Spraying Nutsedge

Guillerme and I went to a property in Needham, ( pic on bottom ) because the owner wanted us to get ride of the Nut sedge growing in his lawn. This happens every year and the owner just loves having a beautiful lawn. The week before I went over by myself to spray the broad leaf weeds. This lawn is usually the best one we take care off. It is because the owner is very much involved in the maintenance of it.

After we took care of the Nut sedge, we went over to another home in Wellesley, ( pic on top ) to finish up some work I had started a few weeks ago. Guillerme weeded a rubble rock hill and then sprayed Round Up on what was left over. I finished trimming the trees that were overgrown by the tennis court, finished trimming a weeping cherry, that I did not finish when we came to trim this year, because a mother cardinal had a nest in it. Guillerme also used the weed whacker to clear out an area that had become overgrown with weeds.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Large Mulching Job

Ceillo, Fabio, Rich and I went to a property located in Wellesley Hills, to mulch today. We are using a dark brown, pine mulch.

While, the guys started the mulching, I had a few things to work on before they mulched certain beds.

First, I had to trim back some roses, in the rose garden out back. It was not done, during the spring cleanup, as Rob, wanted to talk to the nursery, where he purchased them, to make sure we trimmed them correctly.

Next, I had to go to the perennial rock garden and do some weeding before I sprayed "Round up" to kill off the small emerging weeds. This area was problematic last year and we wanted to get a good start this year at controlling them. It is to the left, of the beautiful weeping cherry, that you see in the picture on the left.