Resources Archives - Page 5 of 7 - Proper Landscaping Inc.

Mar 21

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Canadian Gardening ceases publication!?

By Vas Sladek | Education, Magazines | No Comments

Excited, I picked up my March 16, 2016 issue of Canadian Gardening magazine only to discover a letter attached to the back. The letter informed me that with the current issue the magazine is ceasing publication. Really? Too bad.

My remaining issues will be substituted with Canadian Living magazine-“the magazine that will inspire you and motivate you to live your best every day.” I can’t wait. What about my garden?

Published by TVA Publications, this was their statement, published online here.

“TVA Publications has decided to concentrate on its strongest brands and will allocate the required staff and resources to keep strengthening their positioning. In that context, we will cease the activities of the Canadian Gardening magazine. The final issue will be the Spring 2016 issue (hitting newsstand on March 21, mailed to subscribers on March 8).

This consolidation strategy is the best way for the company to optimize the reach of its flagship titles in a fast-changing market. TVA Publications will maintain a strong presence in every segment of the industry – fashion, beauty, home decor, cooking, celebrities & entertainment. We remain fully committed to print magazines as a core component of TVA Publications’ business strategy while continuing to develop its brands on other platforms.”

My question is, why drop gardening? With the death of Gardenwise magazine, we are left with the excellent magazine Garden Making. I wonder for how long. All I can do is subscribe and cross my fingers.

Feb 06

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Red Seal Vas on periodicals

By Vas | Arborist Insights, Landscape Industry, Landscaping, Magazines, Resources | No Comments

As the 2016 season approaches, I try to finish my dusty magazines from last year. Below are the key periodicals I read. Because my budget is limited, I subscribe to some and buy interesting issues from the others. What do YOU read?

Horticulture Magazine (USA)

It has nice detailed plant and how to articles. I get the digital version because shipping for paper copies to Canada is too high. Lee Valley sells paper copies in the store

HC1SI

Arborist News (International)

This comes bi-monthly and is included with your ISA membership. It’s the main magazine for arborists. Includes quizzes, scientific tree articles and book reviews.
Warning: ISA also publishes a book catalogue full of great but pricey books. I never seem to have the budget for everything on my wish list.

Gardenwise, Canadian Gardening and Garden Making (Canada)

Good coverage of Canada. The best part of Gardenwise is the chores page that outlines what to do in your garden for a particular month. Garden Making is the newest and prettiest of the three. It has nice how to articles and lots of plants.

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Fine Gardening (USA)

Great photos but this magazines can seriously add to your food bill as you throw it into your food cart. Covers all of USA so my interest is in the Pacific Northwest. I enjoy the how to articles on pruning. Plenty of botanical names.

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Landscape Management (USA)

A magazine for landscape company owners and managers. The most interesting issue is the one with top annual revenues. The numbers will blow you away.
You can get it for free if you own a landscape company in Canada. You can also check out the online version at www.landscapemanagement.net.

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Success magazine (USA)

Every issue comes with bonus audio CD. I listen to it on the way to my sites. Articles cover important topics related to business and personal success. I am also a fan of publisher Darren Hardy. His book “Entrepreneur Rollercoaster” is a must read. Darren also has a daily blog you can subscribe to. Available at local stores.

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What do YOU read?

Jan 08

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Get Landscape Industry Certified!

By Vas | Arborist Insights, Landscape Industry, Resources | No Comments

This past fall, with daylight quickly fading out, I witnessed a residential landscape service blitz at a house next door. Three men mowed and pruned in semi-darkness. When you look at the globe cedars pictured, pruning must be used loosely. The cedars should be evenly sheared into nice globes and the clean up should match the pruning job. Always! Incredibly, this is their finished product and the clippings remain on the ground weeks later. Presumably they got paid for this “service”.

Then it hit me! This is why landscape professionals get certified. To get some separation from people who produce and accept this kind of service.

The Canadian Nursery and Landscape Association (CNLA) runs the Landscape Industry Certified program in Canada. The program helps landscapers validate their skills and prove, by passing all written and practical tests, that they have the minimum required skill levels. Employers love it and clients should look for this logo. If you are lucky your employer will cover your testing fees. Ask nicely.

landscape industry certified technician

Visit www.cnla-acpp.ca/certification or e-mail certification@cnla-acpp.ca

Nov 27

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Right Plant, Right Place….

By Vas | Arborist Insights, Company News, Education, Landscaping, Plant Species Information, Tips | No Comments

Take a look at the planting by the sidewalk. The client had asked me to take down the four tall Calamagrostis grasses, thereby eliminating its ornamental flower heads.
It turns out the client went shopping and bought the grasses without realizing their mature height. Oooops. The grasses obscured the boxwoods (Buxus)- they should be placed behind the Buxus; they also interfered with driveway sight lines and invited complaints from the neighbor. Clearly, this was a case of wrong plant in a wrong place.

Design step: what would you replace the grasses with? Feel free to submit your ideas in the comments space.

Two potential replacements for spring 2016.

Green/lime Mondo grass Ophiopogon japonicus

unnamed

Blue oat grass Helictotrichon sempervirens

helictotrichon sempervirens -sapphire-

Oct 30

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Hearing Tests

By Vas | Arborist Insights, Company News, Education, Videos | No Comments

hearing

I had my first hearing test in 2014 and I was worried about entering a claustrophobic box inside a mobile truck. Now I am glad I did it. After sixteen loud seasons in the field, always diligently wearing ear protection, it was nice to get a picture of my hearing. That first 2014 test became my baseline. The 2015 test also showed normal hearing. Great! (Only my wife questions the results.)
The few lines below normal range (see picture) could be caused by machine noise exposure for hours before the test; and, possibly, by the friendly, heavy-set female technician coughing and moving about in the mobile truck.

Action steps:

1) Always wear ear protection!

2) Get tested – best through your employer- to establish a baseline for your hearing.

3) Do NOT abuse your headset. I use Peltors and my bad habit is sticking goggles inside them. Just like resting the headset at the top of your front truck seat, this reduces the headset’s effectiveness.

Bad habit: goggles inside my headset

Sep 18

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Woody Vegetation Chontrol….

By Vas | Arborist Insights, Education, Resources, Tips | No Comments

What do you do with deciduous trees that continue to re-sprout and regrow from cut stumps? What if those trees are located in areas where harsh ( but effective) chemical herbicide use is restricted? Think urban areas and community watersheds.

As I recently found out while visiting a water quality pond, you can use a bio-herbicide called Chontrol Peat Paste.

Details: www.mycologic.ca.

The procedure is fairly simple. Apply a thin layer of the paste to freshly cut stumps from late summer to fall. The pictures below show our native alders, Alnus rubra (Betulaceae family). The trees are interfering with the water quality pond whose function it is to prevent sand, coarse silt and other contaminants from entering environmentally sensitive streams; and to help maintain the flow required to support aquatic life.

The product is only available commercially and it will be interesting to see effectiveness data come in.

Fresh stumps on Alnus rubra

Chontrol Peat Paste after application to freshly cut stumps

Four years after application

Water quality pond where alder forest would interfere too much

Sep 11

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Book Review: The Gardener of Versaille

By Vas | Arborist Insights, Books, Reviews | No Comments

This French best seller, written by Alain Baraton, gardener-in-chief at the palace of Versaille, is fantastic! It will appeal to all gardeners and green professionals. Baraton offers us an intimate look at his career path and the history of the famous grounds. His job is not easy. Working under him are eighty gardeners, and they manage 350,000 trees, flowers and plants, plus thirty miles of walkways on 2,100 acres of land. No more enthusiastic amateurs; all new gardeners are required to pass standard government exams.

The gardens have been frequented and loved by kings and queens. Baraton includes many paragraphs on young French kings and their many escapades. Versaille is frequented by lovers looking for secluded spots and this leads us to an interesting quote: “A garden capable of attracting lovers is a success”.
Totally unexpected were the hordes of grandmothers making secret cuttings to take back home.

I was personally fascinated with the details of a gardener’s life and the many great gardeners who worked on the grounds before Baraton. If you like French history or just good stories, you won’t be disappointed. The absolute best story, well worth the price of the book, is that of Louis XIV and his new Superintendent of Finances, Fouquet. Fouquet created an amazing garden at the chateau Vaux-le-Vicomte and threw the party of all parties. Some guests received horses as door prizes! In one account, the young king Louis XIV got very jealous and poor Fouquet was stripped of all of his possessions. Court judges wanted him exiled but that was too mellow for the young king. He threw Fouquet into prison and he died there! Another account says Fouquet was set up. It was his predecessor who abused the treasury.
I highly recommend this book. Five stars.

Aug 14

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Follow local gardening guru Steve Whysall and learn!

By Vas | Arborist Insights, Books, Education, Landscaping, Resources, Tips | No Comments

Imagine my excitement last year when I discovered that my kids were having play-dates with Steve Whysall’s grandkids! Mr. Whysall has been writing about gardening for the Vancouver Sun since 1994. Look for his column on Fridays, usually on page C3. You are guaranteed to learn new things. I often rip out the section and file it.

Mr. Whysall has also published several books and organizes overseas garden tours. While the tours are attractive they are way over my family budget. I am, however, ready to plug what I consider to be his most useful book.

Best plant picks, slightly beat up and autographed, has served me really well. The book is a neat month by month guide for our West Coast gardens. I use it to practice plant identification and to review the list of garden tasks to be performed on a particular month. As the seasons pile up, I can run through the list of plants much quicker. Always learn about new plants and review them.

For more information visit www.stevewhysall.com. It is my humble opinion that the website could use an upgrade but it is still useful. If your family budget allows, please subscribe to the Vancouver Sun newspaper at www.vancouversun.com.

Aug 07

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Industrial athletes…..

By Vas | Education, Resources, Tips | No Comments

I came across the term “industrial athlete” while reading an article on caring for your body in Arborist News (February 2013). All green industry workers work hard in the field all year and taking care of their bodies is critical to their work performance.
Some highlights. Many workers don’t eat enough, skimping on breakfast and skipping lunch because of the sluggishness they experience after eating. Proper hydration is important; excessive caffeine consumption contributes to dehydration.
Rest and recovery are important; and so is sleep.
Workers who take care of their bodies perform better and make a larger contribution to their company’s success. Review the article and take care of your body Properly!

Jul 24

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Meet My Hero….

By Vas | Arborist Insights, Education, Resources | One Comment

Linda_Chalker-Scott-recent Dr. Linda Chalker-Scott is my hero. She is an associate professor and extension urban horticulturist at Washington State University.

In her books The Informed gardener and The informed gardener blooms again she uses science to examine common garden and landscape myths. Warning: she explodes many common myths.

Sustainable Landscape and Gardens is more of a technical manual which can be ordered directly from Linda. Her latest book How plants work is a fantastic book for gardeners everywhere and green professionals. I finished the book while travelling in Japan in late May and my review will appear in a future blog.
Linda also writes in popular magazines and has published extensively in scientific literature. We have already seen reference to her technical paper on mulches in an earlier blog.

So why a hero?

She is a Ph.D. and gardener who uses sound science
She translates hard science into understandable and thus usable information for all gardeners and green professionals, and, this is important
She is “local”

If you are a gardener or green professional, you will love her work. If you read it and study it, it will make you a better professional or gardener. Google her today and thank me later. I hope to meet her at a future seminar…..

Linda-Chalker-Scott-books

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