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Hopefully your property maintenance budgets are approved and you can give us approval of the routine standard enhanced services we perform. These services that are routinely done on an annual or biannual basis include Turf Moss Control, Spring Seasonal Color, Turf Core Aeration, and Fall Seasonal Color. Prior to the season when these services are performed, we will individually propose them. To reduce the need for approving them individually, we have begun to send a bulk approval form as we begin the year. This will occur this week. Hopefully this bulk approval will save us all time and allow us to better prepare for the service delivery as opposed to waiting to just prior to its occurrence.
Winter can be a tough time for lawns. Constant rain, especially in the shade, can lead to moss growth. We fight this every year. Although it is difficult to prevent, it luckily is easy to control. Liquid iron, sprayed on a lawn quickly and effectively controls moss. It will actually kill it in hours, turning it black. Although it is easy to kill, it will regrow every year requiring annual treatment. We have even been experimenting with twice yearly treatment, December and March. Although normally considered an enhanced service, moss treatment is relatively inexpensive.
Spring Flowers
Seasonal color is one of our specialties. Not only do we produce some of the most creative flower combinations but our flowers plantings are some of the healthiest due to our carefully designed installation and maintenance programs.
We have tried to add a creative design flair to our summer color plantings. Every year we come up with new and unique combinations that break from the conventional of blocks and stripes seen on most other commercial properties. To only offer you the best combinations, we have a test bed at our office where we try out these new varieties and make sure they work before we will plant them on our customers properties.
Turf Core Aeration
We recommend aeration to our customers as a standard part of our yearly turf care program. Aeration improves overall turf and is also the best method of managing thatch and soil compaction. Aerating during the early summer opens up the soil to allow water to more easily enter the soil, reducing run-off and improving irrigation effectiveness. We can't quantitatively prove it, but we believe that aeration pays for itself through water savings.
The benefits of aeration are significant but short lived lasting only 3-4 months. This is why we propose it every spring as we enter the normal peak irrigation season. This will maximize the water saving and return on your investment. Fall color is often a joy to observe but for us it signals one of the busiest times of our year.
Fall Seasonal Color
Winter is challenging to provide seasonal color, but pansies are hardy and used in the Pacific Northwest as the primary seasonal color flower. Summer flowers often look their best in August and September as they have filled the bed and the effects of cooler and wetter fall has yet to arrive. However, they fade with the cooler wetter weather beginning in October. Thus, we change out seasonal color to pansies.
Starting the first week of October, we will begin our change-out to Pansies. Although the pansies are healthy and beautiful, to achieve these results, significant effort is needed to protect pansy plantings through our wet winters. Our fall change-out and pansy maintenance program has been developed and updated over the years to provide the best results we can achieve. It has driven up the cost of pansies but has been built into our standard program as we insist that if not done, pansies are doomed to fail. This program includes biological disease prevention treatment in the greenhouse, addition of fresh potting soil each fall when planting, and fungicide treatment at planting and monthly through the winter. If has been very effective and we are proud to provide some of the best pansy displays in the Portland area.
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