LandscapExperts Tip of the Week, December 30

Have a care for the overall shrub when clipping camellia blossoms, holly berries, witch hazel or forsythia branches to bring indoors. Crabapple's tip is to strike a balance between length of stem needed for your floral arrangement and the overall shape and structure of the plant left in the landscape.

LandscapExperts Tip of the Week, December 23

Keep cut Christmas trees watered in order to keep the needles hydrated and slow down needle drop. Add a little bleach to slow bacterial growth, and some corn syrup to make up for sugars lacking due to decreased photosynthesis, plus a little vinegar to buffer the solution.

  1 gallon water

  1 Cup corn syrup

  4 teaspoons chlorine bleach

  4 teaspoons lemon juice or vinegar

Adding a cartoon for dog lovers: 

LandscapExperts Tip of the Week, December 16

Garden Tools make G-R-E-A-T gifts, or put tools that you have been meaning to try on your own Wish List. Choose some ratchet loppers or try a bulb-planting trowel or new snips or a turn table for floral arrangements from the garden.

LandscapExperts Tip of the Week, December 9

Cut red berried branches of Holly and shiny Magnolia leaves to add to Holiday wreaths and mailbox swags. Keep in mind not only the branches but the shape of the remaining plant. Prune to an outward facing bud, and try to choose branches that are crossing and rubbing other branches, thus both 1. harvesting berries for holiday trim and 2. shaping up the plant for good growth in 2014.  

LandscapExperts Tip of the Week, December 2

It's not too late!
Take advantage of end-of-season markdowns on Spring-flowering bulbs. While the ground is frozen in the whole Northern U.S., metro-Atlanta soils are cooling down to the perfect temperatures for bulb planting. Be sure the bulbs you purchase are firm, solid, seem heavy for their size and have no spots or fungus lesions, then plant, with the depth corresponding to their size.

LandscapExperts Tip of the Week, November 25

Let your neighbors do the work, then collect those paper recycle-bags filled with pine straw from the curb and use the FREE MULCH to protect your perennial beds. Collect paper bags full of leaves to make leaf mould -- turns into rich, dark brown woods soil and is ready in a year.

More about Leaf Mould here: http://apps.rhs.org.uk/advicesearch/profile.aspx?pid=478 

LandscapExperts Tip of the Week, Nov. 18

Squirrel-proof a post-top  bird feeder by removing the top and bottom lids of an extra-large juice can, slipping it over the pole and wiring it in place. The blasted squirrels cannot get their arms around the can or get a grip on it. If the squirrel does stay on the post it ends up inside the can.

LandscapExperts Tip of the Week, Nov. 11

Add a post-top bird feeder to the patio. To create a removable, winter-only, pole-mounted bird feeder that can be easily be removed in the summertime, first create a telescoping base. Select a 2-foot length of galvanized pipe wide enough to accept the pole for the bird feeder. Install the pipe vertically in the soil next to the patio and fix it solidly with poured concrete.

During the feeding season, the pole-mounted bird feeder is slipped into the pipe base in the ground. When summer comes, remove and store the pole feeder but keep the pipe clear with a rubber bathtub plug over the opening.

LandscapExperts Tip of the Week, November 4

As the autumn leaves begin to show color, then "rain down" from the trees on a windy day, be sure to rake and compost them. This recycles the nutrients captured inside the leaves and returns the nutrients, along with decomposing organic matter, to the soil for good plant growth and friable soil texture.

LandscapExperts Tip of the Week, October 28

If you have not bought spring flowering bulbs yet, hold off another couple of weeks, because they will soon go on sale.

Metro-Atlanta benefits from a long growing season, and the ground seldom freezes in our area, so homeowners can take advantage of End-of-the-Season clearance sales, both locally and mail order from national companies long after northern gardens are covered with snow.

LandscapExperts Tip of the Week, Oct. 21

An adjustable ironing board can act as a "movable windowsill" to add extra room for overwintering house plants in south-facing windows. The narrow ironing board fits in, is easily wiped in case of spills, and is adjustable to windowsill heights.

LandscapExperts Tip of the Week, Oct. 14

When planting edible tulip or lily bulbs, plant a few cloves of garlic among the other bulbs to repel chipmunks, voles, squirrels and mice, keeping the bulbs safe.  Although the garlic cloves will sprout and grow, their narrow leaves will not interfere with the color display next spring.

LandscapExperts Tip of the Week, Oct. 7

Do  you forget where groupings of bulbs are planted after their foliage goes dormant for the summer? Use inexpensive grape hyacinths to mark the position of your other bulbs and avoid over-planting or slicing into them. The leaves of grape hyacinths (Muscari armeiacum) emerge in late summer or early fall and act as markers alerting you to the position of previously-planted bulbs.

LandscapExperts Tip of the Week, September 30

September and October are typically dry months in metro-Atlanta. Just because our area has had a wet summer does not mean we will let up on watering vigilance this month or next. Crabapple makes sure that new transplants or plantings receive at least 1 inch of "rain" or irrigation water per week.

LandscapExperts Tip of the Week, September 23

Fall is the best time for transplanting perennials in the metro-Atlanta area, so if you are thinking of re-arranging your perennial garden, September and October are prime months. The LandscapExperts Tip is to dig the new holes before you dig the plants up, thus ensuring a quick, seamless transplanting and the plants will be out of the ground the least possible time.

After transplanting, be sure to add an organic mulch like wood chips, mini pine bark nuggets or pinestraw, and water in thoroughly.

LandscapExperts Tip of the Week, September 16

Time to order spring-flowering bulbs to be planted in the next month or two. S-t-r-e-t-c-h the season by buying different types of Tulips or Daffodils that flower early, mid-season and late.

LandscapExperts Tip of the Week, Sept. 9

Quick and Economical Edging

For large projects a gas-powered edger is best, but for small edging jobs, use a nursery spade to create an sharp edge to a garden bed or separate a flower garden from the lawn.

Short-handled with a straight rectangular blade, a nursery spade makes straight vertical cuts. Avoid garden shovels with rounded backs and pointed tips in order to cut a straight line.

LandscapExperts Tip of the Week, September 2

Time to plan and plant the fall garden- pull out old tomato plants that have stopped bearing or have diseased leaves, turn the soil adding compost, and plant fall crops like cabbage or broccoli, arugula, beets, carrots, cilantro and soon pansies.

LandscapExperts Tip of the Week, August 26

September 1 is the target date for sowing Fescue grass seed. If Crabapple isn't reseeding for you, and you just need to reseed a small area, make a shaker to spread seed evenly.

Use a clean can and punch holes in it with a nail and hammer or an ice pick, making a "giant size seed shaker". This will help the seed to fall more evenly than being cast by hand.

LandscapExperts Tip of the Week, August 19

Make a free, square compost bin out of discarded wooden pallets used by forklifts.Stand four pallets on end in a square and wire them together. Toss late summer garden clippings and refuse into the bin. When full it is easy to disassembled and move.

LandscapExperts Tip of the Week, August 12

Edge gravel paths with landscape pavers or bricks to keep the gravel in place. Broken or cut pavers can be recycled by placing their flat edges up and burying the irregular or cut sides. Carrying through the materials used in different parts of the landscape will unify the overall landscape.

LandscapExperts Tip of the Week, August 5

Painful insect bites and stings can be neutralized using meat tenderizer. It contains the enzyme papain, derived from the papaya. 

Moisten the sting or injured area and sprinkle on the granular tenderizing powder, (the plain variety works best). By the next day the sting hardly will be hardly noticeable. Keep a bottle of meat tenderizer in the  gardening bucket for quick and handy application when needed. . 

LandscapExperts Tip of the Week, July 29

Make a reusable sticky trap to catch white flies organically. 

Spray one side of a windowpane or an old picture frame with bright, school bus yellow paint, then spread motor oil on the other side. Set the glass with the oily side up near plants infested with white flies. They go for the yellow color and get stuck in the oil. 

Every once in awhile, wipe the glass clean and apply fresh oil.  

LandscapExperts Tip of the Week, July 22

High-Tech Garden Journal

Use the Video setting on your smart phone to record garden events and "Take Garden Notes" for later viewing. Put a yardstick in the photo to help with scale when the file is viewed later. What could be easier? Talk about what you are seeing and what you plan to change while taping.

LandscapExperts Tip of the Week, July 15

Grow Lotus or Carnivorous Plants that like Wet Soils in Regular Garden Soil

Defy all odds and enjoy your exotic plants in the regular garden.

Dig a hole and bury an unobtrusive watertight plastic container in-ground so that is level with the soil surface. Fill the container with the correct soil mix (heavy, rich clay soil for Lotus; half sand and half peat moss for Carnivorous Pitcher Plants) and plant with the wetland plants. Flood with water.,

Throughout the season, keep the water level tipped up, adding a mosquito dunk if there is standing water and surprise one and all with  your exotic plant selection.

LandscapExperts Tip of the Week, July 8

Attract Pollinators with blue-flowered Borage
An easily-grown, pretty, annual herb, blue-flowered Borage attracts bees to the garden and improves the fruit and vegetable set of nearby plants like green beans. Direct-sow the large seeds in a sunny spot near other veggies and enjoy the edible blue flowers in green salads or floating in lemonade.

Successive sowings of Borage ensure flowers throughout the growing season.

LandscapExperts Tip of the Week, July 1

Never Lose Another Garden Hand Tool

Gardeners often become distracted. When doing one thing and briefly setting down a hand tool to do something else, it's easy to walk away and lose the tool among the plants.

Instead, wrap the handle in fluorescent plastic tape, or tie streamers of fluorescent landscaping flagging tape to the trowel or clippers and find them easily among the greenery.

LandscapExperts Tip of the Week, June 24

Draining containers without drainage holes

Go ahead and plant those lovely ceramic cache pots without drainage holes! Even if your container does not have the recommended drainage holes, you can easily tip the water out after a heavy rain with this tip.

Before filling the container with potting soil, cut a slender drainage pipe as long as the pot is tall. Cover  the bottom end of the pipe with some nylon net. Insert the pipe down the side of the pot, then fill with soil and plants.If it gets too soggy, tip the pot sideways and the excess water will drain out through the pipe.

LandscapExperts Tip of the Week, June 17

Use toothpicks to mark direct-sown seeds. Having trouble recognizing seeds and seedlings of newly sown Zinnia, Cucumber, Squash or Zucchini? Push in a toothpick beside each large seed when sowing to mark the spot and avoid "weeding up" the new sprouts.

LandscapExperts Tip of the Week, June 10

Edible Landscaping! Ever consider a vegetable for foundation plantings? The ferny foliage of Asparagus makes a great backdrop for annuals in season. Perennial plants like a well=drained, slightly alkaline soil provided by the foundations of most homes. After a few years start-up, enjoy the shoots for a few weeks each spring, and the asparagus ferns all summer. They turn a golden yellow in autumn, before dying back each winter.

LandscapExperts Tip of the Week June 3

When patching fescue turf with a little extra seed, try mulching with cheesecloth instead of straw. It looks neat, does not add any foreign weed seeds, allows more light to reach the grass seed, and conveniently rots away after the patch has grown in. Peg the cheesecloth with short lengths of thin bamboo stakes, which are also temporary and disappear in a season.

LandscapExperts Tip of the Week, May 27

Fancy peony rings too expensive for your garden budget? Tomato cages can be put to double duty in the flower garden. Cut a 3-ring tomato cage in half HORIZONTALLY using a bolt cutter or hacksaw. Position the 2-ring half above peonies or fall-blooming mums that have a tendency to flop over. Push in the 1-ring half above smaller perennials to keep them tidy without the bother of individual staking. .

LandscapExperts Tip of the Week, May 20

Are the outside tines broken and missing from your wide leaf rake? Cut it down into a functional, narrow "shrub rake" by using a hacksaw to cut off the sides and get extra life out of this garden tool.

LandscapExperts Tip of the Week, May 13

To rearrange the color scheme of an iris bed, assemble an assortment of colored yarn while the iris are flowering. Loop blue yarn around the fans of the blue iris, yellow yarn around yellow flowered plants, gold, lavender, purple, pink, white and so forth.
Once the plants have finished blooming (the best time to move them), you can confidently rearrange them according to color long after the flowers have faded.

LandscapExperts Tip of the Week, May 6

Add a compost bin to a small yard or a town home patio. Use a plastic laundry bin with holes in front and back panels to allow air circulation, and a removable plastic top to keep excess rain out while allowing easy access. The surface is easy to wipe off and the hamper keeps everything neat.

LandscapExperts Tip of the Week, April 29

Dare we say careless? maybe forgetful?  Wrap the handles of your favorite trowel or clippers with red or fluorescent pink tape to help you find them if left behind on gardening day.

LandscapExperts Tip of the Week, April 22

Keep instructions and spare parts for garden power tools together.in a large-size zip lock bag and mark the purchase date and model and serial number on the outside.

LandscaoExperts Tip of the Week, April 15

A Fescue lawn may need a patch in the spring. Prepare the area and reseed, then keep traffic off of the newly sown grass with metal mesh fencing (such as chicken wire or hog fencing). Lay the fencing right on the soil for easy installation, and when the grass is high enough to mow, just lift it off.

LandscapExperts Tip of the Week, April 8

Keep woodchucks and rabbits away with a simple child's pinwheel pushed into the ground next to tender or appetizing plants like strawberries. The shiny plastic and movement scares away these animals.

LandscapExperts Tip of the Week, April 1

Have a round patio table with an old sun umbrella with only the wire spokes remaiing? Plant a fast-growing annual vine underneath the table and train stems through the hole in the middle of the table, up the umbrella handle, and over the spokes. It becomes quite a centerpiece when the leafy vines and flowers are spilling over the table!

LandscapExpert Tip of the Week, March 25

Use plastic Easter Eggs for drainage at the bottom of extra-large planter boxes and containers. They are lightweight, are widely available, and cost next to nothing- particularly just after Easter.

LandscapExpert Tip of the Week, March 18

When wildlife like rabbits, chipmunks and squirrels are eating your choice edible and ornamental plants like parsley, Rainbow Chard, or tasty ground covers like Snow-N-Summer Asiatic Jasmine, dust them with hot pepper powder. To prevent this from blowing away, first mist the plants with light spray starch then sprinkle the hot pepper powder, and it sticks and does not blow away!

LanscapExperts Tip of the Week, March 11

Keep Slug-Bait away from pets and birds. Turn an empty plastic water bottle into a safe container by cutting off the bottle's neck and shoulders and inserting them into the end of the bottle backwards. Use waterproof tape to hold this in place, and pour in some bait. Tuck under slug-prone plants such as Hosta where the slugs can crawl into the trap.

LandscapExperts Tip of the Week, March 4

Use Large Leaves to Suppress Weeds

Large leaves of Dock or Rhubarb will suppress the growth of weeds on newly weeded, bare ground. They are sturdy enough to walk on, and as they decompose, add more or cover the ground with mulch.

LandscaExperts Tip of the Week, Feb. 25

Closely-set Bamboo Stakes foil deer

Plant 18 or 24 inch bamboo stakes 3-4 inches apart around the crowns of emerging perennials. Hungry deer will not put their heads down through them. This is particularly effective protection for Asiatic and Oriental Lilies.

LandcapExperts Tip of the Week, Feb. 18

Maintaining Healthy Plants After Landscape Renovation

The LandscapExperts are the right team for maintenance! Start with follow-up care for plants that have just been moved or newly planted. The main reason for death of newly planted shrubs is the lack of irrigation during the first year after planing. Crabapple knows that watering-in at planting time and then never again is simply won't succeed.

At least 1 inch of rain per week per caliper inch is recommended, and if no rains fall, we can set up a drip irrigation system or supplimental watering schedule now, to be ready for the active growing season.

LandscapExperts Tip of the Week, Feb. 11

Maintaining Healthy Plants after Landscape Renovation

A stitch in time saves nine! For the last 20+ years, Crabapple LandscapExperts have been known for our expertise in landscape maintenance, as well as design and installation and outdoor lighting, Our legendary attention to detail, a set schedule and routine maintenance will delay or eliminate another extensive renovation.

LandscapExperts Tip of the Week, Feb. 4

Maintaining Healthy Plants after Landscape Renovation

Crabapple LandscapExperts are tops at maintaining healthy landscapes!

The time, energy and money expended in renovating a landscape represents a sizable investment for your HOA or the properties you manage. Crabapple can quickly set up a program that will keep your renovated landscape as good as the day it was finished!

LandscapExperts Tip of the Week, Jan. 28

Executing a Landscape Renovation

The best time to renovate a lawn depends on the type of turf. Warm-season lawns like Zoysia and Bermudagrass are best installed during hot weather (May 1- August 31), while cool-season Fescue is best installed or seeded from Sept. 1 - April 30).

Where a major renovation is needed, Crabapple LandscapExperts may first need to kill existing weeds and patchy grass in order to start fresh. The area should then be forked over and raked smooth, turned with a rototiller, or even discs on a small plow for a large area.

Timing is essential, with quick replanting in order to minimize water or wind erosion.

LandscapExperts Tip of the Week, Jan. 21

Executing a Landscape Renovation

Considering Ground Covers and Lawns

Ground covers and lawns are left until the last in a landscape renovation to avoid damage as hardscaping is installed. Plant materials available to cover exposed ground include turf grass, ground covers, and low growing horizontal shrubs.

Crabapple appraises existing ground covers and lawns in order to determine what steps are necessary to renovate these areas. Options include weed control, fertilization, irrigation, pruning of overhanging woody ornamentals, complete replacement or even a substitution of one type of ground cover for another that is better suited to the location. Just call your LandscapExperts Rep!

LandscapEXPERTS Tip of the Week, Jan, 14

Executing a Landscape Renovation

Steps in Filling a Planting Hole

After a generous planting hole has been dug, Crabapple LandscapExperts install any stakes required and set the tree or woody shrub into place. Next, we:

1. Backfill the hole over the roots approximately one-half to two thirds full
2. Tamp down the soil gently but firmly
3. Water well and then allow to drain off. This settles the soil and eliminates air pockets
4. Continue to fill the hole until the native soil level is reached 
5. Mulch the surface surrounding the plant with reserved organic amendments, but do not put mulch up against the trunk or trunks. Allow a few inches between bark and mulch for proper air circulation. Find more about organic mulch here.  

LandscapExperts Tip of the Week, January 7

Executing a Landscape Renovation

Miscellaneous Tools Needed

Tape Measure, Survey flags or Ground Paint – for measuring and marking beds, new landscapes, location of features

Steel Landscape Rake – levels soil flat for fine grading, seed beds or vegetable gardens

Leaf Rake – broad expanse of tines and lightweight

Hoe – manually removes weeds from standing position
Cobrahead Weeder - hand-held hoe for micro-weeding