Wild Turkey Chick's

Today, was one of those days, that you just truly love and totally enjoy, as a Landscaper. We went back to the property, we were at yesterday and to start the day off, the neighbor comes over all excited, because the Wild turkeys eggs had all hatched. 8 baby turkey chicks, were safely born. So there was a lot of activity, going on next door, I don't know who was happier, the wild turkey mom or the neighbor.

I had 3 guys with me today, because I needed extra muscle, from the young guys, to pop the White Birch trees out and then transport and transplant them in their new location. I am always amazed at what those guys can do. They had them popped out and transported and in their new holes and watered in by 10AM. These are large ( 4 foot diameter ) root balls, that are composed mostly of clay and they retain the moisture, so they are very heavy.

After that, the rest of the day consists of weeding, raking out beds and planting, all of the remaining annuals. Good thing we did the hard part of the day first, it was the second day, this year it was in the 90's.

As the afternoon comes to a close, the woman who owns the property, goes out and gets us some treats, chocolate chip cookies, brownies and oatmeal raisin cookies at a bakery in town. When she comes back, she has us all sit down, for a very nice chat, with the cookies and some soda and sparkling water. This is a great way, for us to end the day.

But it is not over, the neighbor with the turkeys, is having a hard time, the baby chicks have crawled under the fence, put up to protect them, from the mother. So, we go to the rescue and help remove the fence, to get the chicks and the mom reunited. (the picture above is just after we removed the fence). Then the woman, we are working for, and Rob come over to see the new baby chicks and it becomes a very happy, social activity in the neighborhood.

These are the days I just love being a Landscaper, made one customer happy with our work, had some treats at the end of the day and then rescued some wild life. Could not be any better.

Annuals and Birch Tree's, to be moved in Wellesley

We are planting many annual flowers on this property, located in Wellesley today. We will also will be getting 4 White Birch Tree clumps, ready to be moved to a new location on the property tomorrow.

I have Rich and Guillerme, assisting me today and we first go to an area of the property, that has very old, overgrown Forsythia bushes, which are about 8 feet high and covering an area about 150 square feet. The owner wants them cut down to about 6 inches high, so that she will have new growth for next year. Also, this is an area where we will be moving 4, White Birch Tree clumps, that are about 20 feet high.

The Rhododendron's are in full bloom along with the azalea's and the perennials. We will only be planting half of the flowers today. We will also be digging out around the root balls of the 4 White Birch trees that will be moved. We want them to be loose in their holes so tomorrow we can just pop them out and move them.

The Neighbor, who is also a customer of ours, came by and told me, that she had a female wild turkey, sitting on 8 eggs and that I was to tell, all of the guys, not to disturb her, with our back pack blowers. She is very much into the animals, that visit her yard. Last year, she had a sign, telling everyone to not bother her "pet garden snake". I went over to look at the mother turkey, but it was hard to see her, as she was nestled under a Holly Tree, by her back steps. Of course there were signs and netting put up to protect her and I was not even allowed to take a picture, in case I disturbed her.

Finishing up in Southborough

We, went back to the home we started on Monday, to spray Round Up the second time and to finish up with the mulching. We finished up around 10 AM and went to a property three houses down the street to do a clean up and to mulch, with dark brown mulch.

We had cleaned this property up early in the spring and had edged all of the beds and now the annuals were in full bloom around the property. This makes mulching a bit of tricky, because you do not want to bury, any part of the flowers, in mulch.

This property is up a long winding driveway and it is surrounded by a tree forest. In the winter the deer herd, just loves to "munch" on the Rhododendron's, but they are rebounding very well at this point. Sometimes in the spring, when you look at the bushes, it looks like they will never recover from the damage, done by the deer, but nature always surprises us. I also noticed, a large brown toad, on the grass, so I helped him, by moving him into an area, next to the stone wall. We work with nature all of the time and we always respect, the animals we come across, except BUGS.

Bushes and Annuals in Wellesley

We went to Wellesley today, to work on an yearly job of planting many flats, of annual flowers and this year a new weeping red Japanese maple, as can be seen in the upper left picture. This property owner is very particular about the arrangement of the flowers, their color and variety. She goes to the nursery and pics them out and has them delivered. When we arrived I did not notice them, so I went and knocked on the door to see what was going on. The owner came out and said that all of the flowers were in the garage because of the frost warning the night before.

Wow, when she opened the garage door the entire floor area of one parking space was completely loaded with an assortment of very, very healthy flowers. Red, white and pink geraniums, white, purple and 2 shades of pink Impatient's and many, many others.

I had 3 workers with me today, because of the amount of work that had to be done, in one day. First, they weeded out the beds, then they planted the Japanese Weeper, as Rob and I went around placing the flowers, in the exact locations, the property owner wanted them. We did not finish planting the flowers until around 1:30PM. Then it was time for the guys, to mulch the entire property. I had to make a trip back to our shop in Holliston, to get another load of mulch, we ended up finishing up around 6PM, but we got it done. The owner called Rob, to thank him for the great deal of work we did and how wonderful her property looked. And that's what it is all about, making the customer happy. I will post another picture once the flowers have grown a bit more and are happy in their new home.

Soutborough Cleanup and Mulch

Today, we are doing a clean up at a property in Southborough, Massachusetts. The owner was not pleased with the work done last year, by another crew of ours and requested that I, come and do the clean up this year.

Rich and Guillerme are assisting me with this clean up. We also have to put down loam and seed the damaged lawn areas from the snowplows. The owners have us come once a year, for the cleanup and also to do the trimming/pruning of the bushes. Usually we do not do any pruning until the bushes have pushed out their new growth for the season and the flowering has stopped for the year.

Going up the very long driveway, in the picture above, you only see a small portion of it, we have to apply Round Up to the weeds in the mulch bed. We are going to apply the Round Up twice as we will not finish this project today. We only brought one truck load of mulch and this property requires two loads.