Fungicide and Holly Tone...

These pictures are of the various colors of the Rhododendron's that are all around the property.
I really like these bushes and the are a very popular here in New England.

Today, I went with Rich to the home used by the President of Babson College. We had to weed all of the beds, as this home, has to always look "Presidential", for all of it's visitors.

Nick, the guy in charge of the grounds for the campus had, called Rob, and wanted us to put down a fungicide, on the lawn because it had "red thread". This usually goes away by itself if you lighten up on the water you are applying to the lawn. Red Thread, is caused by a lack of Nitrogen and because it has more moisture than it needs. We have been in a rainy stretch here and that is more than likely what caused it. We will be doing our second application of fertilizer next week.

Rich and I spent the morning weeding and in the afternoon, Rich put down 20 pounds of Holly Tone on a bed that has pachysandra, that had a hard time recovering from this past winter. The Holly Tone will bring it back to life and will get it to fill out the bed.

After, that I put down the fungicide and sprayed the weeds in the lawn with SPEED ZONE. As I was doing this, Rich was going around with a bag of grass seed and throwing some down in any weak parts of the lawn. When we had everything packed up and we were not going to be on the lawn any more I went around to the walks and patio and sprayed Round up on the weeds in the cracks.

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.

Planting Impatients at the President's house

I had to go to the home that is used by the President of Olin College today to plant Inmpatient,s and about 8 new ornamental bushes. The wife of the President just loves her flowers and gardens and we go on a regular basis to do plantings for her. We enjoy doing this very much because she gets us coffee from Dunkin donuts and makes us homemade blueberry muffins for our morning break. Of course we totally enjoy this and just work that much harder for her.

First we had to remove 4 old very tired looking Yews and replace them with new bushes. One of the ornamental bushes we planted is the one, in the picture at the left. A rhododendron, with yellow blossom's, which I had never seen before. I will have to find out from her what the name
is. We also planted 6 flats of pure white Impatients all around her house. In a few weeks we will be back to weed all of her beds and I will be able to post a picture of how it all looks for you.

Back to the Olin President's House

Today, just two guy's, came to help me finish up the cleanup at the President's house in Needham. We went through all of the mulched beds, hand raking the winter debris out, clipping any dead branches on the ornamental bushes.

People get carried away with pruning this time of year and that is a major mistake. It is too early in the growing season to determine what needs to be trimmed. Some leaves, on the Rhododendron's turn brown over the winter and should not be pruned at all. The spring growth will push these brown leaves off in a few month's. So it is best to just prune branches that have been broken from the weight of the snow and leave all pruning until this years growth spurt has ended, usually in July and August.

I had Rich, cut down a Dogwood tree, in the perennial garden, that had been dying the past few seasons. In the same perennial bed, after we cleaned it out we put down some "organic lobster manure" to improve the soil and growing conditions. Before we left we edged all of the beds.

Due to the poor economy my landscape compnay will not be mowing the lawn here this year, but we will mulch all of the beds, fertilize the bushes, tree's and lawn area along with planting annuals and monthly weeding of the flower beds.