Category

weeds

Dandelion greens for sale! Yes, really.

By | Plants, weeds | No Comments

“What the s=*#?”

Yesterday I happened to scroll through my Facebook feed and I found a gem in a lawn care group. A professional lawn care dude, presumably running his own company, posted the picture below with a question: “What the shit?”

It’s almost comical. A lawn care professional shocked by seeing local organic dandelion greens for sale. That’s because the chemical industry has done a great job picking on the plant. Unfairly. That’s it, that’s the main point of this blog post. Landscapers have become so brainwashed by the chemical industry, they can’t believe the plant they fight and poison is available for sale. And marked as organic.

Lawn care professionals usually try to get rid of dandelions by mowing them down weekly; and by poisoning them with chemicals. In your own garden you might be able to just pick them out with a hand tool. I once spent a day doing exactly that. You can read about it here.

Or your kids can run around in the “weeds” and make wreaths. I remember playing with dandelions as a kid in Europe. I especially remember one open field like it was yesterday because I would walk it between my grandpa’s villa and my father’s office.

Great plant, great benefits

My other point is that dandelions (Taraxacum oficinale) are amazing plants. I love the way they look but I understand why some multi-family complex clients don’t appreciate the wild look.

Dandelions are so widespread because they don’t need sex to reproduce. And every single part of the plant is edible! Like the greens pictured above and the roasted roots turned into organic, USDA-approved, tea. I buy it occasionally just to create some demand for dandelions.

You can Google the many health benefits of dandelions. And this is just one plant. How many others are we “nuking” because the chemical industry wants us to have a perfect lawn? It’s just that the dandelion is a poster child for the chemical industry; that’s how good they are at selling their chemical products.

Go ahead, try it!

I openly admit to looking at dandelion tea with some reservations. USDA-approved, organic dandelion root tea for C$6? But I gave it a shot and everything was fine. You can too. So next time you see dandelion greens for sale, buy some and enjoy them. The dandelion got picked on by the chemical industry unfairly. It’s an amazing plant.

That was my reply to the post mentioned above. Greens? That’s nothing. The whole plant is edible.

Controls over 50 weeds and look which one is on the cover!

The easiest upsell ever!

By | Side-hustle, weeds | No Comments

Lawn care only?

One of my old clients moved to a nice modern house he built in Coquitlam and he needed someone to cut his grass. Since he already knew me and I had some mow clients in the area, he got me to take care of his lawns.

Now, newly installed sod always looks great. It’s fresh and green, just the way we like it. But you have to work at it if you want to keep it looking great. Alas, my client is a busy man. I fertilized and he turned on his irrigation system. Then summer hit and now we have new stricter watering restrictions which prohibit lawn watering until further notice. (Light rain is forecast for Wednesday, two days from now.)

Other problems

The lawns aren’t the only issue at this residence. Weeds pop up and take off when they go unmolested. All I can do is make note of it and blog about it. And I can easily upsell it! Now you know my secret. I hook you in with cheap lawn care service and then I derail your retirement plans with weed control charges.

Seriously now, as weeds mature they flower and then produce thousands of seeds. Those seeds then stay in your soil waiting for perfect conditions to sprout; or they’re carried by wind to your unsuspecting neighbour’s house. Never let this happen.

Trophy weeds!

Sale closed

When I sent over my hefty lawn care service invoice, I casually mentioned the trophy weeds that could soon block his drains with seeds. And the client didn’t even blink; he hired me for weeding just a few days later. Done. Sale closed.

Next, we will replace dead cedars but not now. It’s too hot. We need cooler temperatures and moisture for that. For now, I will feed my teenagers with the extra weeding work I will do.

Conclusion

If you are a homeowner, don’t let your weeds flower and produce seeds. If you are a landscaper, don’t be shy about upselling other services. You can do more than lawn care: prune, weed, install plants, etc. Win by upselling other services. I can’t wait to make my client’s house weed-free. For a while.

Red Seal Vas facing the enemy on the way to the bank.

Weed control with Red Seal Vas

By | Tools, weeds | No Comments

Use tools!

If you read my blogs regularly you will know that I always try to use tools when weeding. The only obvious exception being huge trophy weeds which are easy to pull but hard to explain. How did they evade detection for so long? Were they out on some hard to reach ledge?

Professionals use tools, not fingers. Years later I’m still stunned by a foreman’s request that we all hand pick massive mats of weeds. I literally didn’t know where to start. Why abuse my fingers like this?

Grab a cultivator or a small hand tool like a Home Depot tomahawk which retails for $15. I love this tool. I use it to uproot the weeds before discarding them and I humbly suggest that you do the same. Save your fingers for better, more refined activities.

Field test

I am a huge proponent of weeding tools, not fingers. But now that I am of a certain age and my gray hair shows from under my ball cap, some people dismiss me as an old crank. So when I got a chance to run a little field experiment, I was delighted.

Out in the middle of a parking lot, we had two same-sized beds full of weeds. Obviously the weed species didn’t match exactly; one had more buttercup which is notoriously difficult to dig up.

On my bed I used a tomahawk to uproot the weeds and then discard them on a nearby tarp. It wasn’t much fun weeding in the middle of an open parking lot on a hot summer day with reflected heat hitting me.

Some meters away was my co-worker who stubbornly used his fingers to weed his buttercup-filled bed. Somehow he finished ahead of me and moved on. That’s when I snapped pictures of both beds and also moved on.

Five weeks later

I didn’t make it back to this parking lot until five weeks later. Then it hit me: go back and check on the weeded boxes from five weeks ago. It wasn’t even close!

My bed had a few weeds; most were poking along a cable where tomahawks and fingers can’t reach. The hand-weeded bed was green with weeds, confirming what I already knew.

Quick finger weeding doesn’t pull out the roots as much as hand tools. You’re basically wasting time by eliminating the top growth and leaving the roots behind to regenerate the plant. The proof was right there in the middle of a baking parking lot.

Picture A five weeks after getting hand weeded with fingers.

Picture B five weeks after getting weeded with a hand tool.

Conclusion

Use tools for weeding. Period.

Guard against weeds

By | weeds | No Comments

It’s been a busy weekend so I didn’t get to read my weekend newspapers until Sunday afternoon. One short question and answer article caught my eye (Vancouver Sun, Saturday February 20, 2021, F6). It was a question about a common weed called bittercress (Cardamine hirsuta).

The answer was spot on. First, identify the weed. Some beautiful perennials look weedy without flowers so get to know your common weed species.\

Second, never let weeds produce seeds. Once you see flowers, you know it’s time to act. Otherwise, your garden will be full of weed seeds.

Bittercress is a fun weed because when the flowers produce seeds, the plant turns from green to yellow. Then the seed pods wait for you to touch them so they can explode and scatter their contents. If you get close enough, you can feel the seeds hitting your skin. Or, you can catch them in your hand. Thus the common name snapweed. Try it in your neighbor’s garden.

The weed is fairly easy to uproot. Use a hand tool or a full cultivator. Only use your hands if you have just a few specimens to weed out. Always try to use tools. A simple hand cultivator from Home Depot will only cost you $5.

Larger areas require full size cultivators and rakes. Once you up-root the weeds, you can rake them up and remove them. This will leave your bed area clean and fluffy.

Yes, your cultivation will inevitably bring some weed seeds up to the surface but if you stay on top of it, they won’t stand a chance. The up-side is a nice looking, weed-free, fluffy bed.

Stay positive!

People hate weeding! Dudes at work would rather backpack blow all day then finesse beds. But, you can make it fun. Think of the weeds. They’re still pretty amazing plants. They’re just not where we want them to be.

Many weeds are edible; and many are beautiful.

You can also make extra money with weeding. My client Pierre periodically calls me over to take care of his “herbs”. Herbs, right. More like mats of the same Cardamine. You can read the blog post here.

About to go missing Cardamine.

Weeding vindication

By | gardening, weeds | No Comments

The problem

I need to write this blog post but I have to do it gently, without starting a war. Now, landscape maintenance is populated by many all-stars like me: certified, experienced and opinionated individuals. And while I’m always ready to learn, there are limits. I’m only human.

One such limit is weeding. Weeding should be done with tools, not with fingers. Unless, of course, you’re picking huge trophy weeds.

It was only a matter of time before someone disagreed with me. I’ve seen and heard those people. They happily sit down to hand weed and pick away until their fingers are bruised and bleeding; or, more often than not, until they delegate this unpopular task to someone else.

A gift even Santa can’t match

Just last week, I received a huge gift. Something even Santa can’t bring.

Picture a large bed full of weeds, slightly compacted and muddy. A newly promoted working manager dropped to his knees to weed and inside one minute realized it would take him forever to hand-pick all of the weeds. So, he quickly got up and walked away.

To do what exactly?

Vindication 101

Did you get it? He brought a cultivator (A Dutch hoe to be precise: because it’s sharp and ideal for this situation) and ran it through the bed. Then he raked up the weedy mess and disposed of it. Like a pro.

He stayed on his feet, it was much quicker, the weeds got uprooted and the bed looked fluffy. Don’t forget the bonuses: his fingers didn’t hurt and the bed will stay nice longer!

(One major drawback of hand-picking weeds is that the roots often go undisturbed.)

That’s how you handle weedy patches. With tools. Like a pro. I know that some will still disagree. That’s fine. Those people will leave nasty comments before moving to other blog sites. Let them go, quietly.

Quiz

Study the picture and answer the question.

The best way to weed this bed quickly and efficiently is by…

A. line trimming the weeds and having a window repair service on speed dial

B. sitting down and using your arthritic, bruised fingers only

C. delegating this task to the most junior staff

D. using a small hand tool or a combination of cultivator and rake

Conclusion

Weeding isn’t going away, ever. So, use tools for weeding. It will save you time and your finesse work will shine. Yes, you can tell people Red Seal Vas trained you.

Weeding 101 with Red Seal Vas

By | gardening, weeds | No Comments

Basics you must know

Proper weeding technique comes up a lot as new workers come on board. In your own residential garden, there is very little pressure. You can weed when and how you like. But in commercial settings, weeding is just like any other task; it has to get done quickly and efficiently.

I’m creating yet another blog post on weeding because I’m still seeing workers sitting on their butts, hand-picking weeds while listening to their favorite podcasts. It’s comfortable but it’s terribly slow.

Do it like Vas

Here’s how you do it. Stay on your feet as much as possible and always use tools. It could be a cultivator or, if you must get on your knees, a hand tool. I consider hand picking tiny weeds a form of punishment. When I do it my fingers hurt and I know I’m NOT getting the weed roots out. It looks OK for a day and then the weeds come right back because you failed to cultivate the bed.

Exceptions

There are exceptions, of course. One involves giant trophy weeds that were obviously missed for a while. Those we hand pick because it’s easy. Just remember to train your people not to tolerate large weeds. It looks awful and reflects badly on your service.

The second exception is weeds inside groundcover where tools can’t really enter without damaging the groundcover. Recall that groundcover does what it says, it covers the ground and keeps weeds away. When you find a few sticking out, pick them out.

Stuck in groundcover, you must hand pick these weeds.

Obviously, hand pick trophy weeds.

Helping Pierre

My client Pierre (his real name) is funny because he calls his weeds “herbs”. He’s at that stage where paying me to weed makes more sense than doing it himself. His shiny black Mercedes in the driveway is a hint.

Pro tip:

Armed with this blog post, you can actually make good extra coin for weeding people’s gardens. Nobody likes to weed. I will do it anytime because seeing my kids fed gives me enormous pleasure.

His front bed was weedy but it was hardly a disaster. His mulch is settling now and decomposing; plus, wind and birds bring in weed seeds all the time. I probably blow some seeds his way when I maintain his neighbor’s place directly above.

I used a four-prong cultivator from RONA because the weeds were easy to uproot in mulch. You can use the sharper Dutch hoe for stubborn masses of weeds. Run the cultivator through a section and collect the weeds into a bucket or tarp. That’s it. Repeat this until you cover the entire front. I charged Pierre the low sum of C$60 for 70 minutes of labor. That will buy a few apps.

The bonus? Using a cultivator leaves the bed fluffy and fresh looking. That’s something your hand-picking colleagues will never accomplish. A few weeks later, only a few weeds are showing and the bed looks good. The dry weather also helps.

A few weeks later, this cultivated and weeded front still looks good. I only found a few weeds and I won’t let them get far.

Weed like a pro

Let’s review. When weeding, stay on your feet and use tools. Cultivators, rakes and buckets are best, plus small hand tools. Uproot the weeds and collect them. Hand picking should be left for giant trophy weeds.

How to quickly upgrade tired beds

By | landscape maintenance, weeds | No Comments

The problem

This same scenario replays itself over and over: I am on site to execute a simple lawn cut and the homeowner has questions, like what to do about his tired beds. Can I help? Of course I can! I love to help and solve people’s problems. It’s a simple two-step process which requires a bit of time and money.

The front beds were weedy and had so little soil in them they were showing landscape fabric. This made them extremely difficult to weed but with the right tools, it was a quick two-hour session.

Very few people enjoy garden weeding. This applies equally to homeowners and professional landscapers. But Red Seal Vas loves side-hustling and his kids often require food and new apps. I will weed for cash.

Weeds on top of landscape fabric.

Weed like a pro

Let’s get this straight: weeding is done with tools and on your feet, unless you’re picking huge trophy weeds. Huge weeds must be hand picked.

Normally I like to use a four prong cultivator to uproot weeds and then a rake to remove the green waste. I try to remove very little soil but I don’t always succeed. In this case, the homeowner’s landscape fabric made cultivation difficult so I used a Dutch hoe to slice the weeds off.

Now, what do you do once the beds are clean? The answer takes us to step two.

Nicely weeded.

Step two

In step two we had soil delivered from Meadows Landscape Supply in Pitt Meadows, BC. Two yards of lawn and garden soil mix delivered to the drive way. The soil will cost you roughly $30/yard, plus delivery. Warning: the delivery isn’t cheap.

I’m proud to report that my two yard estimate was dead on; and so was my installation time. Remember, I’m doing a side-hustle after hours, not a regular by the hour job, so I quoted a price for the install and banged it in 75 minutes.

The soil will settle but everything got covered in a few inches of fresh soil giving us an instant dark, sharp look. The plants will also appreciate it; and any future weeding should be easier. And the weeds will come back, eventually. Wind and animals import seeds all the time. But for now, any weeds I failed to uproot are buried under fresh soil and deprived of the light they need to thrive.

Fresh soil.

Easy upgrades

Don’t be afraid to upgrade your garden beds. All you need is some tools, time and a bit of cash. In this project, it took me two hours to weed the beds and 75 minutes to install the soil. And now when the homeowner comes home, he’s greeted by dark and fresh-looking beds. And I can afford to buy new apps for my teenagers.

This is how Red Seal Vas rocks bedwork

By | gardening, Strata Maintenance, weeds | No Comments

Great bedwork gives your garden and landscape a beautiful edge but it’s not a popular task. So let me show you how it’s done properly.

Struggle

Busy with pruning, I could only observe a new employee performing finesse work with her hands and a rake. Since she wasn’t given any time parameters it took her a long while to complete a small bed area. She raked and hand picked weeds as best as she could. Then she finally moved on, leaving a nearby weedy tree well untouched.

And I don’t blame her. She wasn’t set up to win. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Bedwork is simple. You just need to bring a good attitude to it. Let’s get sweaty.

No more struggles

Unless you’re hand picking huge trophy weeds, stop using your fingers for weeding. Professionals use tools and they stay on their feet. Sit down to enjoy your break, not to weed.

(Warning: if your company insists on hand weeding, use a small hand tool to save your fingers from abuse. )

Cultivate

Use a cultivator to uproot the weeds and fluff-up the soil. Concentrate on edges because that’s where weed seeds get blown; and where people miss them.

 

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Run your cultivator along the edge and uproot all of the weeds. Don’t hand pick tiny weeds.

 

The cultivator uproots the weeds and then we rake them up. Hand-picking many tiny weeds is time consuming and it’s unlikely you’ll pick the entire weed. This is why weedy hand-picked beds quickly return to weedy mess.

I also find that my fingers hurt after hours of slow weeding by hand. Don’t do it, unless you’re picking big trophy weeds.

Rake up

Next, gently rake up the mess you just made and be careful not to remove too much soil. If you do remove some soil-and you will!-remember the time you just saved. Your hand-picking colleagues are probably still hand-picking tiny weeds somewhere.

Place your debris into a tarp.

Remember to always keep your debris piles in bed edges, not outside on pavement or lawn. This eliminates unnecessary blowing later on.

 

IMG_1615

Note that the debris pile is raked to the edge, not on the stones.

 

Final step

The real final step is a clean-up blow but that’s done at the end of the day. Before you move on, rake any soil away from the edges.

 

IMG_2002

Note that I raked soil away from the bed edge to keep it sharp looking.

 

Bonus effect

One huge bonus is that cultivation leaves your beds fluffy and fresh looking. Hand-weeded beds still look tired afterwards. Shame. So what if it costs you a bit of sweat. Your beds will look great longer.

Bedwork is a critical component of landscape maintenance and yet it’s often labelled as “bitch work”. This is wrong. Follow my steps outlined in this blog post and you’ll be a gold star in no time.

Nothing to do on site: how to bust this myth

By | landscape maintenance, weeds | No Comments

This is my favourite myth of all: there is a landscape site or garden with nothing to do on it; it’s that perfect. As an expert in strata (multi-family complex) landscape sites, I find this extremely laughable because landscapes grow and evolve. Depending on the season you’re in, there is always maintenance work to be done.

Two types

I find two types of foremen who confidently assert that there is nothing to do on their sites. One is the outright lazy, disengaged person and the other is too new to know better. Usually, it’s the newly promoted landscape crew leader or foreman who fails to read his landscape.

And this happens more than you think.

Details

Say, it’s July and the site doesn’t want you to mow weekly. Perfect! That means you can take care of details you wouldn’t normally have time for. I love these situations; I embrace them because there is ALWAYS work on site.

Just think details and you’ll start seeing lots of work om site. Below are some examples of what to look for. You will find others in your garden or on your strata site. Learn to read your landscape as you develop what’s called a landscape eye. It takes time so obviously new foremen struggle at first. I often take them on site walks to point out little details and I do it gently. It’s a learning experience. So try it in your garden or on your strata site.

 

Weeds

There are always weeds on site, especially in lower profile corners. The groundcover in the bed below is full of weeds.

 

IMG_9808

Weeds, there are always weeds.

 

IMG_9790

Oh my, invasive Knotweed covered by invasive morning glory.

 

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This shrub is screaming for a small circle well.

 

IMG_9806

This makes it obvious for lawn care people.

 

Knotweed

This border patch of Japanese knotweed (Fallopia japonica) is an obvious candidate for removal. As in top removal because the actual weed is difficult to remove permanently. It’s so bad, some green waste facilities don’t even accept it.

 

IMG_9791

Super invasive Japanese knotweed (Fallopia japonica)

 

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Knotweed detail.

 

Missed pruning debris on top of plants is a common problem so hand-pick the dead brown parts now that they are easy to spot.

 

IMG_9788

Dead debris on a yew (Taxus).

 

Watering is for your clients to do but if you have extra time and you see a complete yew hedge struggling then you can spend some time on it. This hedge is clearly struggling so I reconnected the drip line and hand-watered everything. The drip-line should be left on for hours.

 

IMG_9748

A yew hedge with disconnected drip line irrigation line.

 

There is no such thing as perfect landscape without any work in it; it’s a myth. Look for details and you will find them. Acquiring good “landscape eye” skills takes time.

Why dead spaces are a problem

By | gardening, Landscaping, weeds | No Comments

Dead spaces in your landscape can be a problem and one example for you to consider is pictured below. What do you see?

 

IMG_9605

 

This kind of garden bed drives me crazy because there is way too much “dead space”. Without plants and groundcovers the open space gets colonized by weeds which then have to be removed periodically. And that means precious labour man-hours are spent on unnecessary weeding.

Plants shade out and out-compete weeds and they also improve the look of the garden bed. You can even attract beneficial insects with the right plants. All for a small investment of money and time.

Close weeding

Now what? Remember this isn’t your only bed to weed so how do you do it quickly? There are two approaches but I can only recommend one.

Some people prefer hand-weeding without tools where you pick at your weeds and pray that you also removed the roots. I only do this with big weeds.

 

IMG_9614

Big weeds like these are easy to hand-pick.

 

With big weedy beds I find hand weeding too slow and brutal on my fingers. When hand-weeding and debris clean-up were combined on the same day it exposed hand-weeding as too slow. You must stay on your feet, cultivator in hand and press on.

Cultivate!

No, you don’t have to suffer. Just cultivate the bed and rake up the debris. I use Dutch hoes or four-prongers (pictured above) to rip up the weeds and then I gently rake over the area. This approach is much faster and it allows you to stay upright. Also, your fingers won’t bleed.

Cultivation haters point out two problems with cultivation: soil loss and weed seed exposure to sunlight. Both are valid comments but considering the condition of the bed there isn’t much to worry about. The critical factor is speed because we have many other beds to weed.

One huge bonus of cultivation is that the bed looks sharp and fluffy and stays weed-free longer than hand-picked beds. I am absolutely certain that hand-weeding doesn’t always remove the weed roots so the weeds bounce back quicker. Cultivation, on the other hand, up-roots the weeds.

One critical note on pile pick-up: keep your piles in the bed edges, do NOT rake them onto your lawn. Piles on lawn edges leave debris that will have to be blown and could potentially get picked up by trimmer machines, thus creating a hazard.

 

IMG_9717

Correct: keep your debris piles in the bed edges.

 

 

 

Conclusion

Fight dead spaces in your garden beds by planting shrubs or groundcovers. And if you want to weed like a professional use a cultivator.

 

IMG_9817

This used to be dead space until we moved shrubs and perennials in.