There are two lawn care tasks you should consider doing this fall. One is aeration, especially if your lawn is in bad shape or you failed to aerate in spring. The other task is fall fertilizing. Don't skip these steps. 
Remember the 3 crucial cultural aspects of lawn care: proper mowing heights, proper watering and fertilizing.

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Not too long ago, I got a call about tree protection so I asked some questions. Like, protection from what? Wild kids. Yes, kids were playing in their strata park and they were taking liberties with the park trees. You can the full blog here.
My conclusion? Educate the kids first. Plants are life!

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As we hit fall and temperatures drop a little bit, it's a great time for getting your cedar hedges pruned. Boxwoods can also be clipped and whatever shrubs didn't get done in mid-season. 

Last week I pruned cedar and boxwood hedges at a daycare. Both were overdue and looked great after shearing. And the client was happy with the result. You can be, too, so text Vas at 604-562-3736 and get a free quote. I can help you.

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When the owner of this front bed called me to come help him with weeding, the bed was showing weeds but it wasn't yet horrific. I grabbed a bucket and a four-pronged cultivator and went to work. You must uproot your weeds with tools and then remove them. Hand picking is heroic but it's slow and it doesn't guarantee complete removal. When you leave weed roots, the weeds just bounce back.

One great upside to cultivating is that your bed looks fresh and fluffy. Cultivation can expose weed seeds to sunlight but if you cultivate your beds regularly -as I will for this client- the weeds have no hope.

I suggest only hand picking huge trophy weeds or weeds poking out of groundcover.
A few weeks later, I'm extremely happy with the way this bed looks. I only found a few weeds and they won't get far.

You can read my latest blog post on weeding here.

Recently  a client of mine complained about his tired front garden beds. They were all full of weeds and difficult to cultivate because of exposed landscape fabric. So I got to work on this easy garden upgrade.

Step one involved the dreaded weeding session. I used a bucket and cultivators: one was a Dutch hoe for up-rooting stubborn weeds and one was a four-pronger for deeper cultivation.

Step two involved soil installation. We brought in 2 yards of lawn and garden mix and it was exactly the right amount! The soil will settle but the plants will be happier, weeding should be easier and the client comes home to nice, dark and clean beds where the eye notices the flowers, not weeds.

All it took was about three hours of labour and the cost of soil plus delivery. Remember, not all garden upgrades need to cost a fortune. You can do a lot with some weeding and fresh soil.

It's been very rainy on the West Coast until last week or so and it looked like we'd miss summer altogether. But now we're finally seeing some color in the landscape and it feels like summer. Enjoy the gallery and share your own photos.

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I love to fight against dead space in landscapes. Usually open spaces just attract weeds or unwanted debris. So, why not plant something?
Below are a few examples. One is an empty box I filled up with Berberis thunbergii; and another where boxwoods filled up two open beds. Both places look much better with plants in them.
You should also fight any dead spaces in your gardens. Instead of fighting weeds that will inevitably move in, why not plant something that you will enjoy looking at? Give it a try.

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Now that everything is flushed out in mid-May, it will soon be time to do some mid-season pruning. Especially if there are obstruction issues. Some people also realize they have less light reaching their homes with trees and shrubs nicely flushed out.
Use sharp shears and make sure your clean-ups match the pruning. 
As always, Green First! Landscaping is here to help you. Just text 604-562-3736 anytime.

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Yesterday I got to plant Amstel Begonias, supervised by the site gardener who has been tending to her landscape for the past twenty years. Let's see how she does it.

1. Use a trowel to dig a hole. My trowel totally fit the site: it sports a soft cork handle and thumb rest. It retails for $15.

2. Throw in some bone meal. Personally, I think this might be overkill for annual plants but why not? Bone meal is an organic fertilizer.

3. Water the hole. It takes time but it makes sense. Help the plant with some water in the hole.

4. Install the Begonia. It sounds simple but the low green foliage is supposed to face the walkway and street. See, you learn something new every day.

Adding annuals to your garden gives you instant colour, assuming you can handle the cost every season.

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