Fluff up a home in Needham

Today I went with Guillerme to a property over in Needham, to weed, do some hand trimming and as we would find out later trim up a few Yews. This is a very large property, you can see part of the back yard in the picture on the above left. It is around 7 acres and had not had any attention to it since the spring and needed a little fluff up to look nice. This is also the home of the grandmother of the boy who is getting married that I posted about last week.

When we got there I noticed that the large yews in the front of the property for some reason had not been trimmed this year. I called Rob, who was at a property close by and he brought over the power shears for Guillerme top trim them up. I went around hand clipping the smaller bushes and continued with the weeding of all of the beds going around the house and a few more in the back yard.

We finished up a bit early and headed back to the shop. It was a good idea as now that the kids are back in school the traffic has increased dramatically, which just makes for a longer day. Oh well its the weekend.

Bluestone Stepping Stone Path

Today, I went with Guillerme, to a property in Wellesley to do a quick trim job. The owner did not want us spending a lot of time there, so along with Rob, we did what we could do in 2 hours.

Next Guilleme and I went over to a property in Wellesley and removed a dogwood tree, that was planted in the spring but had the leaves on the bottom half of the tree wilt and turn brown. This was due to a lack of water, as we dug out the tree roots, the loam was like talcum powder, very, very dry. When the upper part of the tree was cut, we could see that the branches still had life in them. After removing the tree we planted the new dogwood in the same location.

Next we had to go to the side of the house and install (20) 18 inch by 24 inch Blue Stone paver's to create a pathway from the front yard to the back. When we had finished I went and dumped all of the trimmings from the first job and the old dogwood at the re-cycling facility in Framingham and returned with 2 yards of loam to fill in the low spots around the Blue Stone. I had to then go back to the shop and get 1 1/2 yards of matching pine bark mulch to finish up the job. You can see the birthday boy, Guillerme washing down the stones, in the picture above.

Solo - Odds and Ends Work

It is the beginning of the month so it is time for me to do some "odds and ends" solo work. These are all relatively small projects that customers call and request help with. The first job I did, was to go over to a property in Framingham and re-trim the bushes because the customer wanted more of his bushes trimmed away that had been done earlier.

Next, I went to a property in Holliston to weed the beds, weed whack the front walk and back patio. I then had to spray "round up" on the patio and walkway to hopefully take care of the weeds for this year. the customer is also hoping that it is the last time we have to come over and weed his beds. We are getting close to the end of the season, in fact it looks like we are going to have an early fall. The leaves on the trees are already turning yellowish and appear to be life less.

Next, I went to a property in Sherborn to finish trimming one bush along the side of the house. We had encountered a very large hornets nest and Guillerme got stung, when we were there working on the property earlier in the season. Even after we had sprayed the nest and physically removed it, the very unhappy returning bees were not happy to find there home gone.

I ended up both Tuesday and Wednesday at a property in Wellesley, to finish up what had been requested by the owner earlier in the season. He also requested that I come over after 10 AM so as not to disturb the guys playing tennis on the courts in the back yard. The 2 pictures above, are of the gardens at the back of the house and around the indoor pool. the courts are behind the gardens.

I had to "tip back" the white pines that grow in a row, along the tennis court fence, on one side, and then remove the top spire that had some evidence of the "Pine borer" in it. I then
"up-limbed" the trees that are growing along the fence, in back of the courts. The tree branches are growing over the courts and needed to be cut back.

As I was working the owner came home and added some more work to my project list so I will not finish today and will have to return next week. More weed whacking, hand weeding and spraying Round up in those areas. Oh well back next week with some of the guys for some help.