Monthly Archives

January 2025

Jan 25
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Van Dusen Botanical Gardens are worth a visit in winter

By | Education, Gardens | No Comments

Winter gardens

Last weekend I took a winter plant identification course at the Van Dusen Botanical Gardens in Vancouver; and I took full advantage of free access to the gardens. The $30 course consisted of one hour in-class session and one hour outdoors. As soon as it ended and the group disbanded, I went back in.

And it was glorious! It was sunny at lunchtime on January 11, 2025, and there weren’t any crowds to fight through. It became a nice mental break for me because I’m normally on the go during the season, usually seven days a week. Now I had the gardens almost to myself so I walked it. Here’s what I saw.

Observations

Close to the main building I saw ornamental grasses nicely tied up. This not only looks like a fun project, it allows the grasses to remain standing. In regular strata landscape maintenance work, these grasses are sheared into oblivion as soon as they start to flop; and then there is nothing to look at. Nothing moves in the breeze.

Moving on, I came to a patch of evergreen ferns and, I’m proud to say, I didn’t need the plant tag because I knew the botanical name well: Asplenium scolopendrium or Hart’s Tongue fern. It’s an interesting fern, well-worth adding to your garden.

For the longest time I couldn’t remember its botanical name so I started writing blogs about it until the name stuck. Asplenium has something to do with the sun and once I get that part out, scolopendrium follows. Learning botanical names is a struggle which is why I paid $30 for a winter plant identification course!

As you walk through the gardens, you notice tons of leaf mulch. This is a botanical garden, not a strata multi-family property where everything is blown clean with backpack blowers. The leaf mulch protects the soil and whatever creatures over-winter under it.

You will also notice that most perennials are still standing. This allows birds to enjoy the seeds and it gives us something to look at. If you get lucky, you’ll see the stalks and flower remnants covered in frost.

You don’t have to cut everything back as soon as it’s spent. It can wait until spring. It definitely wouldn’t make sense in a botanical garden because visitors need to see something in winter.

Conclusion

If you’ve never been to the Van Dusen Botanical Gardens then definitely find the time to go. Summers are more exciting and much busier but I thoroughly enjoyed my winter visit. It’s a great place for a walk, alone or with your friends and loved ones. There is a cafe and you can buy souvenirs in the gift shop.

To see YouTube shorts from Van Dusen Botanical Gardens please click here. Don’t forget to like and subscribe to my West Coast Landscape Professional channel.

Jan 18
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Late season adjustments you can make

By | landscape maintenance | No Comments

Late season luck

The weather is always a deciding factor late in the season and so far this year it’s been great (knock on wood). Heading into the holiday season I was able to take care of lots projects. So let’s take a look at the adjustments I made for my clients. Perhaps it will inspire you to check over your own garden.

Lame Photinia

Now, this Photinia shrub is clearly struggling so I put it out of its misery. I love plants but this specimen looks awful, stuck between a fence and a large spruce tree. There is another Photinia just to the right so we’ll let it move in.

Don’t be afraid to do some editing in your garden. Start over if you have to.

Brown spots

This brown spot is probably visible from space and it’s easy to fix with one cut. The trick is to carefully reach into the cedar hedge and make the cut there. We don’t want to see anything sticking out.

When you do this you can expect to create a hole in your hedge which is unfortunate. In this case it wasn’t bad at all.

Tree stubs

This topic shows up almost every year because I see stubs all the time. Take a look at the black button on the left. It’s a stub the tree can’t quite cover up. We have to wait for it to die and break up, or we can cut it to help the tree. Also remove the sprouts.

The spot in the middle is an old cut that got nicely covered up. Trees know what to do so help them by not leaving tree stubs.

Can’t exit your car?

Are your Spirea shrubs preventing you from exiting your car? Take them down hard now or else they will just keep on pushing into the stall. The shrubs are forgiving so reduce them now. I did it by hand, which is slower but it also eliminates having to chase down shredded branch bits. It’s also quiet and relaxing; just make sure you know where your fingers are when you grab a handful of stems.

3/4 reduction

Cherry and leaf drop

Adjustment one is mandatory because the city has asked the owner to prune her cherries to improve sight lines. They’re asking for a 2.5 m clearance so I raised all of the trees off the road gently. The only is very touchy about her ‘Akebono’ cherries. When they flower in spring, people stop by to take pictures. To be honest, all of the trees need some pruning.

Adjustment two made me laugh. The lady texted me asking if there is still time to pick up her leaves. Oh, my, she’s lucky I know her. She had avalanches of soggy, decomposing leaves still on her lawn just days before Christmas.

If you want to kill your grass this is how you do it. The piles of leaves will smother your lawn and turn it yellow underneath. Never do this! Shred the leaf drop when conditions are still dry, not on Christmas day. Or rake up the leaves and compost them; shredding is also recommended in this step.

Chafer beetle damage

There isn’t much we can do about European chafer beetle grubs but you could rake this mess over and add soil. Overseed only when we get higher temperatures in spring.

Since this area has terrible access for stump grinders you can chain saw the pine tree stump as close to the ground as you can manage. Or you can dig it up, in which case the joystick leftover will help you to dislodge it.

Conclusion

There you go. As you head into 2025 take a good look at your garden and identify adjustments you can make. If Proper Landscaping maintains your building, ask them for help. Otherwise, message me for help.

Jan 11
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Can tree wells save your trees?

By | Lawn Care, Trees | No Comments

Lawn struggles

Typically, when I show up at a new lawn care job, I walk the lawn to check for obstacles and hazards. One of these clients had a small struggling tree planted in the lawn; and if you read my blogs regularly you already know where this is heading.

Trees planted in lawns struggle with competition from the grass and therefore don’t always thrive. They will do fine but they may not thrive. It was definitely the case here. When I got close to the tree I could see bark injuries from line trimmers. Even if you’re careful, it’s likely you will slip up. I know this from experience.

Stress!

Every hit with a line trimmer or worse, mower, is a stressful injury requiring the tree to allocate precious resources for repairs. What we really want is for the tree to grow. Repeated weekly injuries will kill the tree.

So, I cut the lady’s grass and then went back to the tree. Since I don’t usually carry plastic tree guards with me, I grabbed an edging shovel (flat bottom) and I created a tree well around it. Those two items are recommended ways for protecting trees from lawn care machines. The third suggested item is what we’re doing with this blog post: education! Keep your machines away from trees!

Fall review

Now, the rest of the mowing season is a blur. I’m busy. But then the lady texted me in the fall saying how happy she was. The tree leafed out nicely, pushed out flowers so we could identify it properly as Sourwood (Oxydxendrum arboreum) and it produced beautiful fall colours. According to her text, this sourwood has never looked so good! Awesome.

Happier Sourwood with a new tree well!

This is a good example of using tree wells to keep lawn care machines away from tree bark. Tree wells also help the tree collect water and nutrients by pushing competing grass away. But by far the biggest benefit is eliminating the constant stress of getting hit by string trimmers.

If you have trees planted in your lawn definitely consider creating tree wells around them.

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Jan 04
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Important lessons from one Japanese maple!

By | Pruning, Trees | No Comments

Unhappy senior

There she was, another gray senior citizen and she had lots to say about the person who pruned her prized Japanese maple last year. She didn’t like the job and she paid hundreds for it. Then there were some promises and the man never came back.

I’ve heard all this before. It’s important to hire professionals like Proper Landscaping and Red Seal Vas and go over the pruning work so it’s clear.

I told the lady to relax. I would come prune it for her and it wouldn’t ruin her retirement. So of course she called me this fall when I was still extremely busy and the maple was still covered in leaves. This leads us to lesson number one.

Hand-pruned maple

Wait until the leaves drop!

Now, when you wait for the leaves to drop, you help me see the full tree crown, which makes it easier to execute my pruning cuts; and see anything dead, diseased or crossing inside the crown. I can prune your tree with leaves still on but it makes it more difficult when I’m still busy chasing leaves.

Luckily, this old lady listened to me and waited because she was getting a great deal. I would prune her maple and she wouldn’t have to rejoin the work force to pay for it.

Last year her maple was quickly power sheared by an enthusiastic, low-skilled, side-gigger motivated by quick cash. Which leads us to lesson number two.

Don’t power shear your maples!

I get it, power shearing is very fast. Just run the blades along the crown, rake up the debris, collect your cash and disappear. I brought a small step ladder, snips, hand saw and pole pruners; and I still got it done quickly. Plus the clean-up was easy: small branches as opposed to shredded bits of tree tissue.

Hand cuts are way more precise; power shears run indiscriminately along the crown outline so many cuts don’t make sense. You can’t really cut close to a bud with power shears.

Prune your maples before Christmas!

It’s a good idea to prune your maples before Christmas, and I just made it. After Christmas, maples start to run their sap so when you make your pruning cuts, sap “bleeds out”. It’s best to avoid this and let the tree do its thing.

Conclusion

If you follow my suggestions above your maples should be in good shape. Don’t trust low-skilled side-giggers with your trees. Get them nicely, professionally done. Call Proper Landscaping for help.

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