Monthly Archives

April 2021

Apr 30
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Welcome to mowing hell

By | Lawn Care | No Comments

It’s coming, I know it is. Every spring we apply generous amounts of lawn fertilizer with high Nitrogen content to get our lawns to green up. And green up they do.

Mowing hell

As the nitrogen kicks in, our lawns turn lush green and they look fantastic after cutting. But there is a catch. Where weeks ago I needed thirty minutes and three tarps to complete my commercial site lawns, now it’s all doubled.

And because I do the sites on weekends, solo, there is no one to off-load the mowing on. I occupy my own personal mowing hell. It seems like I have to empty my mower bag after every pass and, after a while, it gets old.

It’s usually at this point that I remind myself what a nice extra source of income this flexible gig is. Because the sites are commercial, not residential, I can start early or work late. I will never get old Mrs. Robinson complaining about how I robbed her of beauty sleep. This flexibility is awesome. For example, when my son has soccer matches, I can do two half-days. Nobody cares, as long as the place looks great on Monday.

Complications

Mowing hell gets worse when your mower blades are dull and it rained the night before. Now the grass clogs up the mower chute while the bag remains fairly empty. So, you’re stuck cleaning the chute. Otherwise, the mower starts dropping grassy clumps from the deck.

Dull mower blades shred the grass blades and the wetness makes them stick to the deck, bag and chute. This requires frequent stops which is annoying because I’m not paid by the hour. When I’m done, I can bail.

Make sure the blades and engine are off before reaching in to clean the chute.

It’s also important to clean the deck carefully. Stop the blades and engine and tip the mower with the filter pointing up. Then undo the spark plug. I’ve never seen it but mowing the mower blades with the spark plug still on could bring them back to life. Allegedly. Disconnect the spark plug and clean the chute. I do this before moving to a new lawn section. If you do it with every stop, you’ll be there forever.

Conclusion

Mowing hell is coming this spring. I know it. It’s the price I pay for lush green lawns. Make sure your mower blades are sharp and bring extra tarps.

Bonus: if you’re in charge of fertilizing, you can have some fun with other crews or your neighbors. Put the fertilizer down heavy and watch them sweat.

Apr 24
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The case of an abused snowbell tree

By | Arborist Insights, Pruning | No Comments

When strata contracts run for only ten months, the owners get two winter months to turn rogue. That’s how one snowbell tree (Styrax japonicus) lost one half of its trunk.

Because we don’t recommend “pruning” this severe, the owner probably got fed up with strata council approval requests. Requests can go from council to the management company; and from there to the landscape contractor. I’ve seen requests so old, they were completed several weeks before the contractor formally received them.

The setting

I’m not sure how the poor tree ended up so close to the owner’s patio. It might have been a wayward seed or deliberate planting. Either way, the tree is way too close to the patio. Even if the roots don’t affect the patio stones, chances are, the foliage will eventually touch the building.

Styrax flowers are beautiful snow bells but they turn into hundreds of seeds that cover the patio and could cause the owner to slip. I’m also not sure if they wanted this much shade on their patio. I never got to interview them.

The bottom line is: the tree is situated too close to the patio.

Best solution

By far the best solution would be to remove the tree completely. There is very little available space for the tree to grow.

The owner’s solution didn’t go far enough. She cut the tree at 4-5 feet so only the trunk was left. Which looks weird. It also removes whatever food was stored in the branches.

When over half of a tree goes missing, the tree notices it and pushes out many sprouts. After all, it will need leaves to feed itself. You can see the response in the picture below.

The response is furious, as the tree fights. The new sprouts mature into poorly attached branches and the owner is back to square one. Now you have a choice: remove the sprouts every year, remove the tree or rehabilitate it.

You can see the original cut at roughly 4 feet.

You can rehabilitate topped trees by keeping a few leaders, subordinating a few more sprouts, and completely removing the others. But here it wouldn’t make sense because there is not enough room for this Styrax.

ISA certified arborist Vas recommends complete removal!

Apr 17
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Who was Karl Foerster?

By | Education, gardening, Species | No Comments

One stunning grass

I first learned about the Feather reed grass when I worked for the City of Coquitlam. My then gardener-boss was a fantastic teacher and, luckily, the gardens we maintained contained many Feather reed grasses.

Feather reed grass (Calamagrostis x acutiflora ‘Karl Foerster’) is a beautiful ornamental grass. I love the way the large seed heads sway in the wind; and I have one specimen in a pot on my humble patio. I rescued it from a work project which would have horrified Mr. Foerster; the grass that bears his name, unwanted!

Calamagrostis is a clump forming perennial grass, it’s hardy and fast growing. Its soft feathery green plumes mature into wheat-colored spikes. Poor Mr. Foerster would be horrified if he saw the way his grass gets machine gunned by landscapers in early fall into lifeless mounds. It’s as if the grass reminded them of wheat harvests. I leave my patio specimen alone and it’s totally fine.

Not too long ago, while reading a UK gardening magazine, I came across an obvious question: who was Karl Foerster? (See Blade Runner, The English Garden, March 2021, p.81) That’s what so fascinating about many plants: they have their own stories. But to get there, you must know the botanical name. Feather reed grass alone would never let you discover Karl Foerster. Always learn botanical names.

Who was Karl Foerster?

Karl Foerster (1874-1970) discovered the Feather reed grass hybrid species along a railway line in Germany in the 1930s. He ran his parents’ plant nursery which specialized in hardy perennials. He also lectured and wrote about hardy perennials.

He bred close to 370 crosses, mainly clumping grasses, Delphiniums and Phlox.

His key contributions to garden design were:

  1. popularizing the use of grasses
  2. using plants as the most important element in the garden
  3. seeing plants as individuals, not something to dispose of with the seasons

Check out these two beauties from my picture collection.

The specimen below looks great but I question its placement. At its best, the Feather reed grass covers up a laurel and obscures a sign. That’s all the excuse landscapers need to cut it down.

The grass is great but I question the placement.

Conclusion

I love grasses. They’re low maintenance and usually perennial; and they look awesome when they sway in gentle breezes. Thanks Karl!

Apr 11
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Always learning about trees

By | Arborist Insights, Pruning | No Comments

Learning never stops

Learning never stops! Which is why I love the green industry and feel like I will never run out of topics to write about. Especially about trees. There is so much to learn.

Lee Valley

Take my shopping visit to Lee Valley as an example. I was there to buy new blades and springs for my Felcos ( Visit again on March 6, 2021, to read my Felco blog post). As soon as left my car, I noticed a cherry tree, planted in the middle of the sidewalk. Fungal fruiting bodies were screaming at me to notice them. And bang, as soon as I saw them, I knew the cherry tree was dead. That’s the rule. Fungus inside your tree is a disaster.

I love how the fungus-tree death connection automatically clicked in my head.

Healthy trees don’t sport fungal fruiting bodies.

Ray cells

Ray cells.

It pays to be connected to people on LinkedIn. I got this picture from a contact who marveled at seeing ray cells so clearly. Allegedly, ray cells are clearly seen in oaks.

Now, in keeping with the continuing education theme of this blog post, I went home and looked up ray cells on the internet. And I found out they’re pretty amazing.

The two main functions of ray cells in trees are:

  1. ray cells keep the growth rings together
  2. ray cells help shuttle water and nutrients in the xylem

They also look cool in cross-section.

Heading cuts

One of my private clients received a letter from her municipality, asking her to clear Japanese maple (Acer palmatum) branches off their city lamp. So they hired an arborist to do the jobs. And when I was on site to do finesse work (a nice way to say weeding), I took pictures of his heading cuts.

A heading cut.

Heading cuts are made to discourage main stem growth and promote side growth. In this case, we want to keep the maple from reaching the city lamp. The cut is made just above a branchlet or bud. And we can expect any new growth to happen sideways, not straight to the top.

Then I put my iPhone away and went back to weeding, mumbling something like “I could have made those cuts!”.

Never stop learning!

Apr 04
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Tree topping disaster

By | Arborist Insights, Pruning | No Comments

Don’t do it!

Tree topping rules are straight forward: don’t do it! I was stunned recently at a site in White Rock, British Columbia, when I saw a topped Persian ironwood (Parottia persica) tree.

Persian ironwood trees are bulletproof. They don’t suffer from any diseases, the branches have interesting look and their fall color is spectacular. You can’t do much better when deciding on a landscape tree. But this owner had his own ideas; and it helped that he was the strata council president. That’s how it works. If you’re not on council, you won’t get approval.

If you’re feeling crowded, then take out the whole tree. But that’s very complicated nowadays because municipalities now care about tree canopy cover percentages. Unless your tree is dangerous, it’s difficult to get a removal permit.

I suspect, if the municipality knew about this tree topping, they might issue a ticket. It’s a nasty procedure. So nasty, I had to compose this blog post about it. So nasty, the International Society of Arboriculture (ISA) publishes a handout about tree topping.

Future growth

The tree will now push out new sprouts and the president will have to hack them down every year to keep the tree at the same height. If you don’t remove the sprouts, they will develop into poorly attached shoots.

Another drawback is that it no longer looks like a Persian ironwood tree while the other specimens nearby still look great. It’s a weird effect.

Trees also store food in their branches and heavy removal can cause serious shortages for the tree. They also need lots of leaves to produce food and topping removes huge chunks of the tree crown where leaves would have developed.

Also, large wounds like these may not heal and could potentially invite insects and diseases in. Generally speaking, three inch diameter is your rule. Any cut bigger than that, may be slow to heal.

With huge sections of the crown missing, the bark can also get injured by heavy sun exposure.

Conclusion

Don’t top your trees!