Southborough Trim Job

Guillerme and I are in Southborough today to start a 2 day weed and prune job. I have been taking care of this property for over 15 years and the owner is very, very nice. we have installed all of the plantings at this home over the many years we have been taking care of it. When I first came to the property there was not a pool in the back yard only a small swingset. The property is in the direct sun all day long and everything just loves growing and getting bigger every year.

We start off in the front yard and as we do, the owner comes out and talks to us before she goes golfing for the day. She wants to know if it is OK, to leave her dog out while she is gone and of course we agree. We enjoy having dogs around while we work, they break up the routine and are fun to be with. It is so warm and humid todat that the dog decides laying down on the cool garage floor is more enjoyable than hanging out with us.

Clouds, Rain, Mist all week

Here in New England we have been in a very cloudy, misty, foggy, rainy period for the last 3 weeks and it looks like it is going o continue this week as well. So my picture for the post's this week will reflect the weather conditions. The weather pattern's usually last for about 6 weeks, hope it is wrong because as I write this it is the first day of Summer.

Our first task of the day, is to go over to a very long time customer and transplant some bushes and weed out a large perennial flower bed. This was a request from the wife, as a gift, for her husbands 88th birthday. Guillerme and I started with the transplanting first and as we dug the first hole we found some 10 turtle eggs, we were very careful and did not break any of them. We showed them to the lady who lived there and she took them to show to her grandchildren who were coming over and to her daughter who is a veternarian. (You can see them in the photo on the right) We went through one rain shower, where we had to wait it out, by sitting in the truck until it was over. this seems to be a daily activity lately.

We finished up around 2 pm and then went back to the shop to load up the trailor and what fertilizer we had along with some broadleaf pray as we were still on out fertilization route. Our first stop was at the John Deere/LESCO store to get another pallet (40 bags) of 24-5-11, fertilizer and some more boadleaf weed spray and a bottle of SYTHE. I had not seen the SYTHE for a few years so I bought some. We were only able to finish 5 properties before we finished up at around 6:30pm. One of the properties in Southborough is pictured on the left.

Quick Trim for a graduation party in Southborough

It was raining to hard in the morning to go out and do fertilizing and spraying of the broad leaf weeds, so I slept in and went into the shop around 10:30 AM. I went in because, the Permagreen power Spreader needed some maintenance done to it and also because I was out of fertilizer and needed to make a trip up to LESCO in Marlboro to get more.

But when I called Rob, he told me that a property owner in Southborough, was having a graduation party, for their daughter on Saturday and it needed to be trimmed up and weeded to look nice for the occassion. So he was happy that I came in and he called Guillerme and Fabio to come in and help me out.

This property takes a full day with 3 guys to trim and weed. So I explained this to the owner and he just wanted us to work out in the backyard, because that is where they had a tent set up, for the occasion and that was where everyone would be hanging out during the party. Good thing I had some of my CRAVE energy drink, to give me the energy for the afternoon workload. It just keeps me going all afternoon and there is no "crash or jitters" like I would have with coffee.

So we spent about 5 hours "fluffing up" the back beds, by weeding and trimming the bushes and then raking out the mulch so it looked like it was just ut down. Fabio did a little shearing of some bushes and I did the majority of the hand clipping that is required on the other ornamental bushes. The owners were very happy that we came and did a great job for them and they asked that we return as soon as we could to finish the job.

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.

Soutborough property going on the Market

I am with a different crew today, the crew that does the mowing, which starts tomorrow. We are at a property in Southborough, that is going to be put up for sale the first week in May. We will be doing a major clean up here, as not much was done to the property last year and the owner wants it to look nice for prospective buyers.

First we will be cleaning up the yard, by blowing off all of the debris from the past winter. Next the other guys will be raking out the beds and edging them. While they are doing that I will be trimming all of the bushes and trees.

We will start to mulch the property today, but we only brought 6 yards of mulch with us and that is not enough to finish the job. This will take us all day to accomplish. I will return on Tuesday to finish the job. The property is the one in the picture.

Southborough and Framingham Lawn Fertilizing

For the rest of the week I will be going on my fertilizing route in different towns that we have customers in. Today, I will start off in Marlborough, Massachusetts at an Animal Hospital. My route has been reduced quite a bit due to the tough economic conditions we are experiencing here in New England. Customers are cutting back on a lot of landscape expenses this year.

While I am doing the lawn fertilization Rich, is fertilizing the ornamental bushes and trees. He is using Holly Tone, which is an organic, acidic fertilizer, which we apply in the spring and at the end of the season. We have had great success with it, it takes a while for it to work, but the acid loving, ornamental become very health and full.

One of the properties I will be fertilizing today is the boss's, in Southborough, Massachusetts. The picture, on the left is of Rob's backyard which shows a blue stone patio I worked on with Rich a few years ago. Rob has excellent design experience as you can see. I also did the brick patio around his in ground pool, but I will have to show that pic on another blog post.

After we finish in Southborough, we will also be going to Framingham to fertilize the grounds of a commercial building. This will be a long work day for Rich and I, good thing I have my CRAVE energy drink to keep me energized for the afternoon. I am really getting to enjoy having, that much extra energy in the afternoon, with out the jitters, that coffee gives me.