We installed the water fall and planting at this pool- completing a perfect back yard stay-cation location!! It’s easy to turn your back yard (or any area of your property) into a great place to get away from it all. From pool settings to fire pit areas to hidden gardens the possibilities are endless. And your back yard oasis will always be there, while that get away comes and goes!
There has been an explosion of lawn fungus from the extreme heat and humidity in the last week or 2. Be careful as the fungus looks like drought or heat stress/ summer dormancy to the untrained eye. If you suspect that you may have a fungus, call a professional to help guide you. There are many cultural practices that you can try, but if it is bad enough it could “melt out” and severely affect the health of your lawn.
As always we are here if you need help.
Well, after years of timely rain in the summer it looks as though this will be a hot dry year. If you do not have the ability to irrigate your lawn with approx 3/4 to 1″ of water per week, it is better for your turf to allow it to go dormant. Giving the lawn just enough water occasionally to tease it out of dormancy can and will do serious damage to the turf.
People with irrigation systems should also keep in mind that less frequent deep watering is better for turf as well as plants.
Keep in mind as the weather gets cooler and the rains start the lawns will come out of dormancy for the fall growing season. At that time any pest (grubs, chinch bugs etc) damage will become apparent. You are well served to scout for these pests while the lawn is dormant as they will cause serious damage to the turf.
Enjoy summer and if you need help with your lawns and or gardens we are here for you.
A nice fire pit
Here is a fieldstone fire pit surrounded by a “Cracked Ice” Bluestone patio and boulder seating! Great place to sit with your family and friends all year long.
My family sat around ours last weekend, the best part was watching the fireflies dance in our yard while we were mosquito free!
Imagine this in your back yard!?!?
new fire pit
In these uncertain times our back yards are the perfect place to get away from it all. I have attached a picture from before and after in a clients back yard. Although I think that before any work was done the yard itself was peaceful, there was no destination that called out for you to relax. With the new patio surrounding a large fire pit the family has a spot to go outside and enjoy their surroundings even late into the evening. As anyone who has one will tell you firepits are incredibly calming and relaxing to sit in front of. They are also a good value.
fire pit area before
I’ve been thinking an awful lot about what it takes to set a landscape company apart from the competition. Having been in business for 18 years some of the parameters have changed, but I believe there are still basic tenants that will always apply.
First the organization has to love what they do. From the owner to the managers to the technicians, it shows if any of them don’t LOVE their jobs.
Second there must be honesty and accountability. Not just a slogan, but real honesty. For instance if we are asked to price a job with ten components, the job will be priced with ten components. The only caveat would be that if one of the ten components does not make sense for the prospective client we will always tell that person, even if it means not getting as big of a project as initially thought. Real accountability in that we will always address our clients concerns, with their interest in mind.
There are many levels of quality/ ability in the landscape industry. This is due to relatively easy entry, if you have a pick up and a lawn mower you can call yourself a landscaper. Anther area where a great landscape companies set themselves apart is with expertise. We have Certified horticulturists, licensed lawn care technicians, Registered Landscape Architects, and certified horticulturists on our staff. While you may not need all of that to mow someones lawn. It certainly comes into play when said lawn has a fungus that is hard to detect that left unchecked will kill the entire lawn. Or when a client has native hemlocks up to 80 feet tall and they are infested with Hemlock Woolly Adelgid. A great company will be able to diagnose and take corrective action. A guy claiming to be a landscaper will not.
So if you have a postage stamp of a lawn and just need it mowed, the guy with the pick up is who you want. If you have a landscape that you truly appreciate and take pride in your property, a great landscape company is what you should be looking for. As you can imagine the guy with the pick up is going to be MUCH less expensive. But really who is a better value? Hands down the landscape company that is trained, educated, certified and working in the field because that is their passion.
That is Princeton Scapes and our employees. If you want a great landscape experience call us. If you just want to get it done because you don’t like mowing the lawn and would rather not think of you landscape as an integral/ valuable part of your home- please call the guy with the pick up truck.
This article ran in the Boston Globe over the weekend. Even in what some are calling “The Great Recession” you can ad value to your home by creating the proper landscape.
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/magazine/articles/2010/04/18/money_growing_in_your_garden/
The cool thing is that you can ad to your outdoor living space for your enjoyment now, while creating additional value to your property! We have a Registered Landscape Architect on our staff who could help you design your dream landscape that we could then help you build! Give us a call!! 978.422.0420
Crabgrass can be one of the most visible – pesky issue for your lawn. Crabgrass is an annual, which simply means that it self seeds itself on a yearly basis. It is also a warm weather crop. This is important in the fight against an invasion. Our typical turf-grass in Massachusetts are cool weather crops. The Fescues, Bluegrass and Rye-grass typical to our lawns do really well in Spring and even better in Fall, while they can actually go into heat dormancy over the summer depending upon how hot and dry our season is. Crabgrass on the other hand thrives in the dry heat. For germination, the soil temperature needs to be above 58 degrees for approximately one week. The recent summer temperatures did in fact start the process of germination for the crabgrass, but in most cases this cool weather has slowed the process down.
The best prevention of Crabgrass is to have a healthy thick turf. This should be done with a comprehensive IPM (Integrated Pest Management) approach. You would start with simple cultural practices- Cutting the lawn at a proper height, keeping trees properly pruned to allow enough light, keeping the turf aerated, top dressing with compost/ organic matter and or sand. The turf system also needs nutrients- organic tea, synthetic fertilizer, or organic based fertilizer. And of course a healthy lawn needs water.
If you can keep your lawn thick and healthy with cultural practices, nutrients and adequate water, crabgrass will typically not be an issue. If however your lawn is stressed by excessive heat, cutting it to short, improper watering then crabgrass can and will be an issue.
This process is of course easy in theory, but it typically takes a concerted effort to acheive. As always, if we can help give us a shout, if this has helped already, tell your friends!
Thankfully the rain is slowing. It looks like we will have summertime temps coming up in the next couple of days. This should be good to dry out our water logged yards. Happy gardening- Let us know if we can help!
Did you know that last years disease can over winter and infect the same plants this year? Last year was a particularly wet spring and summer. Subsequently, there were many disease/ fungus that occurred last growing season. Those diseases lay dormant over winter in the leaf litter from the previous year. To give the plants the best chance of not falling victim to the same disease two years in a row, you need to remove all of the leaf litter, infected shoots and or cankers to keep them from reinfecting the plant.
A thorough spring clean up not only makes your landscape look better, it also increases the likely hood that your plants will be healthier in the coming months. There are many other issues that pop up in the spring that affect what your landscape plants will look like in the summer and fall months.
As always we have comprehensive landscape maintenance and lawn care packages to help you enjoy your property to it’s fullest! Let us know if we can help.