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October 2019

Lowest point as a landscaper

By | Landscaping | No Comments

Someone online asked an interesting question: what was your lowest point as a landscaper? Aha. So I gave it some thought and my answer took me to the beginning. I started landscaping in 2000 and I was an eager apprentice working at a prominent landscape maintenance company.

Deep edging

One important winter task we had to perform was establishing deep edges. It was a lot of labour sticking an edging shovel into bed edges at exactly ninety degrees for miles and miles. And since deep edging generated many soil chunks we had to make them disappear.

This was accomplished by shaking off any grass and disposing of it; the remaining soil was cultivated into the bed. Repeat.

As hard as it was, deep edging gave our beds nice definition and a sharp look. But there was more.

 

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Ninety degree edge gives this bed nice definition.

 

Lowest point

One day I was given a respirator and a plastic applicator full of the granular herbicide Casoron. It wasn’t very clearly explained to me at the time but Casoron is a pre-emergent granular herbicide. Applied in spring, it sterilizes the soil and prevents weeds from germinating.

Few weeds means fewer labour dollars spent on weeding. Casoron application is now illegal in British Columbia but it’s a hard habit to stop. Look around in spring, you will see landscapers quietly sneaking around their sites. But that’s a topic for another blog post.

When it rains after Casoron application, the herbicide can run off and “burn” the grass by leaving it yellow. Beautiful deep edges prevent this from happening. Aha. Vas finally connected the dots.

Was this the wrong company for me? And industry? It was definitely my lowest point as a landscaper.

I had just spent weeks deep edging beds just so we could sterilize the beds with a granular herbicide. Herbicide so bad for your olfactory system it could rob you of your sense of smell.

 

How to pimp out a barbecue area

By | landscape maintenance | No Comments

Good landscape maintenance dictates that we follow our plan for the day. Usually there is a set rotation so that every section of a given site is completed. Working without a plan is a recipe for disaster. Landscape foremen must know what tasks they must complete on the day they visit and on the following visit.

When small requests pop up we try to do them right away. Assuming they are small. Anything bigger and time consuming should be pushed to your next visit.

One exception

There are always exceptions, in life and in landscaping. This occurred to me in late July 2019, when a resident came out to alert us to a social event happening that weekend in the barbecue area. Now what? Do you ignore it and continue with your finesse work plan?

We decided to pimp out the barbecue area because when residents have a social event they talk. And the barbecue area needed some help so we switched and attacked the area.

Tasks

One obvious blemish were the many crack weeds showing around the barbecue pit and benches. So we carefully line trimmed them to oblivion. When you do this work check for nearby windows and pedestrians so there isn’t any trouble.

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All unsightly crack weeds are gone.

 

I also pruned the Japanese maple (Acer palmatum) lightly. A few branches were sticking out into the walkway; and there were some dead branches inside the tree. You should be able to see through Japanese maples.

The other maple (Acer palmatum disectum) had a weeping habit and it didn’t require any pruning but there was a lot of landscape fabric showing around the tree. That’s very unsightly. Landscape fabric should be covered by several inches of mulch.

Since we didn’t have any fresh mulch, I poached some mulch from a lonely corner on the site. Poaching mulch from a neighbouring site would be wrong.

Weeds and tree seedlings were also removed from both beds. I cultivated where the old landscape fabric was still covered by mulch. This gives the bed a fresh look and it uproots weeds.

The final task is always a courtesy clean-up blow. Just try not to blow too long in summer because it’s hot and dusty outside and windows are open. I blew the barbecue area and bailed, satisfied that the residents would enjoy their barbecue.

 

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Weeds and seedlings are gone, the bed is cultivated and the maple is off the walkway.

Would you raze your garden?

By | gardening | No Comments

Would you raze your own garden? It seems like a radical waste of time but I like the idea. What if you try gardening and years later you admit to yourself that you’re not really a gardener?

This blog post was inspired by a story I had read in the Globe and Mail newspaper. The writer started gardening in her small Calgary garden and everything went well. Her husband helped with spring preparations and the garden produced all sorts of vegetables for the family.

Then they moved to British Columbia where their new neighbours were gardening all-stars. And it must have been a bit intimidating.

I have some experience with this. I was once a happy community garden plot “owner” and then I made the mistake of renting a bigger plot. It was bigger but also closer to the main building. This meant close scrutiny of my plot by a gardener on disability with time to kill. He would constantly analyze my vegetable choices and rob me of the joy of growing and experimenting with new plants. I let my plot go to some lucky person on the waiting list. And to this day I regret accepting the bigger garden plot.

Back to our family. While the husband helped in spring, he didn’t do much beyond that. Same with the kids. The wife was left to care for the garden, weeding, planting, watering, harvesting. And soon she was overwhelmed.

That’s when the family decided to quit. The husband went out and razed the garden; the wife walked out on the patio and instead of worrying about the garden, she opened up a book and relaxed. The change felt great. They weren’t really gardeners and they openly admitted it.

I totally loved reading this article because it’s different from beautiful garden magazine stories. You never read about people giving up and razing their gardens. That wouldn’t sell many gardening magazines or books, tools and seeds.

 

 

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