Product of the Month – Bubblers!!!

Bubblers are the most economical way of still having the sight & soothing sound of water, w/out the cost or maintenance of an all out pond & waterfall.  Bubblers are simple to install & easy to maintain, & they come in a WIDE variety of sizes & styles.  Whether it’s something small or large, natural or formal, drilled stone, basalt columns, or even mushrooms, there’s a bubbler for everyone’s space & everyone’s budget!  Click here to watch a 3 minute video on how simple & beautiful they are, & enjoy some of the pictures of bubblers we have installed.  ALSO -we have a very LARGE drilled piece of Greene County Indiana Sandstone/Moss rock as well as a set of BEAUTIFUL fiberglass composite mushrooms that are leftovers from trade shows, let us know if you’re interested, we’ll make you a deal.  Enjoy!

Howdy folks!  It’s been a long time since our last issue, & has really felt ‘non stop’ around here since the ice storm in February.  Can someone tell me what’s with this ‘all or nothing’ weather pattern?  It’s eerily reminiscent of what we experienced last year, excessively wet spring, extremely hot/dry summer.  In this issue, I want to share some information with what’s been happening in our company, with the weather, & things you can do to care for your lawn and landscaping!  But first, allow us to brag a little about our…

Back in March we were contacted by a company called US Water Services out of Minnesota.  They had an Ethanol Convention coming up at the end of June in Indianapolis, & they wanted to attract people to their display & ‘blow the doors off’ the competition.  All they knew is they wanted corn, water, & a rural Indiana look.  Oh yeah, you only have 1 weekend to build it as well.  Please see pictures below.  We incorporated a 2 dimensional barn structure (kudos to McGuire Scenic), a bunch of corn (kudos to Dave Maroney of Ladoga, IN), a stream, pond, lots of stone & plants.  Long story short, we built it, they won ‘Best of Show’, then we tore it all down in 1 long Wednesday night!  KUDOS to the True North Team for pulling this off in 1 long Saturday & Sunday of extreme building effort!!!

We’ve discussed this in past issues, but it’s worth mentioning again as it’s still an issue and a challenge.  Last year we experienced what many considered to be a 100 year drought.  The faucet went off in early July & didn’t get opened back up until Thanksgiving.  We then essentially went straight into a long, hard winter.  Plants & turf that went into winter was for the most part either stressed, or in many cases, dead.

This March -May, as weather would allow, we were renovating a lot of turf (aerating/overseeding/slit-seeding), and pulling out/replacing dead trees and shrubs, evergreens in particular.  But we are still not out of the woods!  We have been receiving many calls from people saying that trees that were looking good this spring have now lost or are losing leaves.  In many cases, this is still a symptom of the stress from LAST year, not necessarily from the heat & dry as of late, although this latest spell may be accentuating the issue.  Now unfortunately, our poor lawns just can’t get a break.  Many non-irrigated properties are going dormant already, & our mowing crews are having to skip many properties.  So all in all, it’s been a very difficult pattern to adapt to for working, and very difficult on plant material.

As mentioned above, turf is stressed!  The excessively wet spring followed by hot humid weather is a perfect recipe for a wide array of fungus in turf (brown, patchy, rusty & even sometimes grey looking spots & areas).  Now of course, we’re being faced with the issue once again of not enough (ie. no) rain!  Turf is really an amazing plant & can go a long time without significant water.  If you are able, watering long & deeply 2-3X per week in the mornings will go a long way in keeping your lawn somewhat green & alive looking.  Also, you may want to be thinking already about the importance of heavy aeration/overseeding in September/early October.

Plants

We’re talking trees, shrubs, & perennials here now, not corn or soybeans!  I’m sorry for a lot of the farmers out there that had to re-seed 2-3x due to the wet weather just to get their crops in.  We sold & installed A LOT of the above mentioned from May on, & continue to do so.  I recently heard a great saying from a Client of ours, which does a good job of summing up in laymans terms what plants do… ‘SLEEP, CREEP, LEAP’.  The 1st season in the ground, plantsSLEEP.  They’re shocked either from the dig (in the case of field dug balled & burlapped plants) or from being pulled from the pots they’ve grown up in, having their roots pulled & slashed, & being put in a new home (your yard!).  This is a critical year for adequate watering.  You don’t want bone dry, & you don’t want sloppy, muddy wet.  Cool, moist conditions are what most plants are looking for & needing.  The 2^nd season, they begin to CREEP as they put out their horizontal roots & begin establishing themselves, this is still a critical year for watering & attention to them!  Miracle Grow in the feeder packets from Lowes that you can simply thread on to your garden hose is a GREAT & simple thing you can do a few times/season to help your plants out.  By season 3, they should be well established & will begin to LEAP.  This is often the year you will see amazing growth on trees in particular.  So remember, don’t neglect your plants, they need your help!  Just like an infant, baby them along, & by year 3 they’ll be just like teenagers that act like they don’t need you anymore!

Hope you are having a great summer, stay cool if you can, be safe, and talk to you soon!!!

From the Landscaper – Greetings all!  Yesterday was a great day, saw a bald eagle soaring over my neighborhood on the SW side, and ended it with a nice rainbow over the display our Team built at Holiday Park for Orchard in Bloom…

Well, we’ve only had rain 13 of the last 15 days… so, let’s see…the bright side would be… we don’t have to water!  By my best estimations, we’re around 500 production man hours behind schedule on mulching and landscape installation work from all the April precipitation.  Mowing has been a real challenge also to try establishing any resemblance of ‘routes’ or order.  I beg your patience, we will get to you! This has been our most challenging spring by far in terms of logistics and scheduling.  On a bright note, we have more work then we’ve ever had.  I won’t even complain about $4+/gallon fuel, it is what it is, and let’s be thankful we didn’t get devastated by any flooding or tornados, as so many have been suffering with.  Our hearts go out to our neighbors to the south who’ve suffered damaged and have lost loved ones…

Thanks for your business, we appreciate it, please hang in there with us!

Orchard in Bloom – If you’ve never been to this festival, you should come.  Holliday Park is an amazing 100 acre facility that’s beautiful and has a lot of history.  We were honored last night at the pre-judging to receive runner up for Best of Show, and runner up for American Horticultural Society Award.  Congratulations to Litchfield Landscaping for winning both of these categories this year!  Come check out our booth plus all the other great booths and displays, today-Sunday at Holliday Park, go to www.orchardinbloom.org for more information. (before/during/after photos).

True North Open House – Thanks to many of you for coming out last Saturday.  Come see us this Saturday while we still have a decent selection of great flowers, baskets, loads of new perennials, trees, shrubs, & more.  Tomorrow’s looking great, hope you can make it, 8:30AM-2PM. (picture of some plants).