Jan 07
0

My favorite moment of 2022

By | gardening | No Comments

The best moment

While spending some time on LinkedIn recently, I came across a post asking a simple question: what was your favorite moment of 2022? It didn’t take me long to think of my favorite moment. What about you?

City note

Early in the season, I picked up what would quickly become my best-paying client. It’s a logistics company and business is good because goods have to move. The business is based at the back of a residence and both employees and clients pass through the gardens on their way in and out. Therefore, everything has to look presentable.

When I first took on the work, there was a lot of weeding and pruning to do. By summer I had everything under control. Then, when I showed up for my weekly service session, the owner informed me that she had received a note from the city.

Immediately I assumed it was about me over-stuffing the green waste bin and causing headaches for the truck driver. Not so. The note was asking her to take photos of her garden and submit them to their municipal website! That was funny, and it made me looked good. It also made my client feel like she was getting her money’s worth by hiring Red Seal Vas.

Yes, my maintenance work was brilliant as always, but it would be wrong to take credit for the garden design. The tall lupins, Columbines and bright Calendulas must have looked awesome in the summer sunshine as the city people drove by- slowly I’m sure. So they dropped off their door-hanger note and left.

Calendulas: deadhead often for continuous blooms

Timing

Now you see why this was my favorite moment of the year. I was trying hard to impress my well-paying clients and the garden looked really good in summer. To have the city stop by and say it looked good was a huge bonus. And by inviting my clients to submit photos of their garden, they made them feel good. Everything came together well, which, sadly, isn’t always the case.

I had a huge grin on my face when I drove away with my weekly service cheque in my pocket.

What was YOUR favorite moment of 2022?

Jan 04
0

Gardening and karaoke

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On demand gardening

The text message came through exactly one week from Christmas; and flurries in the forecast. Looking at the weekend forecast, I was totally prepared to shut down my side-hustle operation. It’s been a good, long season. But I’m a well-known landscape slut. I can’t say no.

Plus, this was a serious request. My client was having a karaoke party and the garden looked like hell after the recent snow melted away. Could I clean it all up and also give the back pool area a blow? Absolutely!

Residential service

This is exactly why my side-hustle business exists: you enjoy your party and sing karaoke, I make sure your guests aren’t horrified when they arrive and see your gardens. Some of my clients do yoga by the pool while I garden nearby. And many of my clients are, sadly, too invalid to do the work themselves. I work for elderly couples where both the husband and wife have serious health issues. So my work saves them from having to look out on a weedy, wild-looking garden.

Some of my clients are in their nineties and living alone. They barely make it up and down the stairs, never mind lawn mowing and weeding. Vas can handle that.

Proper Landscaping provides the same great service but on a larger, strata scale.

Basic tasks

I had to do a lot of raking to do because the cherry tree on the boulevard finished dropping its leaves. Weed weren’t a big issue because in spring we installed several yards of mulch to keep them down. The mulch worked well, except along the fence line where it was too thin.

As I raked, I noticed a beautiful Callicarpa shrub, now completely bare and showing its purple berries. Deep into December, it was the only thing putting on a show.

Callicarpa berries in mid-December

Another important task was removing spent hostas and daylilies. But the key final task was a clean up blow, only hours before guests would start arriving for the karaoke party. I blew the property thoroughly, including the back pool area.

As soon as I got home, I sent my fat invoice to the owner, knowing full well she’s already busy drinking and singing, and very unlikely to question the dollar amount.

This then is the reward. Not just the money and profits but the satisfaction of delivering good service, on time, so the client can relax and concentrate on whatever they’re doing.

Relax while I do the labor.
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Dec 28
0

When leaf blower isn’t the answer

By | machines, Seasonal, Tools | No Comments

Seniors raking

This past Saturday I was at Rocky Point in Port Moody, visiting a used car dealership because our family van started breaking down with alarming frequency. It was time to upgrade.

Just as I was getting back into my car, I noticed a lady next door vigorously raking up leaves under a mature tree. She was obviously a senior but I suspect she could easily pivot into a new landscaper position. She was moving and piling up the debris against the tree, presumably for later pick up.

No blowers for this senior.

Small jobs

Strata properties like the ones Proper Landscaping dudes maintain are too large to clean up with just rakes. Backpack blowers are mandatory evil. Yes, they’re loud and cause air pollution but they’re indispensable.

Now, smaller sites can easily be cleaned-up with rakes and some time. It’s a perfect job for seniors: they need to move to stay healthy and they have time. The lady I photographed -without permission!- was doing a great job. I thought it was really nice to not face a blower on the weekend after using one all week at work.

Globe article

The sweaty senior also reminded me of a Globe and Mail newspaper story. The author, facing leafy debris on his small back patio- somewhere in Toronto- rushed out to a big box store and purchased a blower. Like everyone else in his neighborhood.

It took him a few tries to assemble the machine properly and after a few leaf blowing sessions he realized something. Using a power blower on his small back patio didn’t make any sense. It was ridiculous. He could easily rake everything up in thirty minutes. There was absolutely no need to create noise and air pollution. He could save money by investing some of his own time and energy.

So, he returned the blower and life has been good ever since. He rakes up the leaves every fall and gets much-needed exercise. Just like our Port Moody senior.

Dec 24
0

Requiem for a clover lawn

By | Landscaping, Lawn Care | No Comments

Love at first sight

When I saw this clover front lawn a few seasons ago, it was love at first sight. It’s fluffy, only requires occasional blade edging to keep it from spilling over, keeps the weeds down by shading them out, and bees love it when it’s in flower.

You don’t have to mow it or line trim it, it’s very low maintenance. I thought it was a brave statement from the owners. I never got to meet them. People are generally afraid of sticking out in the neighborhood.

New owners

Then, months later, I walked by again and the clover lawn was gone. People love green lawns. But if it were up to me, I wouldn’t go back. Now I miss the fluffy clover lawn when I walk by.

The new owners overseeded their new lawn and the grass was coming in.

Of course, now that you have a new lawn, you have to do some work. The previous owners must have been busy or away frequently.

Now you have to water and fertilize the lawn; and once it’s long enough, you have to cut it. But not too short. Edging is also required to keep the lawn nice and neat. Next spring, they will likely aerate the lawn to keep it healthy. The clover eliminated most of these extra steps that cost money and time.

Fall 2023

To each his own. If you want a lawn, by all means get a lawn. But when I saw this lawn recently, it didn’t inspire me. I missed the fluffy clover. Some people do a mix of the two, grass and clover. I believe this kind of mix discourages the European chafer beetles from attack.

To be fair, I didn’t get to see the clover lawn in winter. Perhaps it was a sad, muddy looking zone. I have no idea. I was just sad to see it go. It was my favorite lawn!

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Dec 21
0

Why caretaker Jackie loves me!

By | Landscaping Equipment | No Comments

What leaf blower haters overlook

The one thing many leaf blower haters overlook is the struggle of building caretakers as they try to keep leaf debris out of their buildings every fall. Jackie is a caretaker, and she loves my leaf blower. No, it’s not a mistake, she loves my leaf blower because she has three buildings to maintain and keep clean. Whatever leaf debris tracks in with residents and wind must be removed. But not if I get to the leaves outside first.

By the way, Jackie is a real person but she’s a bit shy. I even offered her a free West Coast Landscape Pro mug for providing her picture, but it didn’t work. She’s a middle-aged lady with long blonde hair and a smoking habit. Occasionally, she freaks me out when she smokes in the shrubbery by the side exit.

I also use the word love in a professional, platonic sense. Don’t rush out to buy an expensive leaf blower because Vas promised you easy caretaker’s love. This is a family blog, not a hook-up site.

Use it or ban it?

Yes, leaf blowers are loud, and they create noise and air pollution. They also stir up unhealthy dust in summer.

Someday soon, the technology will improve, and we’ll be able to use battery-operated leaf blowers. Then there won’t be any need to write blog posts like this.

If you’re a landscaper, you know that your leaf blowers are indispensable. If you’re a homeowner, you can afford to quietly rake up your leaves.

So far, only a few places have successfully banned leaf blowers. The only place I know of in British Columbia is Vancouver’s neighborhood around Denman Street. Built up with residential towers, the noise tends to echo throughout the neighborhood. I worked there before the ban and I’m not sure how the landscape contractors are managing every fall.

When you hear a leaf blower in your neighborhood, remember caretaker Jackie before complaining. She loves me. You should, too.

Aha, leafy debris on second floor.

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Dec 17
0

Why I love Japanese Stewartia trees

By | Trees | No Comments

Multi-season interest

There you have it in the headline, I love Japanese stewartia (Stewartia pseudocamellia) trees because they offer multi-season interest. But I didn’t really put it all together until one of my Facebook friends posted pictures of the tree in all of its fall glory. Because I float around as a working manager at my day-job, I don’t always get to see the same landscape in every season. And my friend was absolutely right: Stewartia pseudocammellia is a beautiful, smaller tree with multi-season interest. Take a look first and see if you agree.

Cup-shaped flowers, like Camellias

Fall colors

Beautiful peeling bark

Details

Stewartia pseudocamellia is native to Japan and Korea where it lives in mountain forests. Sadly, when I lived in Japan, I didn’t know the tree by name.

The cup-shaped Camellia-like flowers are fine to look at and show up in summer. The seeds are hidden in hard capsules, and I would always pick and open a few. I never did try to germinate the seeds. Usually, I forget them in my pockets for my wife to discover at the bottom of the washing machine.

You can expect it to grow anywhere from 12-40 feet high. I know it from strata complexes where it fits in lawns shared by two units. Since it’s a slow-growing tree species, this location is totally fine. I don’t even recall pruning it, other than taking off some out-of-control shoots to keep it shaped properly but not harshly.

Stewartia pseudocamellia is also drought-tolerant which is a big deal as our West Coast summers heat up. This year we experienced a fall drought as the rains didn’t return in early fall. It was bizarre seeing people watering their pots but not their trees. I think that’s backward because your trees are way more valuable.

My Facebook friend was clearly blown-away by the fall colors and rightly so. I like the look myself. The bright, peeling bark is a bonus feature. I always have to resist the urge to peel the bark off, which is strange because I have immediate use for it.

Want one?

If you want a multi-season interest beautiful tree that won’t get too big, the slow-growing and drought tolerant Stewartia pseudocamellia might be a good choice.

To learn more about trees, check out my eBook:

Landscape Tree Maintenance
Dec 14
0

So help me Vas: pollarding

By | Trees | No Comments

Why pollarding?

There are three mature London plane (Platanus x acerifolia) trees at a multi-family site (called strata in British Columbia) I know. One of those trees is fairly close to the building so it’s pollarded annually to keep it from getting too big. When people lose their views, they get upset; when gutters get full of leaves, it costs money to clean them up. It’s much easier to pollard the trees every winter.

Pollarding means removing all of the branches and letting the tree resprout. My 2018 blog post on this topic mentioned my distaste for the look of pollarded trees. I naively thought people pollarded trees because they couldn’t prune them properly. How wrong I was.

Vas was wrong

Then, in 2019, William Bryant Logan released his amazing book “Sprout lands: Tending the endless gift of trees“. It turns out that our civilization was able to thrive thanks to pollarding.

Done correctly, the pollarded wood was used for ships, baskets, wood to heat homes, and food for animals. Pruned trees resprouted new wood and kept on giving, thus the endless gift of trees book subtitle.

I had no idea.

London planes

Now back to our London planes. The three specimens are mature but not as mature as the trees on the boulevard. One, you will recall, is close to the building and the other two are not too far from a pool.

Pollarding involves removing all branches, leaving the funny-looking “knuckles”. It doesn’t look great after it’s done but the tree will never get bigger than this. Assuming you pollard it every year.

The green waste is hauled away but ages ago, it would have been used for firewood or to make baskets.

If your tree is mature, hire an arborist. If it’s smaller, you can easily do it yourself. Just pollard at a height you like. But, always, always, use sharp hand saws and proper safety gear. Tree work can be dangerous.

I must admit that in summer the trees look totally fine. You can’t really see the ugly “knuckles” and we know that the tree will stay roughly this size.

Now I just wish we had some use for the wood we remove.

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Dec 10
0

Fall drought decimates yew hedge

By | Pruning | No Comments

Last summer visit

It’s a lot of fun checking in on old projects to see how they are evolving. At one site we have a long yew hedge to provide privacy for windows.

Originally, the line was planted with cedars (Thuja occidentalis), but they kept on dying and had to be replaced. And as often happens, people get tired of planting the same cedars over and over, only to see them die.

Yew switch

So, we switched to yews (Taxus) because they do better than cedars, especially in hot summers. They also produce red cones (not berries!) which give us something to look at.

I did the switch personally, so I know how much labor was involved.

First, I had to dig up and remove the cedars. Then I had to go pick up the yews and install them. I believe the project cost something like $1,600.

We lost one or two specimens over the last few seasons, which is manageable. When I visited this past summer- remember, I float around as a working manager at my day job- the yew hedge looked great. It was green, healthy, and did the job of providing privacy for a row of windows directly behind it.

When I walked by, I told myself that Red Seal Vas does great work. (Never blow your own horn out loud.)

Fall drought

Fall drought: the lawn will recover, the yews won’t.

When I went over to help out this past fall, I nearly cried. Most of the yew hedge was brown and dead! What happened?

This fall we had drought conditions on the West Coast. There was so little rain, many dormant lawns didn’t fully recover before cold temperatures hit and mowing stopped. I had never seen that before.

Now, people are busy working and paying for their overpriced housing. Since they’re used to automatic fall rains, nobody bothered to water the plants. Including my prized yew hedge. Sadly.

And it gets worse. The manager had asked our foreman to clip the top of the hedge even though power shearing in drought conditions is a bad idea; you’re just adding stress. Instead, water the hedge frequently and prune it in fall, when it’s cooler and wetter.

2023

I have no idea what will happen to this yew hedge next year. Now that this blog post is finished, I fully intend to push this hedge out of my mind. The waste of labor and money is stunning. It might be time for people to start getting used to changes brought on by the Global Climate Emergency.

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Dec 07
0

How to make the most of your first snow workday

By | Seasonal | No Comments

Smile

I hate snow but there’s no point crying about it because I can’t control the weather. You just have to make the most of it, like I did today. It’s still November and regular landscape maintenance work got obliterated by snow. So, I made a few phone calls and got ready for work.

I got picked up by snow mercenaries like me at 8 am and we pushed snow off sidewalks and mailbox areas. Since we didn’t have a snowblower, we just shoveled the useless white stuff out of the way. Yes, it can be tiring, especially when people compact the snow. But, hey, it’s good exercise and we’re making money. We’re also making sure kids and the elderly are safe.

One of my crew members dropped her shovel at 9:30 and declared, ” I need a drink”. She meant juice, not alcohol, so we drove to a nearby mall for Starbucks and a washroom break. Always stay hydrated.

Once the snow was gone, we put down ice-melter which will make it easier the next day should more snow fall.

Observe and enjoy

You can also take in the snowy landscape and enjoy it. It was a nice sunny day and I got to see the bright berries on a Pyracantha shrub.

Pyracantha

I also got to see winter annuals I planted in fall, covered in snow. Hidden a few inches below the surface are spring bulbs, patiently waiting for spring temperatures to signal a new season. The bulbs need to feel the cold.

Snow covering ornamental kale.

If you look closely, you can also find stuff that doesn’t work well. Like the water bag (not cheap!) covering a tree stump on a municipal boulevard. I mean, it’s winter, so the water bag is useless. Considering how much it retails for, it should be removed and re-deployed next year.

This isn’t working well.

This picture also shows how tough life can be for city trees. If it’s not drought that kills them, it’s bad drivers.

Humans

Just as much fun, if not more, is observing the people on your crew. Some are snow mercenaries like me, ready to shovel snow for cash. Some work for other landscape companies and are now laid-off. One mother of three kept talking about her kids ad nauseam; and the driver showed up on very little sleep because she got stuck in last night’s snow fall.

Once I got home, I texted the office lady with my hours so I could get paid by e-transfer. It was a good day, and we’ll see what tomorrow brings.

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