by a certified arborist. Why would you want to spend money to protect your neighbor’s property? Depending on wind direction, the failed tree could damage your property instead of the neighbor’s.Suppose your neighbor’s tree is hanging over your yard, dropping debris on your pool or lawn. Or it’s so dense it blocks sunlight and your grass won’t grow. You are within your rights to trim the tree back to the lot line, as long as you don’t do anything that will put the tree’s life in jeopardy. However, you can’t go on to your neighbor’s property to do any trimming.Do-it-yourself remedies may be satisfying to you but also dangerous – both physically and legally. Physically because you may get hurt doing the trimming, legally because you may inadvertently land in trouble with the law. My advice is to try to work out your differences with your neighbor, possibly splitting the cost to have it trimmed to your mutual satisfaction. If that doesn’t work, have us trim back the overhang on your side. We’ll do it professionally and legally.If the offending tree is on the lot line, a whole different set of rules apply. A lot line tree is owned by both neighbors, regardless of who planted it, and both have to agree on any maintenance procedures. This is also the case for a tree that one of you planted on your side of the line that has now grown to straddle the line.So, the short answer to the title question is that old stand-by – It depends. You have legal, ethical, safety and aesthetic questions that need to be answered first.
Our recent snowfall should act as a warning that winter really is coming soon. However, it’s still possible to protect your landscape while also keeping your family and visitors safe this winter. When the snow begins piling up, that’s not the time to have the work done. Many winter preparation projects should have been done weeks or even months ago.Here is a list of things to keep in mind as winter descends upon us:• When shoveling or blowing snow, don’t let it pile up on planting beds, especially those with shrubs in them. Instead, spread the snow evenly across the beds.• Piling snow against trees will provide cover for critters to eat the bark and will apply pressure to one side of the tree. This could eventually lead to failure. Instead, keep snow approximately six inches away from the trunk, as you do with mulch.• Use sand, kitty litter sawdust or ashes rather than salt for traction on sidewalks and driveways. Salt can kill grass and damage the soil in flower beds. Traction is the goal, melting the ice is a bonus.• Beating on tree or shrub branches to remove snow or ice can damage the plant. Branches are brittle in the winter; if you start whacking on them, you may break branches. This will leave the plant vulnerable to insects and disease. The best thing to do is to let the ice and snow melt naturally.• Leaving fruit on the ground around fruit trees can attract insects and diseases. You should gather up any fallen fruit and put it in the compost bin.Follow these recommendations and you’ll protect both your family and your landscape.Have a good winter.
As we enter the final days of holiday planning, I’d like to share with you the Birchcrest Tree & Landscape family’s sincere wish that you and your family enjoy the most wonderful holiday ever. And may 2018 be healthy, safe and prosperous and, together, may we keep our world green.
We advocate mulching around the base of your plants all year round but it’s even more important in the winter.
Mulch moderates soil temperatures, reducing the impact of temperature swings on plant roots. These swings are year round considerations. In spring, summer and fall, however, temperature swings aren’t as significant as they are in winter. They fluctuate only a few degrees in a 24 hour period. In winter, that fluctuation can be much greater and plant roots don’t like these wide temperature changes, especially those that drop from warm to below freezing.Plenty of organic mulch like wood chips will minimize the effect of temperature extremes on your plants. During the spring, summer and fall, two to a maximum of three inches of mulch are sufficient. Any more is too much. In winter, however, three or four inches are preferable.As you prepare your yard for winter, start by fluffing up the mulch already in place. Using a leaf rake, fluff it up similar to the way you would mashed potatoes or rice. Once the existing mulch is fluffed, you can measure its depth with a yardstick. Add enough new mulch to bring the depth to four inches; no more. Moisture still has to soak through the mulch to reach the plant roots. And, remember – don’t pile the mulch up against the tree trunk. As I’ve mentioned a number of times, that traps moisture between the bark and the mulch and provides a good breeding ground for microbes. It also helps camouflage small mammals that may want to dine on the bark.Remember to remove any mulch over three inches in the spring. Look at mulching like placing a coat on the root zone of your plants. In winter, you need a heavier coat; in spring, a lighter coat will do fine.I specified organic mulch because it does double duty. Besides protecting your roots in the cold weather, wood chips and other organic mulches will decompose and return nutrients to the soil. Decorative mulches like stone won’t do that. It doesn’t decompose. Besides, stone mulch is cold to the touch so it won’t moderate the soil temperature as effectively as wood.If you don’t care for shoveling, hauling and spreading mulch, we have landscape professionals who would be happy to do these jobs for you before winter settles in.
I just saw a Facebook post that read, “A garden and a book. That’s all I need.” How true! With the days getting shorter and the temperatures dropping, this is a good philosophy to have if you’re a gardener.Winter isn’t the best season of the year for those who like the feel of dirt under their nails. Things aren’t as gloomy as you might think, though. While winter is a naturally “blue” season, you can brighten it up while still taking it easy during the “off season.”I would guess that you probably spent all your spare time in the spring, summer and fall tending to your outdoor plants. This would be a nice opportunity to spend some quality time with your houseplants. It’ll keep your green thumb limber in the warm comfort of your home. Your houseplants will certainly appreciate that and won’t feel so much like second-class citizens.Nothing beats relaxing in front of a nice, warm fire and reading a good book to take the chill off a cold, winter night. Make that book a garden book. There are plenty of good, garden-themed books, both fiction and non-fiction. If you browse through a bookseller’s electronic and brick-and-mortar inventory and find nothing interesting, go back and read garden books you read 10, 20 or more years ago. Take it from me, enough time has passed that you’ll learn new things that you either forgot over time or missed on the first read.Winter is when you get ideas for the upcoming landscaping season. When you want a break from reading books, check out landscape or gardening magazines. These are great sources for ideas.Winter would also be a good time to take a landscape or gardening course. Check out those at the Rochester Civic Garden Center (rcgc.com) or Cornell Cooperative Extension of Monroe County (monroe.cce.cornell.edu/) or the county you live in.Most communities have garden clubs. Visit one of their meetings and see if it’s an organization you’d like to belong to. A regional bi-monthly magazine, Upstate Gardeners Journal (upstategardenersjournal.com), lists contact information for many of these organizations in the Calendar section of each issue. This section is also loaded with garden-related programs put on by the various clubs and organizations.Depending on the weather, you may be able to get outside and do a bit of landscape care over the winter. If the temperature is above freezing and the precipitation is less than normal, tender plants, young trees and shrubs, and those plants overwintering in your cold frame will appreciate a drink of water. If we have a warmer than usual winter, your evergreens may need another anti-desiccant application.Winter doesn’t have to be a hibernation period. There are plenty of landscape and gardening related things to keep you busy and your green thumb active.
The curtain is rising on an annual show – one that’s particularly brilliant in our part of the world. It’s deciduous trees’ annual show of color. Mother Nature gets the credit for producing this show, but did you ever wonder what really makes it happen?
The answer is quite simple yet quite complex. A combination of leaf pigments, light, weather conditions, plant species and geography all work together to create fall color.Leaves’ natural color is yellow, a pigment in the (ka’rotn-oid) family, and it’s always present. However, green chlorophyll, which is necessary for the manufacture of food during photosynthesis, masks the yellow.The sun provides the energy for photosynthesis. So, photosynthesis slows down and then ceases as the amount of daylight dwindles and temperatures plummet. As this happens, less and less chlorophyll is produced until the leaves’ natural color becomes visible.Some leaves turn red in the fall. This is caused by anthocyanins (an-tho-cy-a-nins), a pigment produced only during the autumn months. These complex, water soluable compounds in leaf cells react with excess stored plant sugars and exposure to sunlight, resulting in brilliant pink, red and purple leaves. A mixture of red anthocyanin pigment and yellow carotenoids often results in the bright orange color we see in some leaves. There appears to be more orange leaves this year than usual.Weather conditions that occur before and during the decline of chlorophyll production can affect the color that leaves display. Carotenoids are always present so the yellow and gold colors are the least affected by weather. The red tones, created by anthocyanin, are most affected by weather.Lots of sugar is produced in leaves on warm, sunny days. Trees exposed to brighter sunlight generate the reaction between anthocyanins and the excess sugar, creating the bright red hue. Sharp changes in climate can paint the most spectacular display of color. Cooler temperatures cause the veins in the leaves to gradually close, preventing sugars from moving out, which preserves the red tones. The lush tones of fall we see all around us are caused by warm, sunny days followed by crisp, cool nights.Soil moisture can also affect autumn color. A particularly dry summer can delay the onset of color change by weeks. A warm, wet spring, favorable summer weather, and sunny fall days with cooler temperatures at night are ideal conditions for producing the most radiant colors.Tree genetics and species determine what color leaves will turn. Color also depends on the levels of iron, magnesium, phosphorous and sodium in the tree and the acidity of the chemicals in the leaves.When the show of color is over, the curtain of leaves falls. As photosynthesis ceases, the base of the leaf, known as the petiole, closes up since no food is leaving. No water and nutrients flows in, either. Meanwhile, next year's leaf bud, positioned below the petiole, has formed and grows until it pushes the leaf, disconnecting the tissue that holds it to the branch, and the old leaf falls.Just like the theater, it's now time to clean up the litter with your leaf rake or blower.
Spring clean-up is a traditional transition from winter into spring but we seldom think about fall clean-up. We do the tasks that need to be done but don’t label them. Perhaps that’s because, in spring, we’re anxious to get outdoors and begin doing things in the yard but we aren’t anxious for what follows fall.If you go into winter with a nice, clean landscape, you’ll have less cleaning to do in the spring. You’ll still have some cleaning to do but only the debris that accumulated after your fall clean-up.Since you may never have made a fall clean-up list, here’s a checklist:• Clean up all trash that has blown on to your property.• Remove dead stems and leaves from perennials and toss them onto the compost pile.• Divide perennials.• Rake, blow or mow fallen leaves for mulch or compost.• Apply grub control if your lawn needs it.• Lower your mower blade to 2”-2 ½” and mow your lawn for one last time this season.• Prepare your lawn mower and other power tools for winter storage, following the manufacturers’ instructions.• Put your deck or patio furniture in storage.• Bring your containerized plants indoors or place them in a cold frame for the winter.• Finish harvesting veggies from your vegetable garden.• Apply anti-desiccant to evergreens.• Wrap tender young trees.• Critter proof trees and shrubs.• Mulch trees, shrubs and planting beds.• Fertilize as necessary• Have us inspect your trees and remove any hazards.As you can see, the fall list is longer than the spring list. Some items may not apply to everyone but I included everything as a reminder where applicable. If this looks like a daunting task, we have trained landscape professionals who will make short work of it.
Meteorologists are talking about frost. That means winter can’t be far off. But what is frost and what does it mean for your landscape? Frost is ice crystals that form when the temperature dips down near freezing. When it’s warmer, we call this moisture dew.The official frost temperature is 36°F. When the temperature reaches 32°F, it’s a freeze. Frost and freeze warnings are issued so you can take appropriate action to protect your plants, especially those that are very tender. The most serious are killing frosts – those that are actually freezes. They are cold enough to kill all but the hardiest plants and signal the end of the growing season.At the first warning, your tender, container plants should be brought inside, even if just in the garage for the night. Don’t worry if there are no windows in the garage. It’s dark outside, too. You can take them back outside in the morning. By this time, you should have decided what to do with these plants for the winter. The choices are to bring them indoors, put them in a greenhouse or in a cold frame.If your vegetable garden still has ripening crops in it, these plants should be covered for the night. Failure to do so will surely result in dead plants in the morning. Any flowering annuals will likely be dead in the morning, leaving you with the task of removing them and throwing them in the compost pile.Be sure to wrap tender trees and shrubs with burlap. This is primarily to shelter them from buffeting winds and road salt spray. The wrapping may also be sufficient to raise the temperature inside enough to prevent frost from forming. The best practice, however, is to not gamble and plant trees and shrubs that are rated for a zone or two colder than ours.Mother Nature is in control. There’s no changing her mind but there are opportunities to protect those plants that may be damaged by her fury. Heed these tips and be happy.
A wood-burning stove or fireplace can keep you cozy and warm. But if you aren’t careful where you buy your firewood, that coziness could come at a tremendous cost – the death of your valuable trees.The fastest way to spread tree insects and diseases is by moving firewood from one place to another. It can be infested with gypsy moth, cankerworms, aphids, winter moth, Asian longhorned beetle, the insidious emerald ash borer and a host of other pests. New York State has taken action by quarantining the moving of all wood products beyond a 50 mile radius of its source without a certificate that guarantees it’s free from pests.
The state can’t do it alone. They need your help, and the best way to help is to not buy imported firewood. After all, the trees you save may be your own. The importers dump their wood and leave. You stack it in the back yard near your trees and it’s just a short distance for the insects to travel to your live, healthy trees, While the firewood will be burned in coming months, your tree can provide multiple generations of insects with plenty of food until the tree dies.Emerald ash borer is the current scourge that we’re dealing with. In just over 10 years, this pest has spread from a single outbreak in Michigan to multiple outbreaks and has destroyed millions of trees throughout the midwest and northeastern United States, as well as two Canadian provinces. They didn’t spread by themselves. Although the adults can fly, they seldom fly far from the tree in which they hatched and spent their larval lives. They are brought into new areas by unwitting campers and unscrupulous firewood dealers.If you’re a camper, buy firewood at your destination; don’t take it from our area. When you’re ready to come home, burn all your wood or give it to one of your neighboring campers. Don’t bring it home. Loss of beautiful, majestic ash trees is certainly not worth the saving from bringing home a few sticks of infested firewood.New York State has a slogan – Buy it where you burn it. That’s good advice for slowing the spread of emerald ash borers. Next week, I’ll tell you how to keep them from attacking your trees or how to treat them if they have already attacked them.
