Second Lawn Fertilizing Application

Guillerme will be accompanying me on the second round of lawn fertilization this time. I will be training him how to apply the fertilizer and also how to use the back pack sprayers to spray crabgrass, which has just started to grow and also to spray the broad leaf weeds in the lawn area.

This is a good trip around our properties because now I can see the fruits of all of our labor during the spring time. All of the grass seed should have come up in the lawns and the new bushes should be growing along with all of the flowers we planted. I will be making notes and reporting back all that I see to Rob.

This year for some reason we are seeing a lot of "Red Thread" in the lawns and this is an indication of a lack of Nitrogen and also too much moisture being present in the lawn. We have been experiencing a lot of rainy days and also a lot of the days there has been no sunshine to dry out the lawn. I am applying a fertilizer 25-0-5 , with 1% iron which should clear up the problem as far as the nitrogen is concerned but Mother Nature will have to supply the sun and warmth.

Plant, Weed and Trim in Wellesley

Today, Guillerme and Wagner came with me as we had a good size project to take care of in Needham. We had to meet Rob there, as he was going to show us, what had to be done. This is one of the first customers of the company and we take good care of her.

Rob had Guillerme and Wagner dig up 2 bushes which did not make it through the winter and plant 2 new Azalea's in their place. They then weeded the bed and planted ..........perry winkle through out the bed for a ground cover.

I was busy trimming the large "weeping cherry" tree by the front walk. This is a beautiful tree and is the center view point of the front yard. This is all hand trimmed in a mushroom shape. After that I went around and hand trimmed every bush in the front yard except for the Rhody's and Yews. Those will be trimmed again later in the season.

Due to the large amount of weeds this project took us all day to finish. Tomorrow Rich and 2 other guys will be finishing up the project with about 6 yards of red pine bark mulch.

Trimming Project in Holliston

I went with Guillerme to trim and weed a property in Holliston today. The property had just been cleaned up and mulched by another landscape company but the owners have us do the other work there.

It is about 4-8 weeks too early to be trimming but that is what this customer wanted to have done so we are making them happy. We wait until most of the new growth for the year has pushed out and also we wait for the bushes to stop their flowering for the year.

Guillerme is new to this process and I am teaching him how to do the trimming as he will be the one to do the "shearing" work when we are in that time of the season. I will be doing all of the hand clipping, which these days is most of the job along with the weeding of the beds.

Working "solo" on "odds and ends" projects today.

Today, I had to do some "solo" work because the other guys were needed on other projects. I went to quite a few properties, that needed to have their bushes and ornamental tree's sprayed with Malathion, because they were being "munched", on by tent caterpillar's. I also was spraying the Illex, Hollies and Boxwood's for the small white flies that appear this time of year. I will have to return to these properties in a couple of weeks and repeat this process.

I also fertilized a few lawns due to the fact that these people had forgotten to ask for it to be done at the beginning of the year. Next week I will be applying the second application of fertilizer to all of our properties.

"Fluff Up", the Property of the President of Olin College

We were off to "Fluff up" the property owned by Olin college and used by the President and his family. They were not home when we arrived around 7:30 AM. This property has to always look it's best because of the people visiting the property to see the President and his wife. His Wife is really into gardening and always has plants or bushes she wants planted.

Rich, Guillerme and I started right in, on the weeding, which at this time of year can get out of control. As the guy's did the weeding around the flowers and bushes by hand, I would trim back any long "flyer's" that had grown on the bushes. We hand weed around, the flowers and bushes and when we get to the larger mulched area's, we use the weed whacker. After it is raked up we spray "Round Up" in the large area's, but nothing is sprayed any where close to the flowers or bushes. We have a special attachment we use on the backpack sprayers that is shaped like a funnel to prevent the "Round Up" from drifting over onto bushes or flowers.

We were just about finished around 4PM when the President and his wife arrived home from a weekend vacation. They were happy to see us and really liked what we had done to the property. And that is all that counts as far as I am concerned. We finished up the weeding and then sprayed the lawn for broad leaf weeds with "Speed Zone", which we have found to be very effective on clover and most broad leaf weeds in the lawn.

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.

Doctor visit and more Rain

I had a Doctor's appointment this morning and it was just as well, because it was pouring rain again this morning. I called Rob and at first he said to come in and go and put some fungicide down at the home used by the President of Babson college, but then he changed his mind and told me to come in on Saturday and we would do it then.

So it was back home to work to have some CRAVE energy drink and get going on my home biz some more. Did a lot on Facebook and Entrecard again.

More Bushes planted in Wellesley

Today it is threatening rain and it is very foggy and very dark almost like it is late in the evening, also very humid. Rich, Guillerme and I are going to the home in Wellesley (next to the turkey house) that we worked at last week and will meet Rob there later in the morning.

Rich and Guillerme went over and removed all of the stumps from the forsythia, that we cut back last week, the homeowners daughter did not like the stumps. While the guys were doing that I went over to a bed, next to the home and dug up about 15 Hosta's, of different varieties and saved them, to be transplanted later.

Rob showed up with about 25 new bushes, trees and flowers for us to plant. that is why I had to remove the Hosta's, so he would have a clean palette to work with when he arrived. The main focal point of the design was a beautiful Red Maple. There were 2 varieties of Astilbe's, 3 Pinxterbloom Rhododendron's and even, 3 "Brunnera named "Mr. Morse", made me laugh as that is my last name.

Once Rob, had it all arranged, we had to wait to plant, because the home owner, has to OK, the design layout. While we were waiting Rich and Guillerme, planted some new Forsythia bushes out in the bed, we just removed the "old" forsythia from. It was now, getting close to lunch, so I sent Rich, back to our shop, to get a load of dark brown mulch, for us to use, after we did our planting.

We finished up the day planting and mulching the property. Rob and I went and looked at next week's project at the same property where we will remove about 40 old Canadian Hemlock's that are growing next to the driveway and replant the area with new Arborvitae's.

Rain day......day to wok on my home biz

When I got up in the Morning it was pouring rain out and the forecast was for continued rain for the day, so I called and left Rob a message that I would not be in. We can't do much when it rains, sometimes we work on equipment or go to nurseries for supplies, but today there was none of that that needed to be done.

So I took some CRAVE energy Drink to get me going and then took advantage of the time off by spend time working on Facebook and spent a lot of time on Entrecard, dropping on other people's blogs and commenting on the ones I enjoy. I also got to finish up reading, the book I just bought " The Secret" really enjoyed it. See what the CRAVE will do for you, lots of energy to get stuff done.

Back to work....more slice seeding

I just had to show the Turkey Mm again, hopefully you can see the 2 chicks beside her, she is sitting on the other 6.

Today, was a very confusing day at work and we are off to a home that I have not visited in more than 7 years. I have been trying to remember what we did on my last visit and can only remember planting bushes, doing a clean up and mulching.

Rich, Guillerme and I went to Wrentham, Massachusetts today to do put some loam down in some low spots in the lawn and also to slice seed (lawn renovation), and airate the whole yard. The family has a large family of young boys and the yard is there playground and is tired and worn out from them playing on it. The lawn is also very compacted from this and rain just runs off of the lawn instead of being absorbed. That is why we are airating it, to open the lawn up for air, water and fertilizer to get into the root system of the grass. The slice seeding will also "dethatch" the lawn as we go along.

We used 160 pounds of lime, 100 pounds of starter fertilizer (18-6-8), 100 pounds of regular fertilizer ( 25-0-5 with 1% iron), 100 pounds of Lovell's New England grass seed and 100 pounds of Lovells Shade grass seed. We use the fertilizer with the iron it to "green up" the existing lawn and give a kick start to the new seed. This took us most of the day to finish, which was a good thing because the rest of the week is calling for rain.