Our Awesome Services.
The common thread running throughout our services is the protection and promotion of our environment. Creating a sustainable environment is not only desirable for individual residential sites but for the larger environmental context as well. Refining our environment will encourage species diversity of flora and fauna with the hope of nurturing the communities love of nature and stewardship of the land.
Design
Each design is a customized, functional and aesthetic fusion of the clients' desires along with the site's capabilities and obstacles. Our design philosophy is based on three principles - unity, variety and harmony.
Unity, the production of a leading expression consisting of the entire landscape, home, and surrounding neighborhood is the most important principle. With more than one distinct expression the mind switches from one to the other, becomes confused and has difficulty finding pleasure - missing the delight of the project as a whole. Pleasure helps create an opinion, affecting not only the common eye, but more powerfully the imagination. Variety creates intricacies to prevent monotony. Here we give more attention to the elements in the design rather than the design as a whole. Elements include: fencing, water, walkways, statuary, flora, benches or buildings. Harmony and beauty are formed when these elements are combined and arranged by species, color, shape, size and theme. Harmony always presides over variety, combining design elements and always presuming contrast. Never too strong or frequent to produce conflicting ideas or spoiling the leading expression.
Soil Enrichment
Plants will take care of themselves, no need for complex feeding schedules or mind boggling mathematical calculations for chemical rates. Certainly no need for chemicals! More accurately stated, the soil takes care of plants.
In actuality, microbes and insects - soil organisms, provide plants with all the nutrition and immunity they need to thrive. It is all about the soil food web and decomposition. Feeding on plant root exudate and organic material and then becoming fodder for other organisms demonstrates the fundamental role bacteria and fungi play in the soil food web. As soil organisms decompose complex materials, or consume other organisms (bacteria and fungi in particular), nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus and all trace minerals are sequestered and converted into usable forms for plants.Plants cannot process food without microbes.
In addition to nutrition, organisms help create a better soil structure. Increased porosity allows for better circulation of air and water. Bacteria favor the root zone as their home, here they feed on sloughed off plant cells, proteins and sugars released by the roots. Organisms such as protozoa and nematodes, the grazers of bacteria, reside in the root zone as well. The proximity of cycling nutrients (consumption of bacteria and decomposition) to the roots allows for a steady flow of nutrition to the plant. This nutritional increase helps boost the plant's immune system, producing a healthier plant.
Fungi are better adapted to decompose plant material higher in carbon (brown vs green) content. Think of mushrooms growing on logs. The mushroom is the fruiting body of the fungi and proof that mycorrhizae are working hard at decomposition. Earthworms, spiders, beetles and other insects help chew up all of these materials making decomposition easier for both bacteria and fungus. This process creates humus, dark organic material we see in nutrient rich soil. One of the most important nutrients in humus is nitrogen. Healthy soil is teeming with life. In fact 88% of the dry weight or biomass of our soil should be microbes and insects. Chemical fertilizers injure this microbial life which should easily sustain plants. Chemicals not only toxic to microbes but to humans as well cause plants to become dependent on an arsenal of artificial substances. Leading to more and more chemical use. There is a reason fertilizer companies have four step programs.
Our goal is to help our clients recognize the power of beneficial microbes. If life is missing in your soil, we need to give Mother Nature a jump start and help her reestablish a normal nutrient cycle, establish a normal set of organisms. Soil organisms will decompose herbicides and pesticides that remain in the ground. As we infuse the soil with bacteria and fungi a proper diversity of microbes begin to transform and transfer nutrients to the plants. Microbes then hold on to nutrients and plants begin again to become dependent on the nutrients created via the soil food web. Just as Mother Nature intended.
Environmentally Safe Tick Prevention
Our tick program begins with multiple applications of a chrysanthemum oil based spray. The spray will not harm beneficial insects, mammals or the environment but can kill ticks by attacking their central nervous system. Later, when the risk of transmission of the bacteria responsible for lyme disease lessens we switch to a cedarwood oil based spray. This too will not harm beneficial insects, mammals or the environment. Cedarwood oil is a repellent only, repelling ticks as well as grubs, Japanese beetles and mosquitoes.
Why switch products? Cost. The cost of cedarwood oil is about twenty percent less than chrysanthemum oil. The nymph at this stage has had its blood meal is inactive and is beginning the process of molting into the adult stage. The adult tick is large enough to be easily seen on humans and pets, and then easily removed.
*Important to remember infected mice, chipmunks and certain species of small birds are the carriers of the bacteria (Borrelia burgdorferi (B burgdorferi) responsible for lyme disease, not deer. The white footed mouse is in fact the principal source for that bacteria. That said a neat and tidy lawn area is a big preventative step. Remove leaves and debris where mice and chipmunks love to hide. “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”. We refer to this species of tick ( Ixodes scapularis ) as the deer tick because deer are the most likely hosts for pregnant females. Around October ticks mate, only the pregnant female looks for a host to spend the winter. When spring comes she lays her eggs ( as many as 2,000), the female dies, and the cycle begins. The larvae that hatch now are pathogen free, six legged and in search of the first meal. Once they have had that meal from mice, chipmunks or small birds and drop off they remain inactive until spring. This is the meal at which the bacteria might be transmitted between a small mammal or bird and the tick. Two stages are present in spring (three if you count the adult female), newly laid larvae and last years nymphs. The nymph has eight legs and is the size of a pin head. It is last years nymphs we want to avoid. If the host they had that first meal from was harboring any disease carrying bacteria, it is possible for it to be transmitted at the next meal - humans and pets.
Pruning
Pruning is a horticultural practice influencing the growth and form of plants. Based on aesthetics and science, pruning can also be considered preventive maintenance or a process to restore health.
Cutting away unwanted parts of a young plant gives it a basic structure of good habits and tendencies. In the case of a fruit tree, for example, you want to open up the tree to allow more sunlight to get to the inner branches so fruit can grow and ripen there, as well as on the outer limbs. Thinning out branches yields larger, showier blossoms and bigger fruits. A well-thinned fruit tree is more likely to bear every year, too.
Many problems may be prevented by pruning correctly during the formative years of trees and shrubs. It’s a drain on the energy of any plant to support dead limbs and broken or diseased branches. Remember, every inch of a tree or shrub is an extension of it’s roots. Think of the energy needed for that amazing apple or gorgeous hydrangea flower to come to life. Young trees pruned improperly or not pruned at all for several years may require heavy pruning to remove bigger branches to prevent trees from becoming deformed.
Deciduous shrubs that have multiple stems and that have become very overgrown can be rejuvenated by cutting all canes back as close to the ground as possible in early spring. That season's flowers may be sacrificed but the benefits from bringing the plants back to their normal size and shape outweigh this temporary "collateral damage." Within one growing season, these shrubs will look like new plantings, full and natural shaped.
Improperly pruned plants destroy the plant’s natural shape, promotes suckering and development of weakened branches, opening up the opportunity for a passageway for pathogens. Selectively removing branches throughout the crown promotes good air movement and light penetration helping prevent disease and destruction from high winds.
We suggest that for security purposes prune shrubs or tree branches that obscure the entry to your home. Additionally branches that obscure vision at intersections and driveways should be pruned.
Some pruning is done mainly for appearance. With formal foundation plantings, the shrubs or trees are sheared, rather than pruned. Shearing means cutting off the soft new growth to limit the plant’s growth and to shape it.
