Green Man Enviroscaping LLC

2012-01-30T14:45:00.001-05:00

Sales Crewmember- now hiring!

We are looking for someone ~ or possibly someones to help us grow!

At the outset, this will be commission-only work in combination with a mix of regular duties (as indicated in the Core Crewmember description). As sales levels grow, you will help create a sales team that will work independently of the core team.

Responsibilities include, but are not limited to, the following duties:
- Sales: commercial, residential, and non-profit clients; establishing and maintaining customer relationships; lead generation
- Design: requirements gathering and initial estimates

Core Crewmember- now hiring!

We are looking for core crewmembers who are available to help shovel walks and driveways after snow events this winter, and for our landscaping services when the growing season starts. This is a part-time position, with full-time potential as work allows.

Responsibilities include, but are not limited to, the following duties:
- Design: assist with design process, including measuring areas, testing soil and light conditions; provide design input, from initial feedback of opinion to the potential to grow into a design or architectural role
- Installation: soil preparation, digging, planting, maintenance tasks performed during installation
- Maintenance: power tool operation (including string trimmer, edger, walk-behind mower, chainsaw), pruning of trees and shrubs from ground or ladder, mulching, watering, area clean-up
- Other: basic equipment maintenance
Experience preferred but not required
Salary commensurate with experience
Specialist skills, such as tree climbing or stonemasonry, are welcome and will be put to use as possible ~ bonuses will apply to a higher wage when performing specialist tasks, with planned growth into a full time specialist position

Please respond via the Contact page ~ Thanks for your interest!

Current Events

2012-01-27T11:49:00.000-05:00

Wow. The USDA reissued the zone map... parts of Pennsylvania are now in zone 7... including parts of our service area! I'm having some technical difficulties with their map when you try to zoom on specific zip codes... from the state map, it looks like Mount Joy is zone 6b, though. Parts of Lancaster County and large parts of York County are zone 7b. The new map can be found here.

Last week, I went to a seminar at Penn Stone for CAST Lighting's LED products. The bronze fixtures are very heavy duty, and the lighting modules are very well made ~ I'm basing the latter analysis on my years of electronics assembly. Going into it, I wasn't sure whether we'd offer any lighting at all... I've had some clients mention lighting, but no specific requests, and although I've done lots of assistant-level electrical work and even more electronics work, I'm no electrician. The way the CAST products are wired and installed are well within our capabilities, although we'll still need to contract with an electrician for the panel work.

Yesterday, I attended another seminar at Penn Stone, for Superior Clay's masonry ovens. Their 24" oven would be a great fit for an outdoor kitchen in the backyard. Depending on what kind of structure you would want around your oven, we'd most likely need to work with a mason, as the dry stack stone walls I like to work with don't quite fit most of the needs of the oven.

I'll be revising the services list on the website to include these offerings at some point in the future, but I'd be happy to discuss them with you at anytime! To schedule a consultation, use our contact page to send us a message!

On that note, I'd also be happy to hear from electricians and masons who would like to work together on such projects in the future. In addition to working with other contractors, we're also looking for a few people to hire, particularly someone to take on some sales and customer support work, possibly some design work, and we'd also like to talk to a few people for crew member positions as we move into the growing season!

PSA: Identifying Genetically Modified Foods

2012-01-14T11:15:00.001-05:00

To identify foods that may or may not be labelled (the FDC does not require labeling of genetically modified foods), check the code on the PLU sticker:

#### - four digit code; conventionally grown with chemical inputs
9#### - five digit code starting with 9; organically grown
8#### - five digit code starting with 9; genetically modified foods

-- from Knowledge Is Power

And an update... according to other sources, the codes are entirely voluntary, and as consumers have indicated they will avoid GMO foods if they can, no one wants to use the 8... codes.

So much for that!

-- from Huffington Post

Current Events

2012-01-12T12:00:00.000-05:00

Earlier this week, we were out on Main Street here in Mount Joy to take down the Christmas decorations in the planters...

We were pretty happy that the artificial trees (tomato stands covered with garland!) held up to some of the high winds we had during their time on display. To my knowledge, we didn't have a single tip-over incident ~ and if we did, someone jumped in to help right away. The decorated redbuds and live evergreens also held up nicely and looked great. Next year, as some of the other trees and shrubs grow strong enough to support decorations, we may see more live decorations... possibly even some more live evergreens!

There are still a number of plants to cover in the article series about the specimens we installed in the planters... look for those articles to continue once the growing season returns!

As mentioned in the Service Update earlier this week, we are currently offering two discount specials ~ and they do stack together:

Projects scheduled (contract signed, deposit paid) prior to March 20th will get 10% off all labor charges
10% off all labor charges for 2012 members of the Humane League of Lancaster County

Services Update

2012-01-10T11:24:00.000-05:00

It's been a while since the last services update and... really, not much has changed.

Our biggest snow storm of the Winter Season 2011-2012 was the bit that fell back around Halloween, and there's been nothing measurable since... while that keeps the plow in storage, this weather isn't entirely conducive to some of the less pleasant, but necessary, cycles in plant life. I've seen some rather confused buds looking ready to pop, and it's hardly Spring yet... we have had some freezes, but nothing too deep and lasting. With a couple of meadows seeded last year, I'm really hoping that ~ and what's still to come ~ is enough to convince some of the seeds to crack open and do their thing... and, hopefully, wait until a real thaw before they attempt to grow a bit.

With the plows and shovels and snow blowers lying still, there's still plenty of time to do other yard work. Transplants can still happen, if you're looking to move plants around your yard, and with the lack of snow cover, all the usual Autumn clean up tasks can still take place.

Of course, the lack of current snow fall does make it easier for us to walk your driveways and sidewalks, see what the snow will hide, and allow us to give you a more accurate estimate for our snow clearing services. Without snow cover, we can also see your lawn areas and other landscaping so we can quote you on mowing and other lawn maintenance services for the 2012 growing season.

Snow or not, it's also a great time to talk about plans for redesigning your landscape. We can sit down and discuss your needs, and provide you with a free estimate. If you get your design project scheduled prior to March 20, we'll give you an additional 10% off all labor charges ~ this discount will stack with the 10% discount we offer to members of the Humane League of Lancaster County (see their membership page for information on becoming a member, and make sure to show us your membership card before we write up any contracts to make sure you get the discount included!)

If you have any questions, or if you'd like to schedule a site visit, please contact us!

Web Update

2011-12-04T09:57:00.000-05:00

~ revised the Professional Affiliations section of the About... page

~ revised the Professional Affiliations section of the Links page

~ added a seasonal background color across the entire site

~ changed to the Winter picture on the Services page

~ added an Articles and Media Mentions section to the About... page

~ added media and speaking engagement options on the Contact page

SnowCare For Troops

2011-12-03T20:09:00.001-05:00

A short while back, I posted the logo that can be seen below, and I mentioned it would be a subject of a future post, and here we are:

Green Man Enviroscaping LLC volunteers time and equipment for Project EverGreen's SnowCare For Troops initiative.

What we do ~ and what a number of our fellow snow plow owners and operators nationwide do ~ is provide complimentary snow and ice services to the families of our deployed troops.

I was featured in the November 2011 issue of Total Landscape Care ~ you can read the interview online here.

For more information on the SnowCare For Troops program ~ to volunteer or if you are a military family and want to apply for free snow removal services ~ click on the logo below:

Main Street Mount Joy Planters: Creeping Phlox

2011-11-19T13:35:00.000-05:00

This article is the sixth in a series of eleven, featuring details about the native plants that can be found in the plant containers Green Man Enviroscaping LLC installed and maintains for Main Street Mount Joy.

Until now, these articles have been covering the centerpieces of the planters ~ and we still have a few more of those to get back to, but we'll take some time to look at some of the accent plants we used. Creeping phlox, Phlox stoloniifera is a long-blooming perennial that stays low and flows nicely over edges of containers.

Along Main Street in Mount Joy, creeping phlox can be found in more planters than any other specimen, and it is used as an accent in front of the Trinity Lutheran Church, the Mount Joy Borough office, St. Mark's United Methodist Church, Sloan's Pharmacy, Mosby's Pub, Mick's All American Pub, Sheetz Funeral Home, Northwest Savings Bank, First Presbyterian Church, Floral Designs of Mount Joy, and Spanglers Flour Mill.

The creeping phlox, as its common name implies, is a low growing ground cover plant, with an average height of six inches to a foot and a spread of three-quarters to one and a half feet in diameter ~ although it spreads by stolons to form large colonies. It does well planted along rock walls or at the edges of containers, where it can spill over the rocks or planters. It thrives in the full sun of rock gardens and the partial shade on the edge of border plantings.

Creeping phlox has a long bloom time, from July to September, with fragrant clusters of flowers in a variety of pink, white, and lavender hues. It is commonly available in named varieties that are bred for specific colors.

Resources
Check out creeping phlox on the USDA PLANTS database here, on the Missouri Botanical Garden's Kemper Center for Home Gardening here, and at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center at The University of Texas at Austin here ~ all three provide excellent resources for plants, particularly in identifying or finding natives.

If you'd like to learn if and where the creeping phlox can fit into your home landscape, please contact Green Man Enviroscaping LLC and we'd be happy to help you!

Web Update

2011-11-08T16:02:00.000-05:00

Minor redesign of the left panel (tightened things up). Added the Snowcare for Troops icon and link to the Professional Affiliations page... and that will be the topic of an upcoming post!

News

2011-10-29T10:07:00.000-04:00

Snow is falling from the sky throughout our service area... well, the rain does seem to be getting white and pouffy, but it remains to be seen which of the forecasted numbers will reflect the actual situation on the ground.

We pulled the plow out of storage yesterday and coated it with Fluid Film so it's ready for action. Our plowing contracts generally run from November 1st to April 30th, but we're on call for our customers with signed contracts as well as for any new clients. If this winds up sticking, we'll be heading out to Strasburg and Lititz later to do our first cleanup of the season!

For those of you who can't avoid getting out on the roads during wintry weather, take a look at my article from February 2010, Plowing Through Winter for some seasonal driving tips.

Services Update

2011-10-26T08:08:00.000-04:00

Leaves have been falling for some time now, and, after a little delay, the picture on this season's Services page now reflects that!

We've already wound down on our regular lawn maintenance services for the 2011 growing season, although if temperatures get warmer and rains come in, there still might be a need for a trim or two... and it's a great time to set up the annual maintenance schedules for next year.

We are currently scheduling snow plowing, snow shoveling, and snow throwing services for the 2011-2012 Winter season. We'll definitely be plowing in Lititz, just off Fruitville Pike, and we're in talks for some driveways and lots in Strasburg and Marietta. If you're in any of those areas, anywhere between them and our home base here in Mount Joy, we'd love to schedule your driveway in to our routes!

Autumn is the best time to get seed down ~ whether it's new lawn or a native meadow. Earlier this week, we travelled back to our old neighborhood to hydroseed a new meadow installation. A lot of the wildflowers need to over-winter in the soil, freezing and cracking their outer shell, before they germinate and sprout up into their beautiful, showy selves. Looking forward to see how that grows over the next few years!

This is also a good time to get other plants into the ground. Their roots will take hold and grow over the colder season, and then when Spring comes around, they'll be ready to take off and do their thing... no matter if that thing is to control erosion and hold a bank together, or to soften the foundation of a house, or to hide utilities, or to provide a thorny layer of security, or to provide some food to your family, or to attract, feed, or shelter birds and wildlife... or just to sit there and look pretty.

This time of year is also one for cleanup, a task dreaded by many. With all that fallen leaf matter, it's a great time to have us set up a compost pile or bin and help you fill it up with mulched leaves and other yard waste. Please contact us to schedule a visit, and we'll take a look at how much leaf litter you have, and we can talk to you about the best ways to clean it up... or put it to work for you as a mulch!

Main Street Mount Joy Planters: Mountain Witchalder

2011-09-15T11:23:00.000-04:00

This article is the fifth in a series of eleven, featuring details about the native plants that can be found in the plant containers Green Man Enviroscaping LLC installed and maintains for Main Street Mount Joy.

I learn a lot when I write these ~ that's always been one of the best, if selfish, things about teaching. When you teach someone else, you learn something. Here I was, all prepared to do a really terrible joke about how the scientific name of the fothergilla was so obscure and difficult... but it turns out Fothergilla major has a common name that is not identical to the first part of its scientific name. So my little (as in not-really-existant) joke is ruined, and still I insist on using it...

So, after using it in landscapes for almost a decade, I learn that "fothergilla" has a common name, and from now on, I'll be able to tell clients that the mountain witchalder would be a great fit for their shrub border, and they won't make the same curious expression they did when I told them that the fothergilla would work well there.

The mountain witchalder is a medium to large sized deciduous shrub with good Autumnal colors and fragrant spring flowers. It also has one exceptional trait that helps it look better but you don't necessarily notice when you look at it: it is fairly problem-free when it comes to disease and insect pests.

Along Main Street in Mount Joy, the mountain witchalder can be found as the centerpiece in the planters near the Higher Grounds Cafe, Pub Dunegal, and Bube's Brewery.

The fragrant white flowers of the mountain witchalder bloom in April to May, and have a bottlebrush-like appearance. The flowers are very ornamental and can provide a nice backdrop to a large flower bed.

With its six to twelve foot size (in both height and width), it can make a good choice for a hedge. It has a tendency to sucker, and will spread into a colony if allowed to ~ if you keep it in line, it will help thicken up and add some self-repairing to the hedge. A tolerance for shade helps this shrub do well in both hedge form (when it's shaded by the other plants in the row) or when it's used up against a house in a foundation border, although both flowers and foliage will be showier with more sun.

The foliage tend to be a blueish green, adding additional color interest, with a leathery texture. The leaves turn a variety of colors in the Autumn, with yellows, oranges, reds, and purples. Although the colors might vary per plant, and perhaps with the growing conditions, some have reported that the species itself has better color than the named varieties.

Resources
Check out the mountain witchalder on the USDA PLANTS database here, on the Missouri Botanical Garden's Kemper Center for Home Gardening here, and at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center at The University of Texas at Austin here ~ all three provide excellent resources for plants, particularly in identifying or finding natives.

If you'd like to learn if and where the mountain witchalder can fit into your home landscape, please contact Green Man Enviroscaping LLC and we'd be happy to help you!

In the Wake of a Storm...

2011-08-25T09:44:00.000-04:00

Wow. The weather and news channels are wiping everything else off the slate to provide coverage for Hurricane Irene, where it "could" or "might" cause trouble for us here in the Susquehanna Valley. And, looking at where the storm is tracking, it's very likely we'll see something from it.

I grew up near a golf course ~ across the street, behind the neighbor's yard, you could see part of a tee. During Hurricane Gloria back in the eighties, I remember seeing full grown trees blowing roots-over-crown like tumbleweeds down the fairways beyond that tee. They ended up caught in the tree line and/or fence, so none of them blew on to the major street, except right at the edge. There wasn't a tree line at that stretch, but when we walked over to survey the damage, all those tumbleweeded maples and oaks were on top of the cars at the limo service.

Trees blown over (and over) were part of the problem there; in other places, the trees that stayed rooted and held their ground prevented hundreds of thousands of dollars (if not millions) of further damage from occurring.

Hard to tell what's going to happen when the winds start blowing.

Once the winds stop, it's time to assess the damage and clean things up.

Green Man Enviroscaping LLC can help with the cleanup, whether it's as simple as raking up leaves or as involved as removing fallen trees.

In the aftermath of a serious storm, with numerous damage sites, we would take a staged process to the cleanup:

If there are any downed wires in or around the tree, they would need to be handled by the utility that owns them before we can work in the area ~ power would need to be turned off, at the least.

Our first step would be to clear paths ~ whether a road, driveway, or even a front walk ~ to allow for safe passage. We would work to get your house or business open, and to allow you to use your property without worrying about further damage as things shift and settle.

At that point, depending on the severity of the storm and our call volume, we might move on and repeat that first step for our other clients.

The next step would be to further cut down fallen trees and limbs. There are several options here ~ we generally have to cut to make the pieces easier to carry, but we can:

Cut and stack them on-site for firewood
Cut them and pile them for decomposition on-site
Haul them away
Chip and shred them into a pile for compost or future use as mulch

If we bring in a chipper, we can generally do less slicing and dicing to prepare for that step, and would likely schedule that work for a few days to as much as a week after the storm.

You can see some before shots of damage we've dealt with from a large section of fallen tree limbs ~ due to high winds and a lightning strike ~ here. Although we can clear limbs and trees from cars, if your fallen tree is on or hanging over your house, we recommend that you check out the ISA's Trees Are Good website and find a certified arborist ~ we keep our feet on the ground, while they climb around trees and have bucket trucks to reach a bit higher than we can, and, more importantly, our insurance allows for cleanup work and tree removal in open areas, while theirs will cover work around structures and wires.

While we hope you don't need our help for any issues caused by this hurricane ~ or any other storms ~ if you do need us, please contact us. Of course, if the power's already out, you might not be able to read this when you need it, so you may want to write down our phone number to have it at hand when the storm hits: 610.442.7964. As long as the storm doesn't take out too many cell phone towers (or their power supplies) we will be able to take your call!

Main Street Mount Joy Planters: White Fringetree

2011-08-22T17:15:00.000-04:00

This article is the fourth in a series of eleven, featuring details about the native plants that can be found in the plant containers Green Man Enviroscaping LLC installed and maintains for Main Street Mount Joy.

The white fringetree, Chionanthus virginicus, is a shrub or small tree that features masses of showy white flowers right around the time the leaves first appear in the late spring ~ later than many of the other trees.

Along Main Street in Mount Joy, the fringetree can be found as the centerpiece in the planters in front of Scott Albert's office, the newly built apartments, and in the large planter in front of the Union Community Bank. The fringetree is growing fine in all the locations, but each of the three specimens leans a little more than we'd like ~ we're trying to avoid staking them, as they will be stronger if they're left to grow naturally, but we are keeping an eye on them to see how they'll do with new growth.

The fringetree is an excellent plant to have on the edge of a bird garden. You need at least two (a male and a female) to get fruit, which is a favorite of birds. The male trees won't carry fruit, but they do have a showier flower display. In the Autumn, their leaves turn yellow, but they're not considered stars of the seasonal display.

Resources
Check out the fringetree on the USDA PLANTS database here, on the Missouri Botanical Garden's Kemper Center for Home Gardening here, and at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center at The University of Texas at Austin here ~ all three provide excellent resources for plants, particularly in identifying or finding natives.

If you'd like to learn if and where the fringetree can fit into your home landscape, please contact Green Man Enviroscaping LLC and we'd be happy to help you!

Main Street Mount Joy Planters: Redbud

2011-08-12T14:04:00.000-04:00

This article is the third in a series of eleven, featuring details about the native plants that can be found in the plant containers Green Man Enviroscaping LLC installed and maintains for Main Street Mount Joy.

A number of years ago, I took a trip down south in the early spring, and one of the most memorable sights were all the redbuds along the highway ~ sometimes planted in orderly lines, but mostly peeking out of a mixed forest, one here, and one there... and then, after returning home and allowing a little more time, I noticed one in the woods along my drive in to work, and I realized how great these trees really are.

The eastern redbud, Cercis canadensis is native to Pennsylvania, its range stretching up into New York, Massachusetts, and parts of Canada, however, it isn't seen in the wild here in the numbers it can be found in Virginia and North Carolina... or even just over the border in Maryland. In neighboring New Jersey, it is listed as endangered, and in Connecticut it is of "special concern".

Along Main Street in Mount Joy, the redbud can be found as the centerpiece in the planters in front of 75 E Main Street, The Shoppes of Main Street Mount Joy office, and at Rutt's Appliances. The tree in that last location is doing particularly well, due primarily to the extra care given to it by Galen Rutt. He came out to talk with us on our first day working at that planter, and his interest level is clearly visible when you compare that tree with the other two. While the others are doing well, the one in front of Rutt's is growing by leaps and bounds.

The redbud is most often used as a specimen tree in the home landscape. It stays small, growing to 20 or 30 feet high, and is a better choice for areas with overhead lines than the larger trees such as maples or oaks. The root system tends to develop a deep taproot, and the horizontal roots aren't known for causing problems with nearby walkways. Because the redbud can do well under such conditions, it can be found as a street tree here in Mount Joy and in other communities within its range.

The pink flowers that help the tree stand out amongst the other forest trees bloom before the leaves come out. The blooms appear all along the stems and branches instead of at the tips of the stems. The redbud has a place in the edible garden as well: the flowers and flower buds can be eaten raw or boiled or sauteed. They have a slightly sour taste, and are high in vitamin C.

While the leaves don't provide standout Autumn color, they do have a heart shape that can work nicely as a backdrop for an old fashioned or a romantic-themed garden.

Resources
Check out the redbud on the USDA PLANTS database here, on the Missouri Botanical Garden's Kemper Center for Home Gardening here, and at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center at The University of Texas at Austin here ~ all three provide excellent resources for plants, particularly in identifying or finding natives.

If you'd like to learn if and where the redbud can fit into your home landscape, please contact Green Man Enviroscaping LLC and we'd be happy to help you!

Web Update

2011-08-05T10:35:00.000-04:00

You can now find our Facebook page easily...

Check us out at http://www.facebook.com/greenmanenvy!

Main Street Mount Joy Planters: Juniper

2011-07-27T19:53:00.000-04:00

This article is the second in a series of eleven, featuring details about the native plants that can be found in the plant containers Green Man Enviroscaping LLC installed and maintains for Main Street Mount Joy.

The juniper, Juniperus communis, is one of the most widely distributed trees in the world. It is native to North America, Europe, and Asia.

Most specimens of the juniper grow as shrubs here, although some named varieties have been selected to retain the classic conical evergreen tree shape ~ which makes them perfect living substitutes for the artificial trees that had been used in the planters in the past.

You can see more juniper centerpieces than you can any other plant ~ along Main Street in Mount Joy, the juniper can be found as the centerpiece in the planters in front of Mick's All American Pub, the Mount Joy Borough office, Northwest Savings Bank, and Mosby's Pub. We wanted to try two locations on each side of the street to see how well they handle the variety of light and shade conditions encountered along the street, and to see how they fare living in the planters.

When 'tis the season, they will be able to be decked out in Christmas garb ~ we hope they truly shine in that role!

There are flowers ~ yellow ones that appear in April ~ but they are not of any ornamental value. As with many evergreens, the prime attraction of the juniper is the foliage, both in appearance and in fragrance. Of course, as with all evergreens, the needles do turn to yellow or brown and fall, just not all at once ~ the needles on the juniper will persist for three years, so that there's always some green there.

Junipers are fairly solid trees or shrubs. They grow well on poor soils and can tolerate wind, however, they do prefer full sun. The juniper is a great plant to use in a bird garden ~ it provides cover (even the smaller shrubs!) and larger specimens can provide nesting. The birds also eat the berries ~ which are edible when they're ripe but are poisonous prior to that (and they look similar, so use extreme care!)

Resources
Check out the juniper on the USDA PLANTS database here, on the Missouri Botanical Garden's Kemper Center for Home Gardening here (for the variety "Gold Cone", which was not one we used... they list other named varieties as well), and at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center at The University of Texas at Austin here ~ all three provide excellent resources for plants, particularly in identifying or finding natives.

If you'd like to learn if and where the juniper can fit into your home landscape, please contact Green Man Enviroscaping LLC and we'd be happy to help you!

Main Street Mount Joy Planters: Ninebark

2011-07-13T19:53:00.000-04:00

This article is the first in a series of eleven, featuring details about the native plants that can be found in the plant containers Green Man Enviroscaping LLC installed and maintains for Main Street Mount Joy.

It's a tough challenge to pick out one of the eleven different varieties of native plants to start this series... but we'll start with the ninebark. There could be many reasons to feature this shrub, but I'll get to the reason I selected it in a bit.

Ninebark, Physocarpus opulifolius, aka common ninebark or Atlantic ninebark, is a native shrub that doesn't get nearly as much attention as it deserves.

The spiraea that is so popular in the garden has its roots in Eastern Asia ~ the spiraea-like flowers of the ninebark can lead this shrub to serve as a native replacement for its near-relative. The lacy white flowers work well with the classic old fashioned gardening style, but the real kick to this home landscaping sized shrub can be seen when the leaves fall away in the Autumn, and it's showy bark reveals why it has the common name that it does. I'm a huge fan of peeling bark in our native river birches and sycamores and, to be honest, in the decidedly non-native Australian eucalyptus, and so it's a treat to have something with exfoliating bark in a shrub-sized package. That offers an added benefit during the colder months that the spiraea itself can't touch.

Along Main Street in Mount Joy, the ninebark can be found as the centerpiece in the planters in front of the Post Office, Paula's School of Baton, and Floral Designs of Mount Joy. The reason I selected this plant for the first in the series is directly related to the near-death and quick recovery that the specimen in the Post Office planter has gone through. Out of all twenty four centerpieces, that was the one I was most concerned would not survive. It really impressed me when the browning leaves from the shock of planting gave way to numerous healthy green leaves.

Handling poor conditions well ~ that's something this shrub does exceptionally well. It holds its own in a shrub border, looks good around the foundation of a house, and it can hold a stream bank together as well. It works well in full sun to partial shade, and can handle drier soils as well as wetter ones.

Resources
Check out ninebark on the USDA PLANTS database here, on the Missouri Botanical Garden's Kemper Center for Home Gardening here, and at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center at The University of Texas at Austin here ~ all three provide excellent resources for plants, particularly in identifying or finding natives.

If you'd like to learn if and where the ninebark can fit into your home landscape, please contact Green Man Enviroscaping LLC and we'd be happy to help you!

Web Update

2011-07-13T11:37:00.000-04:00

Pictures not showing in the Stepping Stone Paths gallery ~ fixed!

Current Events

2011-07-13T10:57:00.000-04:00

The brilliant before and after shots of some of the landscaping work we did here at our home a few weeks back will not make it to the website soon... unfortunately, I neglected to take any of the former, and I still haven't got out there with the camera to take the latter!

This is a good thing, as much as it would be nice to show you some more pictures of native plants in a landscaped setting. We've been busy with other work, though, and that's the sort of thing I like to see getting in the way of messing around with our own yard.

We have a couple of handouts from Audubon Pennsylvania via their Audubon At Home program, including an information-packed brochure entitled "Which Plant For Which Bird? Ten Great Plants for an Ecological Landscape in Pennsylvania". They're in the office at the moment, but they'll get relocated out to the truck later today, so they'll be with us when we stop by your place to talk to you about your landscape. Be sure to ask for them if we don't offer them to you first!

Current Events

2011-06-29T22:20:00.000-04:00

Green Man Enviroscaping LLC is featured in the Business section of today's (06/27/2011) edition of the Intelligencer Journal/Lancaster New Era. You can read the article here

Current Events

2011-06-20T14:50:00.000-04:00

Green Man Enviroscaping LLC's volunteer effort with Main Street Mount Joy's planters has been recognized in the Mount Joy Chamber of Commerce's June newsletter.

Web Update

2011-06-19T16:41:00.000-04:00

After a slight delay, many new photos are up in the Photo Gallery. There are a few projects from last year, as well as a few from this year. I need to take some shots of the Main Street Mount Joy planters and our own yard ~ which we put a little work into last week ~ so there will be more updates to this area soon (hopefully!)

There's also a new header photograph for the Service Area. This one features Anthony, demonstrating his mulched bed edging technique. The old shot featured a former employee and our former service area ~ this shot was taken over in York County... I figured this page, at least, should reflect this region!

Legislating Lawn Care

2011-06-19T12:04:00.000-04:00

Last year, our neighbors to the north passed a bill to ban pesticides, fertilizers, and insecticides from public and private schools, playgrounds, and athletic fields.

It is interesting to contrast the reporting of the bill ~ which is as mentioned above ~ with the bill itself, which is more to the point:

S4983C: Prohibits the use of certain toxic chemicals for lawn and grounds maintenance

There is a huge difference between "certain toxic chemicals" and "pesticides, fertilizers, and insecticides" as noted by news venues.

The latter might be equivalent to "vegetarian diet", and can work for some people, and can even help some meat-eaters mellow out a bit by providing some really good vegetarian recipes that even the carnivorous amongst us might enjoy. I'm thinking, in particular, of a few books by Ginny Callan and of my own rumbling stomach, which is really taken with this analogy thus far. The former, however, is more akin to "eating anthrax-tainted beef" to my mind, and that is... not so tasty.

As I've mentioned in prior posts about lawn care, the only really good reason to have a lawn ~ or other relatively close cropped grass field ~ is for playing: for children running around, for kids playing sports.

There are a lot of challenges to be overcome in maintaining a playing field.

High traffic is not just a given, it's an understatement. Kids running, cleats, tackles, hordes of kids running after hordes of kids wearing the jersey of the other team. It's great drama, it's pure chaos, and it puts an awful lot of wear and tear on the playing surface. I'm sure there are asphalt lots and concrete pads that moan and complain about the troubles they've seen every recess or after school or on weekends, when their bits and pieces are trampled underfoot, and they're kicked and scuffed and even ~ I wince to think about it ~ mixed in with some skin, so that when the tears dry, they might leave the playground in a knee or elbow. The grass fields provide a bit of bounce to them, softening those ouchies, and the thanks they get for it is, maybe, a muddy patch as the turf is torn up in the spill.

The men and women of the grounds crews deserve kudos from keeping the place from resembling the stadium floor after a monster truck show. It's not easy to tweak and manicure a landscape to the utmost of perfection, and then have the right attitude to be able to cope with the destruction caused by the use and abuse of the field when someone shouts "play ball!"

The impression is that the beauty, durability, and usability of that field depends on an EPA approved blend of stuff with unpronounceable names mixed into compounds that might do their job, but they also might take on numerous other side gigs, such as causing algae bloom or turning fish belly-up in our waterways, or getting stuck in the craw of birds flying by, or getting into the blood of our pets and bringing about liver failure, or working their way up the food chain, building step by step, as little thing eats smaller thing, until, finally, something is sitting on our dinner table chock full of nastiness that builds in our bodies with each bite.

It is, of course, a fallacy to think that all that is natural and organic is good and all that is synthetic is evil. Urishol, after all, is a naturally occurring organic compound, but most people who brush up against poison ivy don't sing its praises. However, synthetic compounds have a history of being The Best Thing Ever when they are tested for a particular purpose, and they might even be marginally good at achieving that purpose, but there is a tendency for them to have other, less pleasant effects that don't appear in limited testing, or can be plausibly denied, or are... hey, Shiny! Best Thing Ever! and so forth.

If, however, a chemical compound is thought to be toxic, and is classified as such, then it would probably be sensible not to manufacture it, market, or apply it in such a way that it comes in close proximity to paws, fingers, and mouths, to our pets, our children, or ourselves.

New York's bill seems to limit itself to knocking off the nasty stuff; it's not forbidding you to topdress with compost, it's not forbidding that you add natural fertilizers, it doesn't forbid the use of horticultural oils or non-synthetic pesticides in the treatment of problem bugs... it doesn't even forbid the use of the nasty stuff, it just adds a hoop of county health approval to jump through before using it when the problem is so severe it requires nastiness to resolve.

Since starting this article over a year ago ~ and just re-discovering it after recovering data from my crashed (literally, as in fall-down-and-shatter) computer ~ Maryland has signed a law that limits fertilizer use on lawns and Pennsylvania legislature are working on a similar bill. These laws focus on fertilizers and the residential home, while New York's covered pesticides and insecticides in addition to fertilizers and was aimed at school properties.

Although the school districts and pesticide manufacturers tried to fight the New York bill ~ and failed ~ maybe it's not such a bad thing. There needs to be more thought going into what gets sprayed, spread, or otherwise applied to the landscape. Too many times, I've seen companies blindly quote a chemical cocktail for a lawn without having run a single test. Without knowing what the soil needs, there is no way you can select a specific amendment that can meet those needs.

Some additives ~ such as compost, which add organic materials and provide a broad spectrum of elements in a natural fashion ~ can be applied without a test. You can also elect to aerate a lawn, or tamp it down, without going through the process of waiting for a soil test to go to and results to come back from the lab. For anything else, though, get a test done.

Green Man Enviroscaping LLC will never apply fertilizer or other amendments without having a test done. It may take significantly longer than the quick quote some other companies will give you, but you will be able to be confident that whatever materials we apply to the lawn are what the good doctor (well, lab technicians, anyway) prescribe. Contact us to schedule a site visit ~ for a low cost, we'll take soil samples, provide you with the results, and help advise you on what your lawn really needs to be healthy and look its best.

~ ~ ~

Sources:
Bill calls to ban pesticides and insecticides at schools and playing fields; WBFO 88.7 article
S4983C - on Open NY Senate
MD law sets strict limits on use of fertilizer on lawns - June 2011

Current Events

2011-06-08T19:39:00.000-04:00

It's late but it's still Wednesday!

This Sunday, Green Man Enviroscaping LLC staff, family, and friends will be heading over to The Wolf Sanctuary of PA to help tear down some small fencing to make way for the newly-required FDA approved fencing... they are a non-profit organization, in tough economic times, and they were given 90 days to surround their entire area with a perimeter fence. As times are tough, we can't just lob a big check at them, so we're volunteering our time to help them out.

To be honest, even if we could lob tons of checks at them, I know I'd still want to help in person. That's just that much more fun... however, as a non-profit, they are set up to take donations, and if you're capable of lobbing some dollars at them, please do! They are still facing the expense of the new fencing and could always use the help!

Earlier today, we made another watering run on the Main Street Mount Joy planters. Although the soil is staying moist an inch or so down, it seems to be draining pretty quickly ~ which alleviates any worry that they might turn into bog plants without the styrofoam-for-drainage that had half-filled each container. We might look into getting some mulch added to the top to help keep the upper inch of soil from drying out so quickly.

Green Roofs and Solar Panels

2011-06-07T08:55:00.000-04:00

Putting aside my earlier ideas to build solar cells into every shingle ever manufactured (truth to tell, I dropped that when one manufacturer got exactly that kind of a product to market; I'm happy to see there are variations on this theme by others now, and I'm disappointed that cell-less shingles are still available... but that's a side topic!) and my other idea to arrange cells in tree-like forms that, well, mimic trees (to my knowledge, that hasn't been replicated, and for good reason... but that's also another topic in and of itself), I'd often sat and wondered about the dueling eco-mastery of having a green roof versus having a roof full of solar panels.

I'm quite a bit behind on my reading, and so it wasn't until this morning that I read through an article in September's Eco-Structure magazine. It turns out, as with so many other this vs. that issues, that green roofs and solar panels work great together. In Systems Integration: Green Roofs for Healthy Cities explores the potential of collaboration between rooftop vegetation and photovoltaic arrays, the benefits that each system gets from the other is explained.

There are a number of benefits that are provided by the waterproofing needed for the green roof, but the two biggest advantages are that the plants will reduce the temperatures around the solar arrays and the solar arrays will provide some shade for the plants.

The cooling the plants bring to the rooftop makes a huge difference in the efficiency of the solar cells. It seems almost counter-intuitive that something that needs to be in direct sunlight to be most efficient also needs to be kept cool, but that's a standard trade-off in all electronics. As electronic components heat up, their performance drops ~ that's the reason for climate controlled server rooms and even for all the cooling fans on home computers. Plants can provide a cooling effect ~ see any of the multitude of studies on the reduction of vegetation in cities and the creation of heat islands if you'd like more information on how that works ~ and that cooling can be provided to the arrays without shading them. Perhaps the real counter-intuitive bit is based on the old idea that you want to keep the solar arrays out in the open away from everything, and now you want to bring plants right up to ~ and even around ~ them. Plant selection would be the key. While there are green roofs with trees, shrubs, and tall grasses and wildflowers, the selection for surrounding solar arrays would need to keep in mind the height of the arrays so that the green roof could provide cooling without providing shade ~ again, a bit counter-intuitive for anyone who only thinks of full shade as cooling down the temperature, but that's where the evapotranspiration comes in. (Those heat island studies will cite evapotranspiration; you can read about that effect specifically on this page from the US Geological Survey.)

Of course, plant selection is already pretty critical for green roofs. You need to take into account the depth of planting medium that your roof can support, and that leads you to select plants based on how deep the root system will reach for them to be happy and healthy and stress free. Another critical factor in selection is to pick plants that can handle the brutal full sun conditions that will be found on most rooftops, particularly those around a flat-roofed commercial building where a green roof is most likely to be found. This is where the shade provided by the solar arrays come in ~ some plants are likely to be cast into high shade, while others will get some quantity of shade that will vary as the exposure to sunlight changes. Both conditions will bring about the possibility of specifying different plants than might have thrived in a wide-open roof. Even those plants that get the "full sun" label in the nursery will be a little less stressed if their roots are shaded.

As a former electronics tech, the idea of the increased efficiency really has my interest, but I have to admit, the possibilities that are opened up in plant selection are so much, forgive the pun, cooler. Although we've been in some high level discussions on a couple possible green roofs for clients in the past, none of those projects have gone beyond the conceptual stages... but this article really sparked (yeah, I'm probably going to pun again, so I'll just stop apologizing now...) my interest. I'd love to work with some roofing contractors or solar energy folks on getting something going that combines the two systems. I'd really get a charge out of that...

Web Update

2011-06-06T11:15:00.000-04:00

A minor change (hopefully with a big impact!) ~ we added a link to our Facebook page on the navigation column of every page. I've been meaning to take care of that for awhile, but I wasn't happy with the auto-generated badges and needed to make my own.

The weather sticker on the Service Area page was finally corrected to reflect the location changes made earlier this year ~ thanks Stacy for catching that one! =)

Several of the pages in the Links subsection were updated with our local vendors (Volvo Rents ~ York) and other associates (The Wolf Sanctuary of PA and Pub Dunegal).

If you missed last week's Current Events, double check the Facebook page, News page, or this blog ~ the usual Wednesday post appeared several days late, on a sleepy Sunday afternoon!

Safety First, Last, and In Between

2011-06-05T12:25:00.001-04:00

Completely missed the Wednesday current events post... but this incident Stacy pointed out ~ Woman Killed By Rock Launched By DOT Lawn Mower ~ reminded me of a hypothetical story I've told...

A few years ago, we had quoted an annual lawn maintenance for a residential property, for people we knew. We didn't get the work... it turned out some local kid offered to do the whole acre or so of lawn for $25. Our quote had a few discounts built in, but there was no way we could touch that price. The homeowner questioned how we could charge so much more than some kid.

Although I explained it slightly differently, and perhaps not effectively, one thing a landscaper or lawn maintenance professional can offer over a kid with a mower is insurance. This particular site had a large, rear-facing plate glass window. It also had the typical builder's favorite soil mix, which consists of a lot of rocks.

Now, in some ways, it doesn't matter who is doing the mowing when a rock gets launched through a window and hits someone ~ that would be a sad story under any circumstances. However, there is a difference to you financially if the rock was launched by a neighborhood kid or guy with a pickup truck and some free time. That's when the cost of repairs (and, in the worst case, medical bills) become the homeowner's responsibility. If that kid slips and falls while working in your yard, that kid can send you the bill. A professional, with the proper liability insurance and legally required workers compensation will have those unfortunate situations handled.

Although accidents can happen no matter the level of expertise, a professional should be more skilled in recognizing and avoiding potential hazards and dangerous situations.

Another story, told by an arborist, involved a customer who wanted to avoid the $500 fee to remove a single tree. The woman saved $500 and lost two cars, her garage, and her husband. That story shows an example where a particular set of skills are required to do a job safely. While we have taken down hundreds of trees, that is a job we would have passed on: with the garage being in the drop zone, our insurance would not have covered it, and we would have made a referral to an ISA Certified Arborist. Part of being a professional is knowing which situations are beyond your capabilities ~ and being able to admit that to a customer and guide them to someone who can perform that work safely and effectively.

Green Man Enviroscaping LLC takes safety seriously. Our first aid kit is fully stocked with first responder and EMS-quality components, including trauma gear and hemostatic agents that are also replicated in small kits worn on the belt when we're doing chainsaw work. The bright t-shirts we wear when working on a site are designed to help make us more visible to our co-workers and others. We also have talks about safety issues for the site and the work to be done, and we'll walk the site looking for potential hazards prior to beginning tree work or even, on some properties, for a simple mowing operation.

While we maintain our insurance levels, meeting or exceeding the legal requirements for contractors in Pennsylvania, we hope to never have to make use of the safety net they provide.

Breaking News: The Mantises Have Hatched!

2011-05-26T17:28:00.000-04:00

Sure, we've finished the planters. And sure, the native plants look beautiful. That, however, could have waited until next week's regular news post.

The important, exciting news that's update-worthy regards one of the planters... the case of praying mantis eggs in the juniper in front of Northwest Savings Bank has hatched!

When we arrived at the planter earlier today, we noticed the egg case looked smaller, and that there were at least thirty of the baby mantises running and hopping around on the planter, and, as we put them in, on the four accent plants. We checked in on them at the end of the day, after we completed the rest of the planters, and only a few were left to be found ~ the rest had scattered, hopefully to live long, productive lives eating up the pest insects that feast on the plants.

Pictures of some of the baby mantises will appear on our Facebook page as soon as we can get them posted. Be sure to stop by there to take a look!

Current Events

2011-05-25T10:34:00.000-04:00

I've had rocks on my mind lately, specifically boulders. After talking to a number of supply shops, I talked with the folks over at Sauder's Hardscape, LLC in New Holland, and got a chance to stop by and visit with them yesterday while I was out picking up a mesh tarp from the nursery supplier NYP Corp in nearby Leola.

I toured the boulders at Sauder's and also found a nice natural slab that would make a great front entry way on a project we're estimating. Sauder's also has a great showroom for pavers from E.P. Henry, Techo-Bloc, and local manufacturer New Holland Concrete. I've got a number of catalogs which will be kept on the truck so we can have them on hand when we're talking to you about your landscaping. A couple of the catalogs cover natural stone, so we'll be better able to show you exactly what kind of stone we have in mind instead of trying to describe a particular shade of gray and hoping you can see it! Of course, the books will also work in the other direction, and we'll be able to know exactly what you see for your wall or patio or other stonework feature!

Tomorrow, we expect to pick up and, if time (more of it) and rain (less of it) allow, hope to finish installing the planters on Main Street Mount Joy. As we've had several questions on what species were being planted, and an overall interest in the native plants we use, I hope to have a series of articles about each of the specific plants that will include a listing of which planters they can be found in. I love being asked for more information about them ~ it's important to educate ourselves on the plants we use and how they fit in with the environment.

There is a very interesting environmental education lesson in progress in one of the planters right now: the juniper planted in the box in front of the Northwest Savings Bank (24 East Main Street) has a praying mantis egg case on it! As the weather continues to warm up the eggs will hatch and the praying mantis will emerge. When they're young, they'll feed on aphids and other small pest insects before moving on to larger prey. They're a great example of natural pest control as they dine on pest bugs, and they make for a great mini-science lesson for the kids!

Speaking of education, June 5th is Education Day at the Marietta Market, and I will be speaking at 11:00-11:45... hope to see you there!

Web Update

2011-05-23T10:25:00.000-04:00

A few minor changes were made to the full list of services to include specific mention of hedge shearing and our work with Sylva Native Nursery; we also added Sylva to our list of suppliers.

A while back, I was browsing the site, and I realized it would be really cool if the short list of services on the side of every window linked to the longer description in the full list of services... so that's now done and working from anywhere on the site.

It's slightly early for ghost pipes, one of my favorite native plants, to appear, but I switched the picture on the Services entry page to the June/July picture... the March/April one was a bit too late-Winter/early-Spring for what's going on outside these days!

Services Update

2011-05-23T09:07:00.000-04:00

We are currently offering all of our services here in Lancaster County. Of course, we don't anticipate much in the way of snow plowing as we head into June and then the Summer... but that's still a perfect time to have us stop by and give you a quote for plowing later in the year!

Of course, the real focus right now is on installing new landscapes and maintaining existing ones...

Lawns get a lot of time and energy, sometimes too much and at the wrong time. Beware of mowing when it's too dry out ~ which will become more of an issue over the next few months ~ and, likewise, beware of mowing when it's wet. A wet lawn can ruin mowers as it clings and speeds along rust and ruin on metal mow decks and blades. People running the mowers are more likely to slip and fall when the ground is wet, even on a lightly misted lawn. The lawn itself can be ruined underfoot and by spinning or turning wheels, and the blades of grass don't get cut as neatly, leading to plant stress, making it more likely for disease or pests to attack the lawn.

While we've always had shrub pruning as a service, we've added a hedge trimmer to our equipment roster this year, and can better handle hedges and other large quantities of shrub plantings. Although I do prefer the more natural and wild look that comes from hand pruning, one branch at a time, I have to admit that I missed doing neatly sheared hedges. Many years ago, when I was younger than most of my children, I was the go-to-kid in my neighborhood for lawn mowing and hedge shearing and shaping. Felt good to get back to it after all that time away, almost full circle, in a way.

As always, if you have any questions about your landscape, whether it is to do something new or take care of what you have, please contact us and we'll be happy to discuss your wants and needs with you!

Current Events

2011-05-19T19:17:00.000-04:00

I'm surprised at how good I've been at keeping the current events, well, current since transitioning from posts about the move. Wednesday mornings seemed to be a good time, there was a natural lull or something. Sure, I had to squeeze a few in, but I generally got them in... sometime that day.

Yesterday, on Current Event day, things got a bit hectic.

One of the major accomplishments was meeting Mary Anna and some of the other folks at Sylva Native Nursery, touring some of the plants there, and picking up the first part of the order for the Main Street Planters. We installed those plants today, in between the rain drops, so now most of the planters have something besides the faded daffodils in them.

The trees and shrubs that went in today ~ and the other plants that will go in next week ~ are all native species: Fothergilla major (fothergilla), Chionanthus virginicus (American fringe tree), Juniperus virginiana (eastern red cedar), Physocarpus opulifolius (Ninebark), and Cercis canadensis (redbud).

It was great talking to everyone at the Marietta Market last Sunday ~ I've been asked to return and talk some more... the details have yet to be worked out, but I'm fairly certain I can come up with something relevant, whether it's a focused discussion on a specific subject, or another edition of the more general Greening Up The Garden talk.

Current Events

2011-05-11T11:27:00.000-04:00

While today is a beautiful day to be outside working in A garden (our garden or your garden ~ I'd be happy with one or the other!), I'll be spending much of my time indoors, writing up some estimates and getting them out to our clients. One of the first orders of business today was to put in the order for the plants that we'll be installing in the planters along Main Street. The list of recommended species was officially approved by Main Street Mount Joy, and we expect to be installing the plants early next week.

The 4th Annual Mount Joy Tour of Gardens will be happening on Saturday, June 18th... visit the Main Street Mount Joy website for more details. The tour benefits the Mount Joy Area Historical Society.

Coming up a bit sooner, I'll be speaking at the Marietta Market this Sunday, May 15th. I will be discussing some of our core philosophies, including the use of native plants, avoidance and dealing with invasive plants, land care using natural materials, and an introduction to using the wide open spaces of natural places as a design inspiration for a residential sized landscape. I hope to see you there!

Current Events

2011-05-04T17:09:00.000-04:00

The Spring season is in full swing, and, with all its twists and turns weather-wise... from near-freezes to boiling over and back again... it seems right at home to me, although I must admit, I could have done without a few of the thunderstorms that passed through the area to stir things up.

~ ~ ~

As the date is getting closer, I thought I'd issue a repeat announcement of our appearance at the Marietta Market ~ there's also been updated information on their website (see the link below!) about the other events on the opening day:

On May 15th, Green Man Enviroscaping LLC will be at the Marietta Market...

At noon, I'll be giving a presentation on Greening Up the Garden, which provides an overview on using native plants and avoiding invasive plants, as well some discussion on using organic and natural materials for your landscape, and an introduction to natural landscaping.

We will also be working with one of the vendors, Jeannette's Table, to help with composting materials from the market ~ Jeannette will be collecting the compostables, and we'll be hauling them away to the compost heap at the end of the day.

The market is located at Front and Pine Streets in Marietta PA, and will be open from 9 AM to 1 PM every Sunday from May 15th through September 25th.

Current Events

2011-04-27T11:21:00.000-04:00

Last week, we finished off refreshing the soil in all the planters along Main Street here in Mount Joy. The grasses that were the centerpiece had become root-bound, making it difficult to impossible (depending on the planter) for other plants to be established around them. The roots also tied together the styrofoam packing material that had been used to help drain the planters, making it more... interesting... to remove them. The Borough's Parks Department have now replanted the grasses where they should do much better. We're in the process of getting final approval for the plants that will be used in the planters, and hope to have those ordered and installed as soon as possible.

Current Events

2011-04-20T08:12:00.000-04:00

After a slow start, we're now cruising along through refreshing the planters on Main Street here in Mount Joy...

With one side of the street completed ~ ten out of twenty-four planters ~ we were ready to head out and make good progress on the rest yesterday, but fresh compost, rain, and open sidewalks wouldn't make for the neatest work.

Although there are some types of work you can soldier through no matter the weather, no matter how unpleasant, others require a bit more care.

For example: lawn mowing in the rain. While this may look "good" to some, proof that a crew or company is industrious and not afraid to get wet, mowing and trimming in the rain can be bad on three counts:

First, the wet grasses cling to the undersides of mowers and can cause problems due to the weight and/or the moisture, increasing the maintenance costs for the equipment.

Second, the ground is slippery, increasing the likelihood for injury for the mowing crew. Mowers and power equipment can be dangerous enough on dry ground!

Third, and perhaps most important to the homeowner, wet turf is more likely to be damaged by spinning wheels and turning mowers. Lawn care should result in an appearance improvement, not an eyesore that might require seeding and patching!

Although it's no fun for the company that's sitting idle, waiting for the rain to stop falling and the ground to dry up a bit, sometimes it is the best way to take care of the customer, the employees, and the equipment!

Current Events: Volunteering, More Volunteering, and a PSA

2011-04-13T09:31:00.001-04:00

This week, we've been spending some time poring over books and lists of plants, and now, while it's pouring outside, I'll be spending some time writing about some of those selected plants and recommending them for use in the planters that line Main Street here in Mount Joy. With the drier weather expected at the end of the week, we hope to be out and about, volunteering our time and equipment to get the planters outfitted with a deeper soil, thanks to Borough-supplied compost. The Parks Department will be following up behind us and making use of the ornamental grasses removed from the planters during this process.

When Main Street Mount Joy has decided upon the plants to be installed, we will be volunteering again with the installation and monitoring their progress throughout the rest of the year.

Green Man Enviroscaping LLC has a strong history of volunteering for organizations, particularly those whose work parallels the company's mission. Distance limits the help we can offer the Lehigh Gap Nature Center and the Delaware & Lehigh Trail now that we've moved away from them, and I had wondered what sort of groups and organizations I would find to work with here in Central PA.

Outside and unrelated to work, the Wolf Sanctuary of PA had caught our interest, and we've been discussing a visit during one of their Full Moon Tours. The Sanctuary received some challenging news recently, and Green Man Enviroscaping LLC has volunteered to help them out if we can. They're being required to put up additional fencing (amongst other things) to continue existing, and we have offered to volunteer our labor and hand tools to help install that fencing.

In addition, and this is the Public Service Announcement portion of this post, they need to raise some funds to get the fence and take care of the other USDA requirements. If you can help them out financially, please visit their membership page, where you can become a member or otherwise donate to them. They are a non-profit organization, so there's information on the tax deductible nature of donations on their site.

Services Update

2011-04-08T12:17:00.000-04:00

We are currently offering our full list of Services here in the Susquehanna Valley and Central Pennsylvania. Our move from NEPA to Lancaster County is complete (if only I could say the same about some of my personal belongings!) and we're ready to get out and go to work from our Mount Joy home base.

Now is the time for the pruning or shearing of evergreens, as well as a number of deciduous shrubs and smaller trees. Spring-flowering varieties should be allowed to finish flowering and leaf out fully before pruning.

We're nearing the end of the best time for Spring seeding ~ although patching and even a full lawn establishment can happen later in the year, the best results and the least effort and resources (especially watering!) coincide with an early Spring or Autumn seeding. Meadow seeding is best done during those same months, with the added requirement of at least one over-wintering before the seeds of many varieties germinate and sprout.

As Spring is often the time for cleaning up inside the home, it's also a time to clean up the yard and get ready for the growing season. The really early bloomers are already out and about, and Spring perennials are starting to poke their way through the soil. It's a good time to turn last Autumn's leaf-fall and the Winter's twigs and other debris into a nice, natural mulch ~ or, perhaps, remove and replace it with a bark mulch.

You can reference my article from last year, Mulch Matters (on the GME blog), for some of the benefits and how-to's on mulching. At some point, I'll write up a Part Two for that discussing different types of mulch materials ~ at the moment, I'm avidly following a long on a discussion of colored bark mulches amongst fellow natural landscapers, and I may glean a little more information from their expertise that I can squeeze into the full article. To be brief, I prefer a natural, un-dyed bark mulch, double shredded, when I need to supplement on-site materials.

When you need answers to your landscaping questions, more information, or to schedule a site visit to discuss your landscaping needs, please contact us and we'll be happy to help!

Web Update

2011-04-08T11:35:00.000-04:00

The major "change" is that I recreated the GME website on the antiquated computer I'm using until I get a fully operational replacement for the company system...

Having done that, I could, at last, change the picture on Services to the March/April one ~ only a month late, but it's now a bit more seasonal without the plow! I also made a few additions to the Links. I added a couple places to Eat Local, added our Husqvarna and Echo dealer to Equipment, and tweaked Professional Affiliations a little...

Current Events

2011-04-06T08:05:00.000-04:00

On May 15th, Green Man Enviroscaping LLC will be at the Marietta Market...

At noon, I'll be giving a presentation on Greening Up the Garden, which provides an overview on using native plants and avoiding invasive plants, as well some discussion on using organic and natural materials for your landscape, and an introduction to natural landscaping.

We will also be working with one of the vendors, Jeannette's Table, to help with composting materials from the market ~ Jeannette will be collecting the compostables, and we'll be hauling them away to the compost heap at the end of the day.

The market is located at Front and Pine Streets in Marietta PA, and will be open from 9 AM to 1 PM every Sunday from May 15th through September 25th.

~ ~ ~

Today, we will be heading back to our old location to pick up the snow plow and bring it back for storage until much later this year... hopefully, we're done with snow and on to the growing season!

That task is really a side trip, as our main purpose for the day is to get back up to the Bethlehem area and start seeding a meadow that will form the basis for Fountain Hill Cemetery's green burial grounds.

The Move In Progress

2011-04-04T09:48:00.000-04:00

There's not likely to be any more "move in progress" posts ~ the only thing that really needs moved is the snowplow... and I expect to pick it up Wednesday, bring it along when I install the initial meadow seeding for the green cemetery in Fountain Hill, and get it down here and stowed away with the rest of the gear later that night or the next morning!

Hopefully, there won't be any further need for it this season, and it can rest quietly until much later this year!

I'll be getting a service update post out within the next few days, and, if I can, I'll work a bit on the website itself... it's about time for the picture of the truck and plow to give way to the Spring photo!

For more information on our new service area here in Lancaster County, check out the service area page on the greenmanenvy.com.

The Move In Progress

2011-03-22T08:42:00.000-04:00

A little later today, I'll be picking up the business permit at the Borough office, and Green Man Enviroscaping LLC will be officially approved to operate here in Mount Joy.

Some time this week there should be some progress on the storage space we'll be using for our equipment, and then the mowers, power tools, and other gear can be brought down here. There's still some lettering on the truck that needs to be changed to reflect the changes to our service area, as well as a number of places online that need to be changed to show we moved... then, the only thing left to do will be to settle in and get to work!

We are already writing estimates and scheduling work for this Spring. Please contact us to discuss your Susquehanna Valley and Central Pennsylvania landscaping needs!

Lancaster County ready to finish distributing state green-roof grant money

2011-03-15T23:29:00.001-04:00

It's great to see initiatives like this making the news locally...

Lancaster County ready to finish distributing state green-roof grant money

Green roofs require additional support, and won't fit into every existing application, although it would be great if they were designed in from the start!

Green Man Enviroscaping LLC can assist with plant design and selection, and, in certain cases, the installation of plants, for green roofs.

The Move In Progress

2011-02-27T12:11:00.000-05:00

The move from Lehighton to Mount Joy is in progress... I've been spending a lot of time lately packing things up, still working on the personal belongings, and then it will be time to pack up the company: records, equipment, and so forth.

Today, I will be attending a meeting with the folks of the Marietta Market, and there may be some presentations or other involvement there in the coming season, and quite possibly something involving some wild edibles.

Services Update

2011-02-08T15:59:00.000-05:00

We are now scheduling work in the Susquehanna Valley and Central Pennsylvania area for the Spring season and beyond.

Please view the full list of our services for more information on what we can offer our residential, commercial, municipal and other clients in terms of design and build projects as well as single visit and scheduled maintenance work.

As we make our transition to Mount Joy over the rest of February and possibly into March, we will be able to offer continued snow plow services during most weekdays in the Lehighton area on a point-of-service basis. Due to the move in progress, we can not contract for snowfall monitoring as we normally would.

Please contact Green Man Enviroscaping LLC for more information on any of our services or to schedule a site visit to discuss your needs.

Web Update

2011-02-08T15:17:00.000-05:00

Some of the initial changes to reflect our move to Mount Joy have been made on the website.

Although every page was modified, most of those were changes made to the metatags to help guide the search engines our way (although I think those tags are relied upon less these days due to their prolific abuse by certain types of sites). The index page, About page, and Links had deeper changes, and, of course, the Service Area page had the most sweeping changes. The Links will be modified further as we work with local businesses over the coming year, so, for now, they still reflect the local businesses in our former service area.

The Woods in Your Backyard Workshop

2011-01-29T17:29:00.000-05:00

Today, the management team at Green Man Enviroscaping LLC attended The Woods In Your Backyard Workshop at the Farm & Home Center of Lancaster County.

We assisted with registration, a very small portion of the conference setup, and with handing out and collecting some of the materials during sessions.

It was great to talk with some potential new clients in our new home, as well as with a few folks from our old neighborhood (roughly speaking!). It was great to see over two hundred people spending the whole day discussing one of our favorite service offerings! If any of you stop by our site or blog for a visit, and are interested in further assistance with turning your yard into a woodland (or a meadow, our other favorite option for lawn areas), we'd be happy to drop by for a site visit and discuss what we can do for you, your property, and the environment. Please contact us for more information or to schedule a visit!

Thank you for your interest!

The Big News: The Green Man is Moving!

2011-01-27T08:39:00.000-05:00

I haven't talked much about the size and structure of the company here, but it's relevant to the big news I mentioned a little while back.

Initially, Green Man Enviroscaping LLC had one employee, me, Everett A Warren, the owner, the crew leader, and the crew. My son Justin joined me as soon as he was able to get a work permit, and he spent most of his high school years growing from a helpful kid to a highly reliable employee.

Matt put in a year with us, across seasons, and brought his experience with other design/build/maintenance firms to us. He also allowed us to take on some tree work, as I felt confident with his skill levels in that area, and could take on a wider variety of jobs.

We've had a few other guys on board for shorter terms, and wrapped up the last season with the assistance of our neighbors Josh and Jordan. When the two brothers, along with my son Justin, all went off to college last Autumn, it was back to a one man show.

Since it began in 2007, the company has been based out of my home. In my initial plan, I had the company relocating to its own shop in relatively short order. I doubt that, even if the economy had not tanked and construction had not dried up, three months was as feasible as it first sounded to me. Three years later, and the situation is about to change, but it will still remain a business operated from my home.

Late this summer, some things changed in my personal life, and a divorce was filed. With vast changes going on here, I struggled to keep things up and running, but it wasn't until mid-December that I realized that the company would collapse at the end of the calendar year, and the home it was based in would also likely have to be put on the market.

The divorce is a matter of public record, which is why I relate it here, when I try to keep my private life away from that of the company. However, there were other developments in my private life during the last half of 2010 that have bearing on the company.

First, I met Stacy, who will be taking on administrative tasks with the company. In turn, Stacy introduced me to Jeannette, who will bring to the company years of gardening experience (her yard is on three garden tours), a dedication to being green and environmentally friendly, and is one of the key things I am not: a natural salesperson. Between the two of them, I now have numerous connections with the local green industries (both those related to landscaping and those related to being environmentally friendly) and with the local labor pool...

And that is the real big news.

Later this Spring, Green Man Enviroscaping LLC will no longer be based in Lehighton, but will, instead, be operating out of Mount Joy, about 100 miles away.

What will this mean to you? Well, unless you're thinking of a sizable project in our old service area, we are not likely to be the most cost effective option for you. On the other hand, if you're in Lancaster County or the surrounding area, we will be able to provide you with landscaping that suits your property, the surrounding area, and all those who make use of it.

If you are an existing customer, and we've been talking with you about some potential work, we will be able to help you with most design/build projects and with some maintenance work (such as tree removal).

Over the coming weeks, the change of location will filter through to the sites we have a presence on, as well as to the Green Man Enviroscaping LLC website itself. Please feel free to contact us with any questions you may have.

Although I'll miss this region, the hills I've grown accustomed to over the last seven years, and the people such as Dan at the Lehigh Gap Nature Center, the folks at the Delaware & Lehigh National Heritage Corner, the folks at the Carbon County Chamber of Commerce, and the businesses I've used to supply materials and equipment ~ especially Marzen's Hardware, Palmerton Lumber, 903 Landscape Supply, and Sue and Louise (and the entire staff) at Edge of the Woods...

Yes. Anyway. Although I will miss them, I am looking forward to continuing to serve both our customers and the environment... and, to be honest, I've got more than a little interest in the new native plant species that can be supported just a hundred miles southwest from here...

Dealing with Deer

2011-01-19T09:50:00.001-05:00

If it's not the first question a client asks me when we're discussing a planting project, it's almost certainly going to come up a few moments later. The form might differ a bit, but the intent is there: "What can I plant that deer won't eat?" "How do I keep deer from eating it?"

The white tailed deer, Odocoileus virginianus, is more of a concern to gardening in our region than the standard plant health and suitability indicators of water, sunlight, and soil type. I have been on client sites and counted deer by the number of distinct herds that passed through the property instead of by the number of individual animals. These deer are, to my mind, certainly outsized rodents, like vacuum cleaners that clean up leaves, twigs, and entire plants within their reach ~ hooved Hoovers, I like to call them.

The reach of the deer is more than most would suspect. They can trim a berry from the smallest groundcover to, if they really want it, a nice leaf six to ten feet off the ground. Their mobility is legendary, and I've seen them leap from a trail to the top of a twenty foot cliff in one bound. Surprisingly, they then steered around the seven foot tall deer fence we had just installed further up the hill...

A deer fence ~ or a wall ~ is the only sure protection from the ravages of the deer, and it is only 100% preventative if it is high enough and wide enough to be out of the range of the leaping capabilities of the hungriest deer. Practically speaking, it needs to be substantial enough to convince the deer not to make the attempt. The bottom of the fencing is also critical. Deer are not thought of as burrowing animals, but they will go under a fence. If they can find a few inches, they will squeeze into it and spread it a little wider, into the surprisingly small opening they need.

Deer are browsers. They wander, take a bite, and keep on moving. When plants are small, a single deer can clip them to the ground or, worse, pluck them up and rip the roots from the ground. Temporary fencing around individual specimens or small groups of specimens will provide adequate safety, and only needs to be left in place until the tree or shrub is large enough to survive a browsing. Perennials, unfortunately, would not benefit from such a method, as the fencing is ~ as invisible as it tries to be ~ quite ugly, and would need to be left in place permanently to protect them.

There are a number of products available that convince deer to keep walking and not take a bite, and they are surprisingly natural and organic, with lots of choices that don't involve harsh toxic chemicals. Most are smell based, with rotten eggs and hot chili pepper featured prominently in many blends, and some are formulated in such a way that people tend not to detect the scent but the deer will still be repulsed. One product I've had success with uses dried blood ~ it convinces the deer a predator is about, and they may become the next victim. The effectiveness of any one of these products depends on its ability to last through wind and rain, and, unfortunately, on the individual tastes and sensibility of each deer that walks by. If you use the same product over and over, you will find the deer become used to it. It is best to use three or more different types of products and rotate the applications.

A lot is made of which species of plants are tasty to deer and likely to suffer the most damage. I can say that they tend to avoid spicebush, oakleaf hydrangea, and balsam fir. Deer seem to really like river birch, dogwood, and summersweet. They tend to prefer newly planted specimens over existing ones. A red maple sapling planted in the middle of a clump of small red maple saplings that grew there from seed was individually selected for munching by a hungry deer, while all the surrounding plants were untouched.

At the heart of it, the tastes of deer depend on the deer itself and its herd. They will tend to avoid spiny things such as holly, but I've seen them munch more than one holly tree sapling to the ground and thorn-covered berry brambles have been pruned to the ground. They will eat any plant if they are hungry enough.

The non-native hosta is a legendary deer favorite, yet I have been to a client site where I've counted over forty deer at a time, and when I asked the client how the hundreds of hosta a previous owner had planted (around dozens of trees) survived the onslaught, he was surprised because, as he saw it, the deer never even sampled the hosta. During the project, we cleared a large number of the hosta, and with the home-owner's permission, I relocated a few to my own yard. The deer in my yard had the leaves off those same plants within the week.

To boil it down, the best defense is to employ multiple defenses. It doesn't hurt to have an area outside of your protection, where the deer can browse freely and, hopefully, be satisfied with what they find there. If you have any questions about how to keep your plants out of the mouths of deer, contact Green Man Enviroscaping, and we’d be happy to discuss them with you. We install temporary or permanent deer fencing, and offer a full range of other landscape maintenance and installation services.

PSA: Woods in Your Backyard Workshop

2011-01-16T16:23:00.000-05:00

On the 29th of January, Green Man Enviroscaping LLC sales, office, and field staff will be attending a workshop in Lancaster PA that speaks to our core mission...

If you're interested in natural landscaping in general and woodlands in particular, and would like ideas on how to adapt the breadth of options found in a forest to a home-scale plot of land, I highly recommend this workshop.

Woods in Your Backyard Workshop
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Lancaster Farm and Home Center, Lancaster, PA

Do you have woods in your backyard? Live near a forest? Would you like to reduce lawn mowing and invite wildlife to your suburban lot? Creating a yardscape that welcomes wildlife, reduces mowing, and creates a backyard forest and learning the wildlife of this region will help you understand the importance of planning and management.

The Penn State School of Forest Resources, Forestry for the Bay, Lancaster County Conservancy, Penn State Cooperative Extension, and The Pennsylvania Bureau of Forestry, have assembled outstanding speakers who will share their knowledge with you about how to understand, enhance, or sustain your woods. Expect topics such as forest ecology, invasive plants, native plants, wildlife, vernal pools, and accessing resources.

Participants will learn how their property is part of the landscape and how their use of the land influences wildlife beyond their boundaries. While we all appreciate forests in our landscapes, we may not understand fully how these forests change as we develop the landscape and change species composition. Many of the plants and landscaping changes we specifically or accidentally bring to our forests and yards can rapidly change land values and functions.

Whether you own a backyard lot or a hundred acres, please come join natural resource professionals and conservation minded citizens to learn more about the diverse natural resources of Southeastern Pennsylvania! If you like birds or frogs, trees or truffles, this day is for you.

A brochure is available at the following link: http://www.forestryforthebay.org/files/WIYBY.pdf.

Web Update

2011-01-12T20:25:00.000-05:00

A few more minor tweaks, and automagically this post over on the GME blog should appear for those liking GME...

Hopefully, this will be the end of the web updates (i.e. "tests"), and I can get back to focusing on some actual content...

Wish me luck!

Web Update

2011-01-12T09:25:00.000-05:00

A very minor update ~ not to the site itself ~ but to the blog.

Green Man Enviroscaping LLC can now be found on Facebook.

The GME blog will be syndicated to the company page, and you will be able to use NetworkedBlogs if you want to follow the GME blog directly on your own Facebook wall.

These are very minor changes within the scope of those expected to be announced in the next few months, but they should allow us to better reach and communicate with you!

Services Update

2011-01-10T21:12:00.002-05:00

I apologize for the lack of updates here...

There were a lot of changes and things going on in the last half of 2010, many of them less than pleasant.

On the other hand, there are a lot of changes coming up for the first half of 2011, and I hope all of those will be exceptionally good!

Keep an eye on this space for more news as things develop!

At the moment, our service offerings in Carbon County are extremely limited. Please contact Green Man Enviroscaping with any questions.

Gardening Made Easy

2010-06-17T22:35:00.002-04:00

Imagine being able to walk out into your yard, wander down woodland paths under the shade of branches high above, the distance ~ or lack thereof ~ to your neighbor screened by thickets of shrubbery. On your walk, you stop at this tree or that shrub. Every so often, you exert supreme effort and take a clip off some plant growing down near the ground. You finish your walk, and, bringing your collection inside, you add just a few ingredients and you prepare a meal.

Woodland gardening ~ also popularly known as edible forests or forest gardening ~ is one of the ways to implement a permaculture, a sustainable agriculture. At the heart of it, you work with layers: large canopy trees over small understory trees over large shrubs and small shrubs, with herbs and perennials down at the bottom. The idea doesn't take a forest-sized acreage; there are people who successfully forest garden with a minimal amount of space in crowded urban areas, as well as those who can let the plants sprawl out over a large area.

Although some rather standard supermarket produce can be grown in a woodland garden, for the most part the fruits, nuts, and vegetables won't be what most of us have been raised to expect to find on our dinner table. However, the best thing about the edible forest is that much of the plants that make up its layers could conceivably have been growing here under the same conditions long before people arrived on the scene. The plants are well adapted to the region and conditions, so they require less input from the gardener: there is little or no need to add supplemental water, fertilizer, or pesticides. When the leaves drift down in the Autumn, they mulch the garden for you, and, along with twigs and other plant debris, will feed the crops of future years.

Nut trees are the most popular canopy trees for a forest garden, but if you don't have them already growing, the first harvest may be 50 years away. An assortment of hickory would be nice ~ shagbark, shellbark, and mockernut are three that would do well. Sugar maples (or, less sweetly, red maples) with trunks larger than 16" in diameter can be tapped in the late Winter for sap to boil down to syrup, although production will be less under forest conditions than if the trees were grown under open conditionss. If you want to expend some effort, you can collect acorns from oak trees and strain away the tanins, but it is not an effortless procedure. If you can manage, though, you can get a nice replacement or supplemental flour from the tanin-free ground nuts.

The paw paw tree is a tropical looking native fruit tree that can provide a banana textured and flavored fruit for eating, baking, juicing, or even wine making. The trees grow to 40', so they're on the large end of the understory trees. The redbud tree ~ already in demand this year as an ornamental ~ is a beautiful native understory tree that is at the northern edge of its range here. The flowers are edible, with a slightly nutty flavor, and can be used in a number of ways, although most obviously as an edible garnish. The young seedpods are also edible. The sassafras tree ~ often considered a waste or weed tree ~ is the source of rootbeer flavor, although it is no longer recommended to use its roots for the soda or a tea, as they have a known carcinogen in them, but its young leaves make an excellent salad green.

Holding on firmly to the border between large shrubs and small trees, the American hazelnut is a must have in a Carbon County forest garden. Of course, the challenge is to get to the hazelnuts before the squirrels, deer, turkey, woodpeckers, and pheasants do...

Spicebush tea was a revelation to me when I first had it about a year ago. Later in the season, I added a number of them to my own yard. At any time of the year, the twigs can be gathered to make a tea. As an added bonus, deer are allegedly not able to tell how delicious these twigs can be, so it's a plant that they often pass by ~ a rare find in our area!

Blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries form a popular trinity in the grocery market and in the forest garden. The blueberries do excellent in wide open sunny areas, but they will grow just as well, with somewhat less fruiting, in the shade. The thorny stems of the other two berries can serve double duty as a barrier plant.

The rhizomes of wild ginger ~ a ground cover plant that is only related to the more common ginger in name ~ works well as a ground-up flavoring, but does not do quite as nicely as a substitute in stir fry. The dried leaves of anise hyssop can be used as a substitute for anise seeds, and fresh or dried the herb can be used to make a tea. In the early spring, the fiddleheads of some native ferns (ostrich, cinnamon, and royal) can be boiled (twice, with a change of water in between) and used in a number of different dishes.

Those plants I've mentioned are just a small sampling of the native wild edibles. As with any new food, you should try wild edibles in small quantities until you know what effect they'll have on you. If you have any questions about what how to establish a forest garden, contact Green Man Enviroscaping, and we’d be happy to discuss them with you. We offer landscape maintenance as well as design guidance and installation services.

Web Update

2010-06-17T19:36:00.002-04:00

Major update this time out...

Updated our Service Area to add Lehigh and Northampton and some other counties surrounding our Carbon County base. We've been working down in Orefield and Emmaus, and it's about time the website reflected that. Small changes related to this popped up on a number of pages throughout the site.

Major changes to the Photo Gallery. Small collections of wildlife and wildflower photos were added to provide some reference to the types of critters that can be found in a natural garden and to show what some of our native plants look like. There are also some in-progress and completed shots of the Stone Stream ~ a dry streambed constructed of Delaware River rocks, designed to reduce water problems around the house. It's one stage of a larger project ~ as a former Bostonian I've dubbed it "The Big Dig NEPA". A front walk, some landscape lighting, a retaining wall, woodland and rain garden plantings, and at least one waterfall are on the agenda for some unknown time in the future. A stone patio and an outdoor kitchen might also make an appearance at some point.

Some of the links were cleaned up and those remaining were verified as of the end of May.

Services Update

2010-05-26T23:17:00.002-04:00

We're currently offering our full range of services to residential and commercial clients.

The big news right now is that our service area has increased. Our original area of coverage is still in effect for snow plow services ~ which aren't on most folks minds with these 90 degree days we've had lately ~ while all of our other services are now available in Lehigh County, Luzerne County, Monroe County, Northampton County, and Schuykill County as well as in our home base of Carbon County. Many of our services are available beyond those regions, but may incur travel-related charges.

Check out our full list of Services for more information, or contact us with whatever landscaping design, installation, and maintenance questions you might have!

PSA: Delaware & Lehigh Trail Tenders

2010-05-19T18:50:00.002-04:00

Green Man Enviroscaping LLC will be volunteering some time & expertise to assist the D&L Trail Tenders at the Lock 13 in Parryville.

The work will be scheduled for May 22, and will start at 9:30am.

If you're interested in volunteering for this or other D&L Trail Tenders events in the areas covered by any of the four chapters (Easton, Lehigh Valley, Northern Lehigh and Carbon/Lehigh Gorge), visit the D&L site for contact information.

We hope to see you there!

Mulch Matters

2010-05-19T18:44:00.003-04:00

I've mentioned mulch briefly in the past, but it's a subject that needs a bit more attention, as it can be an extremely critical life-support system for your plants if handled properly, or it can be dangerous to them if it is misapplied.

A good mulching will do several things:

provide temperature control, keeping things cooler in hot weather and warmer in cold weather
provide moisture retention during dry weather, requiring less frequent waterings
provide nutrients the plants need as the mulch breaks down
improve the soil structure, encouraging worms and other beneficial soil organisms
reduce soil erosion around your plants
reduce the growth of weeds and the germination of weed seeds
improve the appearance by providing a backdrop that helps focus attention on your plants

The most common way for a good mulching to go bad is to use too much of it and to install it too closely to your plants.

Two to four inches of mulch is what you want to aim for: less than that, and it won't provide the benefits you're looking for; more than that, and you can smother the roots, preventing them from getting the oxygen and nutrients they need.

Two to four inches is also a good number to keep in mind when mulching around your plant stems and tree trunks. You do not want the mulch to come in contact with the woody trunk or vegetative stems of your plants. Make sure to taper off the mulch so that there is bare soil where the plant goes in to the ground. Use that 2-4" range to taper things off, keeping a ring of soil at least one inch wide, more for larger plants and trees, around the base of the plant. Mulch that comes in contact with the plant stems can encourage rot and will add stress that could lead to insect and disease problems.

Although smaller plants and shrubs often have mulched areas defined by the borders of the bed, trees should have their circle of mulch determined by their root zone. To provide the best benefit for trees, the entire root zone ~ which extends well beyond the furthest reaches of its branches, or drip line ~ should be mulched. At a minimum, you want to mulch out to that drip line, as that will cover the majority of the roots.

Mulch Volcanoes

One of the most harmful mulching practices is also, unfortunately, one of the most prevalent. "Mulch volcanoes" ~ the piling of mountains of mulch around and up to landscape plantings, particularly trees ~ are created by a combination of green industry professionals who've missed the news that it's a dangerous, unhealthy practice and homeowners who attempt to emulate the effect thinking it is the right way to do things. Quite possibly, the problem might be compounded by the idea that it adds an aesthetic value. For those who understand how plants and trees grow and thrive, the only things heaping cones of mulch indicate are sorrow, dismay, and pity.

Mulch volcanos tend not to reach out to the drip line of trees, so you're not getting the benefit of protecting the root zone. They encourage the roots, particularly of young trees, to grow up into the volcano, which can cause girdling ~ where tree roots strangle the tree and kill it ~ and other problems. They can soften the bark of woody trees, and encourage the attack of insects, diseases, and rodents. In essence, they break both of the key rules to good mulch application.

If you do have mulch volcanoes in your landscape, you can quickly improve the health of your landscape and reduce future problems by spreading the mulch out into a wider area, reducing the depth of the material to 2-4" and, in the case of trees, covering more of the root zone.

If you have any questions about what kind of care and maintenance would be best for your own home or commercial lawn and landscaping needs, contact Green Man Enviroscaping, and we’d be happy to discuss them with you. We offer landscape maintenance as well as design guidance and installation services.

PSA: Edge of the Woods Coming Events

2010-05-10T22:26:00.003-04:00

Boosting the signal for Edge of the Woods... here are some of their coming events... be sure to visit the nursery website for more information on these events, as well as sign-ups or tickets as mentioned in these blurbs:

Things are Blooming Away here at Edge of the Woods!
A few of the plants in their glory right now are Fringetree (it's fragrant, too!), Catawba Rhododendron (lavender and white), Amsonia (great for butterflies) and American Wisteria (not nearly as aggressive as it's Asian counterpart). Stop in Today to see these great native plants and learn how to use them in your garden.

Make a rain barrel May 22
Sponsored by the Saucon Creek Watershed Association.
The fee is $35 for each rain barrel, and participants will be provided with the materials and instruction needed to make and take home a finished rain barrel. Pre-registration is required and space is limited. Download a registration form and mail it in today!

Learn all about Rain Gardens May 22
Adrianne Blank, Registered Landscape Architect.
Adrianne will give presentations at 10, 12 and 2 on May 22. Rain gardens collect storm water runoff from roofs, driveways, or other impervious surfaces. With a rain garden, you can grow beautiful plants, reduce polluted runoff and re-charge groundwater supplies. The presentation is free of charge, so don't miss it!

Gardening for the Future June 12 10 AM
A 'Must Hear' presentation With Dale Hendricks

Tickets on Sale Now!

Why bother gardening with natives? Plant grower and lover Dale Hendricks will answer with good information about the many positive impacts our seemingly small acts can have. Can gardening be good for the climate? For wildlife? For us? Does this have to be complicated? What plants are the easiest for beginners? He will then present, in his down to earth way, the joys and lore of several easy to grow, durable and beautiful native perennials and grasses.

Very Nearly an Employment Offering

2010-04-25T22:00:00.003-04:00

As the title indicates, this is not (yet) an official new position posted... it won't appear on the Employment Opportunities page... not just yet, anyway.

I'm still thinking about the specifics of this position: long hours, low pay.. okay, not quite.

What I'm considering is opening up a sales position of sorts.

Now, this wouldn't be a sit-behind-a-desk-job, and it wouldn't even be a sit-behind-the-wheel-of-a-car, hop-out-and-sell!sellsell! job.

Ideally, the candidate for this position that doesn't quite exist yet would have an excellent set of sales and customer support skills. For us, the sales role isn't about the selling of some pre-formed package, but figuring out what the customer needs and how we can help them achieve it. In other words, some design skills ~ or even heaps of them ~ wouldn't be out of order here. Certainly, there needs to be an understanding of what we do and don't do, and what our capabilities are at the moment.

There will be at least a small component of this position which would require the person to work in the role as a core crewmember, first to see how we work, and later to keep in touch with how we work.

There are numerous little issues that need to be worked out prior to an official listing, but that doesn't mean we're not looking to talk with people who are interested. If you would happen to be interested in just such a position, use the Contact page and let us know. The right candidate might be able to help shape this position and nab it before it exists...

Current Events

2010-04-20T17:02:00.004-04:00

This past weekend we helped the Lehigh Gap Nature Center celebrate Earth Day (which is this coming Thursday) by helping guide a large number of volunteers in the planting of native plants on the boulder wall opposite the Osprey House and in two of the woodland deer exclosures we built for them last Spring. Sue Tantsits from Edge of the Woods brought the plants and her native plant know-how to lead the projects. After the planting was done (an hour or more quicker than anticipated!), Sue gave a lecture on the use of native plants in the home landscape. If you missed it, keep an eye on their site to watch for the events they host at the nursery.

Tomorrow ~ Wednesday, 21 April 2010 ~ between 3:00pm and 5:30pm I will be at the Welcome booth at the Carbon County Expo. Be sure to stop by this free event and check out our local Carbon County businesses!

Stay tuned for some future posts highlighting other great local businesses, and some exciting news regarding our service area coverage!

Healthy Lawns

2010-04-16T10:58:00.004-04:00

In one of my early blogs, I wrote about the meadow as an alternative for the lawn. While it is a much healthier landscape, and very beautiful once it matures, a natural grasslands prairie isn't about to replace the Great American Lawn as the most common home landscaping feature. Even if it did somehow manage that feat, there's still a place for a close cropped lawn, at the least, for the important roles of safety immediately around structures and for recreation. That earlier post detailed how a lawn can be resource-intensive and environmentally unfriendly ~ here, we will look at some ways to make it decidedly more healthy while keeping it beautiful and kid- and pet-friendly.

Adjusting the cutting height of a lawn is one of the most effective means of encouraging it to be healthy.

Always cut half, or less, of the height of the grass, no matter what that height is. If the grass is one foot high, cutting it below six inches will cause stress as the plants put their energy into regrowing back to their former height. Tall grass should be reduced in height slowly, over time.

An ideal height for most turf grass is around three inches. This height will encourage the plants to put their energy into root growth. Deeper roots will increase drought tolerance and reduce the need for supplemental watering.

Use a mulching mower. Cut blades of grass decompose quickly and are a source of nitrogen ~ the nutrient most in need by most lawns. Leaving the clippings saves energy by reducing the work, and it will reduce or remove the need for additional fertilizers.

If you need to provide supplemental watering, water less frequently and more deeply ~ you want to encourage roots to dig down for water, not rise to the surface as regular short waterings will do.

Water only when the top inch of soil is dry.

Water in the early morning. Avoid watering in the hot afternoon sun.

Do a soil test prior to adding any fertilizer or nutrients. Your lawn may not need what you think it needs, and you will be spreading money around the lawn needlessly. Excess nutrients can cause serious problems with water quality.

Consider top dressing your lawn with compost. Many of the lawns in this area are created on trucked-in soils that are favorable to building houses without miring construction equipment, and are in need of more organic materials. Compost spread thinly over the lawn will help build the soil structure and loosen up the compacted material. Aeration might be needed to further break up the soil and allow water and nutrients to be absorbed more readily into the soil.

Think carefully about the chemicals applied to the lawn. Pesticides will kill bad bugs, but they'll also kill the bugs that were trying to control the bad bugs... often leaving the property open to larger infestations and increasing the need for more chemical applications. This is a downward spiral for your wallet and the environment. The best defense against a pest is a healthy plant, and a plant's best backup is the wide assortment of bugs that eat other bugs.

When seeding a new lawn or overseeding an existing one, choose a variety of grasses that will suit the conditions, including the amount of sunlight, type of soil, and water needs. Select for species that are slow growing or that have a low natural height, increasing the time required between mowings. Select for deep root growth for drought tolerance and increased health. Watch out for the less expensive builder's mixes ~ these are designed to grow quickly to prevent erosion or make things look green in the short term, but they will leave a barren, weedy lot for the following Spring unless the area was also seeded with a more expensive, slower growing permanent lawn turf.

If you have any questions about what kind of care and maintenance would be best for your own home or commercial lawn and landscaping needs, please contact us, and we’d be happy to discuss them with you. We offer landscape maintenance as well as design guidance and installation services.

PSA: Philadelphia Orchard Project

2010-04-15T22:02:00.002-04:00

I am (still) not on Facebook, but those of you who are...

The Philadelphia Orchard Project plants orchards in the city of Philadelphia that grow healthy food, green spaces and community food security. Since 2007, we have planted 17 orchards and have 8 planting events planned for this spring. Check out our website for more information: http://www.phillyorchards.org/

POP has been picked as one of five finalists for our category in the Green Heroes Grant Program (sponsored by Green Works). The first place grant is for $15,000 and runners-up will receive $5,000.

Go here: http://apps.facebook.com/greenheroes/heroes/293_philadelphia-orchard-project once a day (until the 18th) to vote for the Philadelphia Orchard Project...

Services Update

2010-03-24T12:21:00.003-04:00

Last year, when I did the services update in March, I was hopeful we might get some more wintry weather, this year, we've had a lot of warm weather and snow seems unlikely... yet it's in the forecast a couple of times over the next week!

Still, I expect not to see anything accumulate enough to require plowing, so it's time to refill my supplies of FluidFilm so that the plow can be protected during its time off.

Driveways are still in my future: I know the freezing/thawing cycle was rough on my gravel drive. During even the heavier snowfall this past season, the ground remained unfrozen, and I had a choice of leaving an inch of snow to pack into ice or relocating the stone. As the drive was in need of some serious tonnage anyway, I opted to drop the plow and dig deep. Now, when I get a chance, I'll bring some more gravel in and rebuild that. In the process of cleaning it up, I quickly came to realize that the structure of the gravel drive was neither as deep as I had thought, nor built with the proper structure.

Ideally, the builders should be using fist-sized irregular rock as a base ~ about a foot of the stuff ~ and then, as they drive heavy equipment over this surface it gets packed in. After construction is completed, then the smaller gravel comes in and needs to be tamped down. From what I've seen, I've hit mud and compressed 2B / modified, without a sign of anything large enough to provide a base. If your drive is in the same shape, you may want to look into reworking the entire job. The amount of smaller gravel required to keep a poorly built drive maintained just might exceed the cost of rebuilding it properly and keeping that maintained.

This is now prime season for getting those gravel drives and roads maintained. If they're properly built, they may not need additional material added at all ~ a proper regrading to return the crown might be all that is needed. More material, properly shaped, will help get a drive looking nicer, and fixing construction issues will help ease problems down the line.

It's still a little too early for mowing, but now is the time for starting new lawns and overseeding existing ones. We offer several seeding options, including hydroseeding. We are scheduling lawn maintenance services on a weekly or bi-weekly basis ~ the weekly schedule is generally best for lawns in this area, unless the lawn is seeded with a mix that has been particularly selected to be slow or low growing.

This early Spring weather ~ in between the raindrops, anyway ~ is a great time to clear brush. We can remove invasives, cut walking paths, or clear areas for meadow or lawn installations, or other purposes. This is also a great time to get caught up on pruning out Winter damage to trees and shrubs. We can take care of all your ground-based pruning needs, including tree felling and removal from open or wooded areas, and can recommend a number of different tree services professionals and arborists who are able ~ and, more importantly, fully insured ~ to climb up into the canopy or work with trees around structures or wires. It is always a good idea to verify that your contractors are licensed and insured for the work they are doing, but this is even more critical with tree work where the risk is greater and there are levels of coverage based on the work being done.

We're on the verge of prime planting season, whether seed, bare root, or containerized, so if you're interested in these services, now is the best time to get things moving.

Check out our full list of Services for more information, or contact us with whatever landscaping design, installation, and maintenance questions you might have!

Web Update

2010-03-10T14:14:00.002-05:00

Just a quick update this time...

I changed the picture out on the seasonal Services page ~ this is the web debut of a picture taken about a year ago, while we were installing deer fencing on the side of the mountain at the Lehigh Gap Nature Center. It shows one of the... more difficult locations for installing a post. It's not quite solid rock, but it certainly tries to be!

I've also added some linked logos to the Green Business League, appearing on the professional affiliations sections of both the links and the About... as well as on the home page. Here's one that's a bit larger as an added bonus:

~ ~ ~

As a reminder to other businesses and advertisers who would like to share links, I will gladly add a link to your site if I know you or, at least, your product, and if it is applicable to Green Man Enviroscaping LLC in some way, either by being in the old green industry (i.e. landscaping, tree care, gardening), the new green industry (i.e. natural, organic, good for the environment), or if you are a local business or organization.

Ready for Spring?

2010-03-09T20:18:00.003-05:00

I know, the groundhog says differently, and I’m not really complaining as snow can be plowed (although I’d just as soon avoid the ice), but there are plenty of things to do with your landscaping while you’re waiting for the nicer weather to arrive and allow you to... well, get out and do things with your landscaping!

‘tis the season ~ and it has been since it got too cold to work the ground easily ~ to plan. It may be harder to visualize things green and growing when everything is looking cold and bleak, but if you can get past that, you’ll find this season offers something that isn’t available once everything has leafed out: specifically, you can see the terrain. It’s much easier to plot out where a path through the woods will go or where this feature or that will be when the screening cover has fallen to the ground. It also helps to keep in mind all four seasons when designing your landscape.

Seeding features that can use a good dose of random ~ such as a field of wildflowers or a swath of shrubbery ~ can benefit from being scattered on the snow. Wildlife will get some of the seeds, but they tend to do that even when you’ve carefully cultivated each and every seed. For best results, scatter just before a snowfall. The snow will provide a mulching and moisture, you get some cold stratification, and the gradual freezing and thawing of the ground will work the seeds in to the ground.

Snow cover will also provide a good protective mulching for your other plants, although you need to be wary of damage from the weight of snow on branches. Use extreme care whenever clearing snow from the limbs of any tree or shrub. It is very easy to snap a branch through the effort of removing a heavy wet snow where that same limb would have recovered from the deep bend quite nicely on its own. If necessary, use a gentle shaking beginning at the top and tips and working your way in and down the plant structure.

As it warms up a bit more, you can get out in the yard and start working, first with the cleanup from fallen leaves that escaped the last raking and the pruning of limbs from trees and shrubs that didn’t manage to survive the weight of the snow or ice. This would be a great time to start a compost pile, or give an extra kick to the one you already have going. All that yard waste lying around is natural, organic matter that wants to become the mulching for the plants that shed it. Instead of feeling defeated by a tree that drops lots of litter, be thankful that your landscape is helping you save money on fertilizer by providing its own.

Even with a lot of plant litter arriving naturally, additional mulch might be needed for either decorative or functional purposes. A good mulching product that is helpful to your plants will degrade and decompose. It may be tempting to use a “permanent” mulch made from rubber, especially when it promises to be made from recycled tires that would otherwise have ended up in a landfill, but be mindful of the contents of that rubber, and the metals and other elements that can leach from the product over time. While plants do need some of these additional nutrients, they can be harmed by an abundance of them. A stone mulch has its purposes as well, and can be a critical component for certain types of gardens, but can also stress out plants by creating a warmer, quicker draining environment than they prefer.

Speaking of stone, according to some best practices, gravel drives should be resupplied with new material and reshaped twice a year. Although I’d be hard pressed to find anyone ~ myself included ~ who follows anything approaching this strict a maintenance schedule, once the snows are gone and the ground has warmed up a bit, it’s the perfect time to get some more stone down on gravel surfaces, and to rebuild the surface to the proper water-shedding profile.

If you have any questions about what kind of care and maintenance would be best for your own home or commercial landscaping needs, contact us, and we’d be happy to discuss them with you. We offer landscape maintenance as well as design guidance and installation services.

Plowing Through Winter

2010-02-09T11:00:00.002-05:00

“Plowing through Winter” ~ while that pun brings up a wide variety of images, this season it looks like we’re half way through it without needing a whole lot of snowplowing and shoveling. As a former New Englander and one who, in the nature of full disclosure, has a business with seasonal work based on the amount of snowfall we receive, I find that as disappointing as many folks will be thrilled by it. Whether you enjoy the snow or despise it, it’s still going to fall from the sky once in a while, and at that point you may have to clear it or drive in it or otherwise deal with what nature’s dropped on your property. Here are a few tips to help get you through the storms that may still blanket us with all that fluffy white stuff until Spring well and truly arrives.

Winter Driving

It doesn’t matter if you’re in northern Maine, here in the tropics of Pennsylvania, or way down in allegedly sunny Florida, if snow or ice covers the road, things can get dangerous quickly. Even in those colder realms to our north, the first time we get a Winter storm, drivers tend to forget all that they learned last year. Down south, they have a bigger problem: it might have been a few years or more since they ran into those kind of conditions. Here in the middle, more or less, snow and ice on the roads happens more than once a year, and we need to be prepared for it.

If you’ve got all four wheels working for you in a 4WD or AWD vehicle, you’ve got much better traction in snow, but you need to remember that a front wheel drive compact car or a rear wheel drive sports car are no worse off than 4WD when it comes to brakes ~ all of us have four wheel brakes, and all of us can slide off the road just as easily when there’s ice underneath us. Always act under the assumption that there is ice under your tires, and take it slow and easy. Allow plenty of room for stopping and, no matter how fast you wish the car in front of you would go, do not crowd them. Make changes in speed slowly. Accelerating quickly can be just as likely to help you lose traction as trying to stop too quickly.

Whether or not slow and steady wins the race, it certainly has a better chance of getting to the end of a Winter weather road trip alive. I’ve had great luck on our hilly roads by using lower gears ~ even in my front wheel drive family car ~ and have been able to control things on the downhill swing and keep moving uphill when others, including those with 4WD, have not. If you come to a stop on an icy hill, you’re going to have difficulty getting moving again, and, when you do, it’s likely to be in a downhill direction no matter which way you’re facing. Allow for a significantly longer distance between yourself and the car in front of you on hilly roads ~ if the car ahead of you comes to a stop going uphill, you’ll have a much better chance of being able to get around them or stop prior to starting up the hill. Although there are some hills and conditions that can be impassable, in most cases you can get through them by crawling along in first gear as long as you can keep moving.

In this day and age of cell phones and roadside assistance, the chances of being stuck out on the road in a blizzard seem distant, but you don’t have to go back to what my kids refer to as ancient times (i.e. more than 20 years ago) to see them ~ just look back a few years ago to some of the happenings on I78 and I80, where traffic sat unmoving on a major highway. You may not have been a Boy Scout, but their motto of “Be Prepared” should be echoed by anyone who goes for a drive in the Winter. Make sure you have a first aid kit in your trunk, and carry at least one blanket. I like to make sure there’s an extra pair of gloves or two, and, often, my heavy winter boots. The best advice is always to stay with your vehicle, but insulated boots will keep your feet warm inside a car as well as outside.

While I might miss the times when it took six inches or more of snow before school was called off, people tend to call things quickly when there’s only a light dusting ~ and this is the safest way to deal with Winter driving conditions: stay home. Work from home if you can, and stay off the roads to allow the crews time to clean them properly and make them safer for you to drive on when the storm is over. When you’re ready to head out, contact us, and we’ll come by and clear that snow from your driveway so you can start your drive safely!

Services Update

2010-01-11T12:51:00.002-05:00

This Winter seems to have less ice and freezing rain than last year's season, but we've still been pretty light on the snowfall this year, with the last couple storms light enough on the snowfall that plowing wasn't needed.

We are looking into the pricing for some ice melt/traction products that are less harmful to the environment, and we hope to be offering those on a small (push-spreader) scale soon.

As a reminder, if you're considering any snow plow services ~ even if it's for an on-call too-much-snow situation ~ it is best to schedule a visit ~ and get a free estimate ~ at a time when the driveways and parking lots are free from snow so that there are no hidden surprises when the plow comes through. We are available for plowing on an emergency basis, but that rate is more expensive than our rate would be for a property we've visited before it's covered in snow. We also offer discounts for signing up for a seasonal contract ~ our services are still charged per storm (or per visit, for commercial clients that need to stay clear during a storm), so there are no restrictions or penalties for entering into an agreement with us after the season has started. Please contact us to schedule a visit, and we will provide you with a quote for plowing services. The plowing service is available throughout our entire service area, but is most cost-effective closer to our headquarters in Franklin Township ~ Lehighton, Jim Thorpe, Palmerton and the townships in and around these cities.

This is a great time of year to plan for larger landscaping projects, from plantings to hardscaping features such as patios, walls, or paths. It is an ideal time to design woodland paths, and, depending on snow cover, to clear them. This is one of the best times to seed a meadow, as later snow fall will provide excellent protection for the seeds and the freezing and thawing will work the seed into the soil. Some plants require cold before the seeds are ready to sprout and grow into beautiful wildflowers, so there is an added benefit there that spring plantings miss out on entirely.

In addition to emergency plow services, we also offer limited emergency tree services. If trees are down, we can clear them out of the way, any time of any day, 24/7, and we can follow up with a complete clean-up during regular working hours. We can do tree take-downs under certain conditions, and will gladly refer you to some friends of ours who specialize in some of the more complicated operations around electrical lines and structures. For any emergency services, please call us at 610.442.7964. Please use our Contact Form to get a hold of us for all other purposes.

Services Update

2009-08-31T11:40:00.002-04:00

As I write this, some cool weather may have swept in after the little bit of heat we've had this year, and some recent storms may have knocked down a bunch of awfully yellow looking maple leaves, but it is not quite as autumnal as the picture on the Services page might indicate.

However, that little lawn and leaf vacuum won't be idle all that much longer. It does a decent enough job clearing leaves from lawn areas ~ although I tend to rely on the mulching mower until the leaf fall is too much and the grass is not growing enough to warrant it ~ but its real strength is in that hose. It works great at clearing leaves out of dry stream beds, where they will clog the flow, send water over their banks, and cause further runoff issues. We also use the vacuum to get in to mulched beds to remove and refresh the mulch.

We can include leaf pickup and composting or removal services along with an annual maintenance contract for mowing, pruning, and other services, such as snow plowing, or we can provide the service on an as-needed basis.

As part of our limited tree service offering ~ we still keep our feet on the ground, and will refer you to some of our friends who provide full-service tree work if bucket trucks or climbing are needed ~ we can handle storm damage cleanup, and help you take care of fallen limbs and trees. We can also repair lawn areas damaged by the impact and, of course, clean up any leaf litter that has fallen.

On the subject of seeding, in addition to drop and rotary spreaders, we are now offering hydroseeding services to establish or overseed lawns and meadow areas. Hydroseeding works great on banks, and is a key step in controlling erosion on cleared land. Hydroseeding not only spreads the seed on the site, but it can provide everything needed to protect the seed (hydraulic mulch), keep it in place (tackifier), and help it grow (humates to aid germination and help improve the soil structure). We carefully select all the products that we offer, advocating for natural and organic components, for recycled post-consumer materials, and for an absence of synthetic chemicals.

This time of year is ideal for seeding, especially wildflowers and other seeds that require an overwintering before they germinate. It's also a great time to plant containerized perennials, shrubs, and trees, and to schedule bareroot plantings for late Fall and early Winter.

Although we started quoting for snow plowing back in June, it still might seem early to consider plowing services. That's exactly why you should have us take a look at your driveway or private road now. If you wait too long and snow does arrive to blanket the ground, we'll have a harder time determining exactly where that curving driveway might hide amongst all that lawn ~ and that's something we'd rather see and stake well ahead of time instead of discovering by plow at the last minute!

For more information on these and other services, please check the full service listing or contact us with the questions that you have.

Web Update

2009-08-28T04:30:00.003-04:00

That services update is coming very soon... and so is a legitimate news post.

Some secrets of the services update are given away here ~ you can look at the full list of services and see a number of changes. Some are just simplifications, or even clarifications of pure silliness on my part, such as fixing the use of "trim" to describe mowing (which causes confusion with a string trimming, which I had formerly lumped under edging, even though they are fundamentally different services...). More significantly, there's the listing of tree services as a separate heading, with a mention of storm cleanup and there's the addition of hydroseeding as a method of lawn or meadow seeding.

The left column of every page has been updated to highlight hydroseeding as well as to mention tree services and trail maintenance.

The Links section, which was finally revised just ten days ago, was completely redone. The old Local Business piece was mostly local-food related, so now it's called Eat Local. The Landscaping Supply page now includes the nursery and a few related professionals we work with. The brand new Equipment page collects the dealers and rental folks we rely on, most of whom had spent ten days worth of time on the Supply page, or the entire time on the Local Business page. I'm not really liking the name of the Long Distance page, but that will work until I make up my mind. The last three pages didn't change, with the exception of two links moved from Nature Organizations to Eat Local.

Two new projects have been added to the Photo Gallery: our recent work in Weissport and the deer exclosures at the Lehigh Gap Nature Center. I also added a note on the bottom of the page indicating homeowner signoff is required before we post photos from work at private residences. Not every project we complete can be presented for the world to see, and we respect the wishes of our clients... even when we really want to show you what we've been working on.

And on the subject of photographs...

With the exception of our logo, every single image on the site has been replaced. In a few places, the same image was used in multiple places ~ now each of those pages has a different image. Most of the images outside of the Photo Gallery are from my own yard, and show either the plants and/or the wildlife one can find in a natural landscape.

And I think that's it for now...

Web Update

2009-08-18T21:02:00.002-04:00

I updated some of the links, including a few more local businesses in the general and supply section page.

I also corrected an error on the links page that was causing the page to be drawn incorrectly.

I also expected to get this update done back in July, and before that in June, so there's likely to have been a few older corrections included in this update.

As a recovering systems analyst, I must say, I'm quite happy to have fallen behind on updating the site ~ that means I'm out there in the field: clearing brush, building stone walls, swinging a pick, running a backhoe, and even planting a few things here and there.

I'll be posting a services update soon, and, with some luck, I'll get a chance to post a news update as well... there are quite a few interesting projects on the horizon...

In the News, and Other News

2009-06-29T16:49:00.003-04:00

On June 20th, we set up a table at the Edge of the Woods summer festival and hoped to talk to a few people who braved the rainy weather about the services we offer.

When one of the speakers that morning experienced weather-related delays, I filled in, and discussed some edible woodland plants and answered questions until Julianne arrived and set up her presentation. The event was covered in the Times-News here.

As indicated in the article, I tend not to rely on my identification skills when it comes to wild mushrooms ~ the tendency to misidentify is too high and the possibility that the misidentification involves something poisonous is just enough to keep me from making that call.

If you're interested in the sassafras-leaved dish ~ a variant on the quesadilla ~ you can find the recipe for Frasadillas on my personal blog.

To clarify on the sweet birch/wintergreen, they are two separate plants: the sweet birch, or black birch, is a dark-barked tree that contains a sap that is used to provide the wintergreen flavoring; the wintergreen plant (which has berries with a taste and texture much like a Certs candy) is not used to create the flavoring that is named after.

~ ~ ~

This past weekend, Green Man Enviroscaping LLC employees volunteered their time for a trail cleanup session at the Weissport trail head of the Delaware & Lehigh Trail. We were able to clear a lot of crown vetch and some tree-of-heaven growing between the canal and the trail itself, and we helped plant some donated flowers around the memorial for Wilbur “Cap” Bauchspies.

Services Update

2009-06-17T21:20:00.002-04:00

Big news this update: We've added two new major services in one shot. We can now offer tree removal. We have been cleared by our insurance folks for offering some basic, ground-based felling. We still don't climb or bring a bucket truck to bear ~ although we can get you in touch with some great folks who'll take care of the more technical removals, such as those around structures or wires, for you ~ but we can drop trees out of range of such obstacles. In addition to the simple removal of a tree or two, we can offer lot clearing service, combing the brush clearing and tree felling services. We can drop trees and leave them as-is ~ although piles of fallen trees may look unsightly to the human eye, they're thought of much more fondly by the wildlife that takes shelter in them ~ or we can haul them away, cut them into manageable bits for firewood, or chip them for you.

Although I have the full list updated with these new services, it won't be posted for a few days, but it should appear there by June 23rd or so, when I get a handful of other web updates completed.

That list will show you all the other services we offer. Most of them are available this time of year ~ if we get more hailstorms like we had the other day, even the plowing service might come in handy! The best bets for the Summer season are the maintenance services, the tree removal, and all forms of hardscaping, from natural stone walls to permeable pavers to excluding those large hooved rodents from your tasty plants with some deer fencing.

D&L Trail

2009-06-11T21:01:00.004-04:00

I had intended to write of this sooner, but the delay allows me to provide some additional information...

Back on May 23rd, my son Justin and I volunteered our time, and Green Man Enviroscaping LLC volunteered the use of some equipment, to help clean up some invasive crown vetch, tree-of-heaven, and Japanese knotweed along a portion of the D&L Trail in Parryville.

An article on the cleanup day appeared on the Times News on June 4th: Parryville looks forward to a park as D&L trail tenders clean up along the canal. What Elsa Kerschner, the reporter and photographer, fails to mention in the piece is that, shortly after she took the photos of me and my son, I up and quit that task and moved on to some other work, and she jumped in and helped Justin finish the job of cleaning up the burn pile!

Although this was our first time working with the Trail Tenders ~ the all-volunteer group that maintains the D&L ~ we have done some work on the trail itself, where it passes through the Lehigh Gap Nature Center between Slatington and Bowmanstown.

Earlier this evening, we helped out with some work at the Weissport trailhead, assisting with some litter clean-up and mulching in preparation for the dedication ceremony tomorrow (June 12th) morning. In a stroke of luck, we had our 11 ft arborist ladder with us, and the ladder was also able to volunteer its services to an Eagle Scout project by providing a steadier platform from which they could install the handmade sign on the pavilion.

The D&L Trail is part of the Delaware & Lehigh National Heritage Corridor, a 165-mile area stretching from Wilkes-Barre, just a bit north of us, down to Bristol, PA down in Bucks County. We are proud to be able to offer our time and services to help maintain the trail for the enjoyment of all.

Green Man Merchandise

2009-05-10T01:02:00.002-04:00

A while back, I had a request for the shirt off my back.

No, seriously.

While my son and I were volunteering to help get the deer exclosures we built at the Lehigh Gap Nature Center planted, I was asked if we had shirts for sale.

We didn't.

This past week, I've been working on getting some new shirts ~ the old ones are looking slightly less glow-in-the-dark ~ and in the process, I revised the logo a bit (partially to simplify the colors for silk screening the t-shirts and embroidering the polo shirts; partially to get some additional text on there as well).

Earlier tonight, I had the brilliant idea of using Zazzle.com ~ where I already offer various products based on my photography for sale in the The Elysian Fields Gallery ~ to offer this new logo on a variety of items and make it available to others.

This logo differs a little from what we wear ~ ours are four-color renderings, this is the full color logo designed by Tooth & Nale Graphics for us, along with the text of our new shirts.

The logo is available on a number of products, including t-shirts (in sustainable styles for men, women, children, and babies!), stickers, magnets, buttons, mugs, keychains, and mousepads. Click on the images below to see more information on each product:

Web Update

2009-05-09T22:55:00.002-04:00

I updated the site to reflect the new regulations in the Pennsylvania Home Improvement Consumer Protection Act ~ I'll be posting more information on that at a later date, but the short of it is that it goes into effect on July 1, 2009 and most contractors who work on residential properties are required to be registered by that time.

I also added a couple of links to the Nature Organizations page. One link was for Stonehedge Gardens and the other is TurtleTails.com. I'm always happy to help promote local organizations and businesses that might be of interest to our clients.

Services Update

2009-05-01T19:54:00.002-04:00

Okay, okay, I relent. Or, more accurately, relented.

The plow has been set aside, coated with FluidFilm, where it will mope in the corner until the late Autumn-early Winter season returns. More recently, this past Monday, in fact, the truck ceased being a giant tambourine when we removed the OnSpot Automatic Tire Chain wheels until snowy weather returns.

We've been working on setting up deer exclosures for the Lehigh Gap Nature Center. For a while, you could see us working on the three exclosures above the LNE Trail and Prairie Grass Loop, across from the Palmerton Zinc site. We're currently installing three additional exclosures in the wooded area near the other end of the Prairie Grass Loop.

We're currently offering our full range of services to residential and commercial clients in Carbon County and the surrounding areas.

Right now is the best time of the year for new plantings, and one of the two best times for new lawn installations. This is also a great time to refresh the mulch in your shrub and perennial plantings.

Natural mulches degrade constantly, and, although this might seem like a bad thing and make an artificial permanent mulch look like a good value, this is the single best thing you can do for your plants outside of choosing the right plant for each location. As the mulches break up, they feed the soil web and improve the quality of your soil. To keep the protective aspects of mulch ~ retaining moisture (reducing water usage) and controlling the temperature of the soil ~ you need to maintain the depth of the mulch.

We can simply add more mulch for you, or, if there is material that has not broken down into the soil, we can remove it, shred it again, and reapply or compost it. There are benefits to simply leaving it in place ~ this most closely mimics the behavior of forest soils and leaf litter layers ~ but in certain cases, stirring up, shredding, and, possibly, composting the materials can help the process and improve the aesthetic effect.

Check out our full list of Services for more information, or contact us with whatever landscaping design, installation, and maintenance questions you might have!

2009-05-01T19:48:00.002-04:00

Core Crewmember- we are not hiring at this time, but we are interested in hearing from interested applicants. The nature of this business often involves projects of different scales, and our staffing needs might vary at any time! If you're interested in being considered for future positions as they open up, please contact us!

Responsibilities include, but are not limited to, the following duties:
- Design: assist with design process, including measuring areas, testing soil and light conditions; provide design input, from initial feedback of opinion to the potential to grow into a design or architectural role
- Installation: soil preparation, digging, planting, maintenance tasks performed during installation
- Maintenance: power tool operation (including string trimmer, edger, walk-behind mower, chainsaw), pruning of trees and shrubs from ground or ladder, mulching, watering, area clean-up
- Other: basic equipment maintenance
Experience preferred but not required
Salary commensurate with experience
Specialist skills, such as tree climbing or stonemasonry, are welcome and will be put to use as possible ~ bonuses will apply to a higher wage when performing specialist tasks, with planned growth into a full time specialist position

Please respond via the Contact page ~ Thanks for your interest!

New Payment Method!

2009-03-12T22:57:00.002-04:00

While this is hardly as exciting (to me, at least) as news about lawn care learning, tree planting, or other things that involve getting my hands dirty, this just might be of interest to our customers:

We will now be able to accept credit cards via invoicing through PayPal!

The way it works is that we would send you an email invoice with a PayPal button, you click on that button, and PayPal will handle the processing side of things.

If you're interested in this option, let us know and we will send the bill accordingly! If you'd like to discuss it with us, just bring it up the next time we're there, or use the contact page to get in touch with us!

Services Update

2009-03-09T20:18:00.003-04:00

I'm not quite ready to give up on Winter yet... at least there was another day of plowing after a snow-less February... who knows, we might get another storm or two to keep us busy?

Barring any further snowfall, a quick transition to Spring work would be nice. There's a big project coming up involving lots of deer fencing, so, with some luck, the snow (and, even more importantly, frozen ground) will stay away while we work on that.

Now is a great time to schedule lawn care services. In addition to mowing, pruning, and trimming, we offer lawn care restorative programs and new plantings that suit the soil profile on your property.

The key to a good lawn ~ or bed planting or tree planting ~ is the quality of the soil. Despite some popular misconceptions, there is good soil in the Lehighton and Carbon County area specifically, and in Northeast Pennsylvania in general. Much of it gets trucked away during development, replaced with an inferior material that does a good job of keeping construction equipment afloat. However, that rocky mix is terrible for growing a lawn, or even getting a shovel into, but even it can be restored to fertile, working order with topdressing of organic matter such as compost and with other natural and organic materials.

Spring is the best time for planting most anything, outside of some wildflowers and other seeds that require overwintering before they sprout.

Check out our full list of Services for more information, or contact us with whatever landscaping design, installation, and maintenance questions you might have!

Come See Us at the Edge of the Woods!

2009-03-02T19:56:00.002-05:00

On April 18th, join us at the Edge of the Woods Native Plant Nursery for an Earth Day celebration!

We'll be there for the whole day, from 9am to 4pm, and will be happy to talk shop ~ that is woods, meadows, and other landscaping for home or business ~ with you.

Sustainability will be the focus of the day, and there will be vendors and speakers in attendance. More information about Edge of the Woods, including directions to the nursery, can be found on their web site.

We hope to see you there!

Professional Affiliations

2009-03-02T19:49:00.001-05:00

As mentioned in the last post, one of our goals this year was to become active members in a number of different business and industry organizations. These organizations can have a variety of benefits, both to us, as a business entity, and to you, as a customer of ours. All of them allow for some opportunity for networking with other members as well as educational opportunities of one aspect or another. This allows us to grow in our knowledge and grow our resources, both of which will enable us to continually improve the service and services we offer.

We are proud to announce that we are members of the Carbon County Chamber of Commerce and the Lehighton Area Council. These organizations were extremely important to us, as they ~ and their member companies ~ form the backbone of the local economy, and we wish to do as much as we can to promote and support our fellow local businesses.

With a slightly broader definition of "local" and a more specific focus on our mission to be ecologically friendly, we are also quite excited to announce our membership in the Sustainable Business Network of the Greater Lehigh Valley. This will allow us to keep a focus two things that are critically important: first, to help us make sure that the sustainability of the business and the processes we use remains in focus; and second, to network with like-minded locally owned small businesses.

We are also members of the Ecological Landscaping Association, and although there are networking benefits there, even those are geared mostly to help further our education, to help us learn how to do our jobs better, and to keep things focused on our goal of offering our services with the most positive and least negative environmental impact as possible.

This past weekend, I attended the ELA's annual conference in Springfield, MA, and the benefits we'll be able to pass on to our customers are huge. Not only did I discover one excellent source of lawn care materials that will allow us to price our services more competitively and to provide a much higher level of service, but I found several excellent vendors and/or manufacturers of such products. After talking to a number of their representatives, with other organic lawn maintenance professionals, and from an intensive on lawn and turf selection and care, I've greatly expanded my own knowledge in this area, and that will, along with selecting the correct product or products for any given site and situation, provide much more value to every customer of ours.

In the future, I look forward to being involved with all of these organizations, and I'm sure there will be more than one post that will have its roots in some bit of this or that which has, as a source, one or more of my fellow members in one or of these organizations!

Web Update

2009-02-10T23:19:00.003-05:00

Updated the Links page to provide multiple categories of links to companies and organizations we work with or feel will provide value and interest to our clientele

Updated the About... page to include a section on professional affiliations ~ a more in-depth announcement of the affiliations added will follow in the next day or so

Possibly a few minor tweaks made since the last update which I did not specifically note down!

The Latest News

2009-01-23T16:43:00.005-05:00

There's been a lot going on so far this month, and although several things are probably deserving of their own post, others are just wee little blurbs.

While plowing the LGNC trail access on January 10th, I ran into some difficulty with ice from the prior storm under the snow. After a bit of a struggle, I managed to not slide backwards down the hill, but the only part I could clear was that way down, using the plow to slow my descent. Thanks to the good folks over at Kovatch in Nesquehoning, our Ford F550 is now equipped with an Onspot automatic tire chain system. I've since been able to go back to the site and clear the lot and access to it without any difficulty. This system will allow for a greater level of safety in all situations, whether or not we're plowing at that moment. The truck has always excelled at long driveways and larger parking areas, now it will be much more sure-footed on those hilly properties we serve... actually, I'm not sure what I'd do with a property that doesn't have a hill somewhere... I've got maybe a 10-20% incline in my own drive, and that's the most level out of all of our clients!

Last year I made mention of how I joined the International Society of Arboriculture, and I've renewed that affiliation once more on a personal level. We still do not offer tree care services ~ beyond what branches we can trim from the ground or a ladder, and certainly not including tree felling ~ so the company itself is not a member, but tree care in general and tree planting in particular are still extremely important to me. The understanding of trees and how they fit into a landscape is a focus of our work, and so I continue to support the ISA and, of course, continue to educate myself through my association with them.

This year, the company will become affiliated with several other local, regional, statewide, and nationwide business, green industry, and environmental organizations, and those will be announced as they are confirmed. I look forward to the opportunities for additional education and involvement in the community, and in the industry, that these memberships will provide.

One key industry change will take effect later this year is the Home Improvement Consumer Protection Act, requiring contractors ~ including those who do landscape installation ~ to register with the state and for particular language to be included in the contract for projects valued at more than $500. We've already been taking steps to move our contracts to a form that is closer to the requirements so that there will be less of an impact mid-year. The biggest issue in this ~ once the Attorney General has things set up so that contractors can register ~ will be enforcement, and I expect much of that enforcement will be on the part of the homeowners who work with the contractors: starting in July 2009, you'll need to make sure the people you have working on your property are registered so that you can get the protection this act is intended to bring about!

We're currently looking into bulk suppliers of organic and natural lawn care materials. Prior to this, we offered some excellent products, but they were available to us only in retail quantities and at retail costs, and the price we could offer the materials at made the services far from competitive. Traditionally, doing anything organically, naturally, or environmentally friendly has incurred an extra cost, but some of the numbers that came up recently were staggering. News from other like-minded landscaping services across the country was that the costs of the chemical treatments and less-than-friendly products was actually beginning to exceed that of the type of products we want ~ and need ~ to be offering. Not only that, but we were formerly importing product from across the country; the suppliers I've contacted and would like to work with are much closer, within one or two hours of our location here in Lehighton. I hope to be able to share more good news on this issue in the very near future!

We still have a position officially open for a Core Crewmember, so if you're interested please visit the Employment Opportunities page!

Services Update

2009-01-08T23:15:00.002-05:00

I changed to the Winter picture for the Services page, but I neglected to update further about the Winter services...

For the most part, the same services are still featured:

Despite the lack of good snowfall ~ and yes, I'm one of the few people hopeful for measurable amounts, blame my New England upbringing, but I expect to see snow before Halloween, after Easter, and most places in between! ~ there have been a few times we've plowed this season.

Although it is always safest for all involved if we can visit, measure, and note hazards in a driveway or lot before it snows ~ or during thaws ~ we are available for emergency clearing services. Please contact us to schedule a visit, and we will provide you with a quote for per-visit plowing services. The plowing service is available throughout our entire service area, but is most cost-effective closer to our headquarters in Franklin Township ~ Lehighton, Jim Thorpe, Palmerton and the townships in and around these cities.

With the leaves down ~ and even with some snow on the ground ~ now is the perfect time to plan paths through your wooded property. We can clear brush with some light snow, and the planning stages for a simple path or an elaborate trail are possible even when conditions are too severe to be clearing the way. It's easier to see the bigger picture when the landscape is so open. It's also easy to see where more Winter color and interest can fit into your landscaping. It's the perfect time to plan for the work that will happen when the weather warms up.

This is also a great time of year to put down some meadow seed. The freezing and thawing of the ground will help work the seed into the ground and provide the natural conditions needed for many wildflowers and grasses to sprout.

Please use our Contact Form to get a hold of us ~ it's the most efficient way to reach us!

Why A Meadow?

2008-12-07T20:11:00.003-05:00

Human beings are grasslands species. Like many of the grasses and wildflowers of the savannah and prairie, our roots go deep. Despite all that history, people have a tendency to do two things with a grassland:

Rip it up to use it as farmland
Rip it up to build on it

The All-American Lawn
Most folks make up for this loss of grasslands and meet this need for grasslands by planting inferior, non-native grass blends ~ or worse, single species ~ and then proceed to invest a ton (literally quite a few tons) of energy and materials to first make it grow and then, in contrary fashion, to hack it to bits to keep it from doing what it was meant to.

Gas ~ or coal, for those zero-emissions electric mowers ~ gets spent to keep it trimmed! All manner of nastiness are brewed and spewed over the land in attempts to get it to grow faster! better! more! Water to turn it green after it gets hacked off too short! Resource intensive, to say the least.

There are better ways to get around the issues caused by the All American lawn, and Green Man Enviroscaping offers a number of them as part of our regular lawn service offerings.

We use a blend of grass seed that has been bred to have deep water seeking roots for more drought resistance and less water use. It grows slower, and, at its peak, stays shorter, to reduce mowing frequency. Keeping a higher mower height and leaving mulched clippings to feed the lawn also helps the grass stay healthier and keeps resource use in check. The grass itself resists some pests which help reduce stress on the lawn, leaving it less demanding. The fertilizers we apply use natural, organic materials ~ the same stuff a wild grassland might have at hand to feed itself.

However, the best thing to do to large lawn areas is only natural.

Let it grow
A meadow ~ specifically, a blend of native grasses and wildflowers ~ will provide even more environmental benefits than even the best, most carefully tended lawn. Although, once upon a time, prior to mini-malls and McMansions, our part of the world was considered a whole bunch of forest ~ it's even named for its sylvan characteristics ~ it was not endless old growth forest. Those natural open and grasslands areas were the first places cleared for agricultural use and development. At this time, and specifically in our region, they are the environments that are both shortest in supply and the most needed for natural diversity.

Conservation of Water
A meadow ~ whether it's a glade in a woodland, a savannah on the edge of the forest, or a wide-open prairie ~ is great for conservation of water. The plants are deep rooted and need less added care to survive dry times. The roots of the grasses ~ which should compose a sizable proportion of even the most wildflower-intensive meadow ~ stretch down six feet or more, and they are particularly apt to do so when they can concentrate on deepening the roots instead of expending energy trying to regrow what someone just lopped off the top!

In addition to allowing them access to deeper natural water sources, these deep roots hold tight to the ground, which provides great stability in those times when thoughts of a drought are washed away by a flood of, well, floods. A healthy grassland will do wonders for slowing, drinking, and stopping excessive amounts of water. A naturally maintained grassland will have a healthy soil structure, and water will be absorbed instead of passed along downhill until it eventually fills basements and other water retention areas.

The Wild Life
A large grasslands area will support an incredible diversity of life ~ plants, insects, birds, mammals, reptiles. Although you can have a meadow with a few ~ or even only a single ~ prominent species, a healthier alternative that will appear more natural will have a wide variety of plants. That variety will, in turn, support a wider range of insects who eat, shelter, or hunt on preferred plant materials. It may seem counter-intuitive to have more of anything when it comes to insects, but a large quantity of different insects will create a far more balanced structure than the large quantity of a less diverse group found harassing the average lawn, and, by proxy, the owner of the lawn.

Those insects ~ and the plants themselves ~ will attract birds. Birds like the cover of a natural grassland, and they like the food supplied. Seeds or bugs, whatever their preference, they can find it there. And that's just the songbirds ~ many raptors prefer to hunt grasslands for small animals.

Energy Efficiency
The biggest savings a grassland will provide is in the reduction of maintenance.

For the first year, possibly two, it will require mowing once a month or less ~ already a savings when compared to the lawn. After that, it might benefit from a mowing every two or three months for a growing season, but that isn't really necessary. Beyond that, it can get an annual trim just to keep things nice and neat. Controlled burns every three or four years are an option where possible ~ certainly not a good option if the meadow is anywhere near the house, but for areas away from homes this option is the preferable, natural maintenance.

There's really only two things you need to do: keep invasive species from taking over the meadow and keep it from growing into a successional forest.

Caveats
Despite all the benefits that come from creating a native grassland on your property, there are some things to watch out for. Some of them may not be a concern, but you should be aware of them before you kick-start a meadow on your property.

First off, it takes time to develop a meadow. Even if you rip up the existing lawn, till it, scorch the existing seedbank, and start seeding on this newly blanked-out slate, you're still looking at two to three years to grow. Many of the seeds require an overwintering or two before they're ready to hatch and look all pretty or provide their natural functionality. Some require a couple of years after that before they achieve a noticeable position in the meadow. You can add containerized meadow plants from a nursery to help speed things up, but it would be quite expensive to get an entire "instant meadow" effect in the first season. A few groupings of some of your favorites will provide a little extra encouragement and help things along appearance wise, at least hinting at what's to come in a few years.

Appearance ~ and time ~ come in to the next caveat as well. During those initial years, as things sprout, grow a bit, or wait for a moment in the future to do their thing, the meadow is not going to be a place of story book beauty. To put it kindly, it will be a ragtag chaotic mess. While it might be easy to convince yourself it's worth the wait ~ and it is! ~ it might be harder to convince your neighbors or your homeowner's association. They might observe that you're sitting on your porch, using your lawn mower as a foot stool, a glass of cold ice tea in your hand, and watching a yard full of weeds grow more and more unkempt by the sip, and they might think that you're lazy, crazy, and/or a bit unkempt yourself. Talk to them first, let them know what you're doing, when possible show them pictures of meadows bursting with wildflowers so they know what's coming. Also, make sure they don't try to "assist" you with some stealth mowing ~ one mowing at just the wrong time, and, especially, at the wrong height can set the whole project back a year or more.

The whole "weed" angle presents another public relations opportunity. Although native wildflowers aren't likely to make the Most Wanted List of invasive weeds for a state ~ after all, they were there first and are considered the upstanding botanical citizens ~ they may not be seen in the same light by a homeowner, particularly one trained from a young age to accept as the status quo whatever exotics and invasives many nurseries will peddle. Then, for example, there's the folks who get ragweed up their nose and dislike that feeling, and in their sniffling and sneezing state, take their anger out on the innocent goldenrod. The showy goldenrod flowers at the same time as the drab ragweed, so it's quite easy and even understandable to point at the plant that's saying "Look at me!" and name it as the cause of all their misery. Cases like that ~ unlike those involving taste and perception of beauty ~ are easily handled by some additional education. To defend the goldenrod, you just need to explain that ragweed is pollinated by wind, thus the sneezy stuff floating up everyone's nose; goldenrod is pollinated by insect, hence, unless you're stuffing flowers or bumblebee legs up your nose, it's not what's making your nose run and your eyes water and so on and so forth.

The last caveat is the most dangerous one, and it's also the reason why I advise on the importance of that yearly "for-looks" mowing of the meadow area. That great healthy soil in a natural grasslands comes from all the plants that lived there and passed on in earlier seasons. That material is known in some circles as tinder.

Grasslands anywhere near homes or other structures should be mowed down to a nice, easy to absorb mulch every year. Allowing a grassland to go 100% maintenance free means you're leaving the brush control to a random spark. While this is how the system works in nature ~ and putting out bush fires actually halts a natural, helpful process ~ it's not really acceptable or natural to allow your house to be razed to the ground by a wildfire.

Keep a clear area around structures wherever possible, and keep an eye on brush buildup the increased fire risk involved.

The Grasslands are Endless
To really provide for the needs of wildlife, large grasslands ~ greater than 10 hectares ~ are what the PA Game Commission is recommending.

While I could get depressed that my tiny little acreage (barely meeting that definition, in fact) isn't enough to save grasslands species, owners of smaller plots of land can help by providing as much space for grasslands restoration as they can. The goal of large uninterrupted areas can be met by patching together grasslands on multiple properties with multiple landowners. We may care deeply about who owns what, but the seeds, bugs, and birds are less picky.

If you've got a plot of land here in northeast Pennsylvania, and you want part of it to help add grasslands habitat ~ or if you're a birdwatcher and realize that a meadow makes for a great birdfeeder ~ or if you have problems with water runoff or accumulation during storms ~ or if you just want to get some pretty wildflowers in a part of your yard, contact us. We can help you get started with a grassland, or tweak and maintain what's there!

PSA: Internet Concierge Services

2008-11-16T16:35:00.002-05:00

I've noticed a recent trend with some of calls I receive. A number of them have been robocalls, automated through an online concierge service. They ask a yes-or-no question, allegedly to establish a pre-initial contact point for a customer who would like services that I might offer.

I'm not going to speak out against such a service ~ or include myself on their do-not-call list (yet) ~ but I do want to offer some points of advice, both for those who use such a service and for those who run such a service.

I'll start with the latter group, as that can be seen as more rant-like, thus more entertaining.

First off, to be successful, you need to have businesses that will cooperate with you. Do this by appearing to be a professional service that allows customers to connect with businesses, and drop the service that provides for prank calling. A business who receives a robocall that is legitimate is not likely to let it get far enough to serve its purpose if they feel it's all just a joke. You're establishing a business model here, and offering a service that allows for prank calls doesn't make one apt to take your other services with any amount of seriousness. The question remains, as a business answering your call, is there an actual customer at the other end of the line?

Second, upgrade your technology. If it isn't capable of recognizing voice mail ~ which has been used in one form or another for significantly longer than your service has been in existence ~ it isn't capable of 1) providing value to your customers; or 2) being taken seriously by the business that has to wade through a wandering message that is clearly expecting direct feedback from someone who isn't there at the moment.

Third, consider outreach to the businesses prior to sending calls their way. Sure, some will refuse you, but they will later as well. If you can't charm your way into being used by businesses, how can you achieve your goals? A critical point to this outreach is this: how do you know what services I offer and, more importantly for my line of work, where? I have a defined service area that I will do most of my work in, but I do offer some services outside of that area. When I get a call from your service, how do I know they're not from New York or New Jersey? Both states aren't all that far away from me, outside of the 30 mile radius of my defined service area to be sure, but not far enough that mileage would exclude me from working there - interstate commerce, however, and laws regulating contractors in those states, does provide me with enough reason to rule them out, even when I would consider working at points within Pennsylvania that are much further away. How does your service gauge my service area? When I say I will be available to do a certain job, there's an awful big caveat that if you're in Port Jervis or Phillipsburg I will be declining the job. That doesn't make my company look good, but, really, it shows a weakness in your company for mismatching customer to business.

Of course, I don't know if your company is on the mark with that service area, or not. The reason for that is, while I've answered Yes to five or six calls for various services, I've never received a follow up call. While this isn't a large sample, it doesn't impress upon me that there are real customers behind the calls, or that it's worth my while to take the requests seriously.

And this brings us around to the customer: that of the concierge service, and, potentially, that of my business.

That is why I will answer the calls ~ I'm a fledgling business, and I'm in the early stages of building a client base. New leads are good things for me, and I'm not going to discard the potential for a good customer hiding behind a service that goes out and calls every competitor within who-knows how large a radius.

Keep in mind that, with a landscaping contractor, you're using the concierge service to whittle down choices of who is available at a given time. Keep in mind that a contractor who says they are available at a given point in time may not be available when you call back later. Certainly, in my case, I will respond honestly about whether or not I am available on day X to do service Y. I will not consider that an appointment, however, and in no way will I reserve the time slot based on the potential that you may choose to get back to me, out of all the other landscapers you posed the question to. The odds ~ maybe 50:1, maybe 100:1; who knows how many contractors the service will contact? ~ are not good.

Make no mistake, this may seem as if it provides a great benefit to the customer ~ call many companies to see who can do the service, and the cherry pick one from that group ~ but, realistically, how solid can that relationship be, and how much faith will the contractors have in that system to answer honestly, or hold a slot of time out of a busy day open for an unknown customer. If I had a name and a number, at least some level of commitment, I'd be happy to reserve a slot of time to make a site visit and discuss your situation, your wants and needs.

The best way to handle this is to recognize that answering Yes to a service like this is not a contract on the part of the responding business. Word your question in a slightly less restrictive manner ~ narrowing it down to a range of times rather than one specific day, recognizing that the first visit is not likely to involve completing the work and is to be for an estimate and requirements gathering, acknowledging that this is a first step in finding a range of potential contractors, and not a final selection. I'd be more than happy to say whether or not I do trail maintenance (yes!), snow plowing (yes!), or tree removal (no!); to say whether I'll work in New Ringgold (yes!), Effort (yes!), or Newark (not likely!); or even to say whether I am accepting new clients (yes!) or whether I offer a free initial estimate (yes!) or a free detailed design (no!)

This kind of technology does have its place, but given the current situation ~ and my experiences with one of the companies offering this service, in particular ~ it's got a long way to go before businesses take it seriously. And, without support by the businesses on the other end of the phone line, it doesn't work at all.

Of course, the best way to contact any business is to reach out to them through whatever means they make available ~ for Green Man Enviroscaping, the best method of contacting us is our contact form. With all our employees active in the field, getting though on the phone at all is a challenge ~ witness the concierge service's failed call: I was running a string trimmer at the time and simply did not hear the ring. An e-mail might have a delay to it, but you will still receive a response via e-mail or phone on the next business day at the latest. Perhaps it's not as quick as the response time promised by the concierge service, but it will be a lot more thorough, and will open up further lines for communication to the benefit of both parties involved.

Services Update

2008-11-16T15:01:00.003-05:00

We're half-way through November, and at times it is difficult to remember the season is still officially Autumn, and not yet Winter...

We've got snow in the forecast, although none on the ground yet, and it's still likely to be a bit before we get any that sticks around for a while.

We are accepting clients for plowing in the Lehighton, Jim Thorpe, and Palmerton areas. Remember to contact us before there's snow on the ground!

Until snow mats down the leaves and makes things really messy - and time consuming, thus expensive - we're still able to schedule leaf cleanup, shredding, and composting services.

We've been doing a lot of trail maintenance work over the last year ~ mostly string trimming along hiking paths, but also some heavier brush cutting and mowing work ~ and are looking to focus on those trail-related services we currently offer and expand further in this area. If you work or volunteer for a hiking trail maintenance group, non-profit organization, or are a landowner, we'd like to hear from you to learn what your needs are and to work with you on your trail establishment and maintenance.

We are now scheduling Spring cleanup, maintenance, and mulching services - commercial, residential, and estate properties. Please see our full list of services for more information on what we offer, and then contact us for an estimate.

Troubling Toll in Thoreau's Backyard

2008-10-28T23:37:00.002-04:00

An interesting article on Boston.com, Troubling Toll in Thoreau's Backyard, presents information about a scientific study on the species diversity of plants around Concord, MA, and about what's gone missing since Thoreau kept his records back in the 1850s

Without having seen the study, I find it hard to attest the entirety of this disappearance on warming - despite assurances that much of Concord's natural areas remain, well, natural, I know that development around that area, in particular, has occurred. Farmlands are buildings. The building I went to high school in was built in the early 1980s, so it certainly wasn't around when Thoreau strolled around Lincoln, the next town over from both Concord, where the study took place, and Lexington, where the school is.

As a commenter to the article brings up, what effects do those developments in those non-natural areas have on the temperatures in the natural areas? Heat island effects alter an environment, and that's not even getting into the rise of pollution through industrialization anywhere upwind or upstream.

While I tend to disbelieve anything in such a chaotic, nonlinear system as the environment, in its entirety, being modified, in isolation, by a single smoking gun, that is part of the behavior of such systems; small changes can have big effects. When there are a whole array of smoking guns - literally smoking, when you're talking some of the pollution sources - the dynamics are even more complex.

There is no one solution to protect and care for the environment - it takes the forensics team tracking down all those smoking guns, and the detectives finding out who's pulling the triggers, and the prosecutors bringing them to justice. While that analogy might be overly apt in some cases, by that I mean: it is important that scientists track down the different causes and the possible solutions to mitigate the problems.

One thing that any landowner can do to help is to restore as much of their property as possible to natural, native habitat.

Restoring forested and meadow landscapes, in place of large cleared areas and short-cropped lawns, can make a world of difference in that locale.

And those changes will also have an effect on the surrounding area.

~ ~ ~

We're about 300 miles from Lincoln and Walden Pond, but those same changes happening around Walden are happening here in Northeast Pennsylvania - farmlands and forests are disappearing, becoming houses and industrial parks, or, at least, they were doing so. Lately, it has slowed down a bit, to put it mildly.

I'm not actually against development. As a landscape contractor, that wouldn't be wise; there's a lot of work to be had in new development. As an environmentalist, I recall childhood imaginings of getting rich, buying up my whole town, and just letting it all revert to nature... Lucky for me, those two can be put together rather nicely, and work can be done to bring new developments into harmony with their natural surroundings.

Hey, I could invent a new catchphrase for just such a sustainable, natural lifestyle... I could call it "living deliberately." Hmmm... that sounds familiar for some reason...

What's a Little Fungus Among Us?

2008-10-25T13:25:00.005-04:00

Finding mushrooms in your yard is always a good sign that there's some healthy natural activity going on. The fungi that produce the mushrooms are following the three Rs: they are reducing, reusing, and recycling organic matter in the soil. The material they decompose then becomes available for other plants to take up as nutrients.

Of course, there are aspects that can be viewed as negative - some folks consider them unsightly (sure, some are really grotesque, but those ones are some of the most fascinating!) and they can, when unnoticed, cause someone to slip and fall. Because many mushrooms are poisonous, they can cause problems for small children who tend to put everything smaller than a compact car into their mouth. Those weekend-warrior mushroom experts who think they know what they're doing can also become greatly disappointed, perhaps fatally and at least uncomfortably so, to discover they're not quite as woods-wise as they had thought. That danger is one of the reasons I feel very comfortable treating them all as unidentified and inedible even though I know some are, allegedly, quite delicious.

What's all this leading up to? Technically, nothing to do directly with the company, but perhaps of interest to those who are interested in natural landscaping.

I (self-)published my first book, a collection of mushroom and fungi photography, all taken on my property here in Lehighton. The book is purely for visual enjoyment because, as mentioned, I'm only confident in the identification of one out of the many species that appear in its pages.

The book is available in a softcover, hardcover with jacket, and hardcover with image wrap. You can see a preview of the first fifteen pages at Blurb.com:

What's a Little Fungus Among Us?
Photography by Everett A Warren
Book Preview

The book has a companion calendar, featuring some of the images from the book, that is available on Zazzle.com:

What's A Little Fungus Among Us?

2008-10-05T16:24:00.003-04:00

Core Crewmember- now hiring!

Responsibilities include, but are not limited to, the following duties:
- Design: assist with design process, including measuring areas, testing soil and light conditions; provide design input, from initial feedback of opinion to the potential to grow into a design or architectural role
- Installation: soil preparation, digging, planting, maintenance tasks performed during installation
- Maintenance: power tool operation (including string trimmer, edger, walk-behind mower, chainsaw), pruning of trees and shrubs from ground or ladder, mulching, watering, area clean-up
- Other: basic equipment maintenance
Experience preferred but not required
Salary commensurate with experience
Specialist skills, such as tree climbing or stonemasonry, are welcome and will be put to use as possible ~ bonuses will apply to a higher wage when performing specialist tasks, with planned growth into a full time specialist position

Please respond via the Contact page ~ Thanks for your interest!

Web Update

2008-10-05T16:14:00.003-04:00

Updated the Services page to show the latest blog post for "Services", which will allow me to keep this updated much easier - just a quick post and *poof* the web page will show the latest info ~ much easier than writing the page and then copying it to the server!
Updated the News page to show only 3 of the latest blog posts.
Split and edited the PSA blog post from September 24 so the services information is in its own post for clarity on the current services.
Updated the Employment Opportunities page to work in a similar fashion to the Services page.

Prairie Grass Trail

2008-10-05T15:45:00.002-04:00

Yesterday we had the "rain day" for the LGNC work day, or the string-trimmer portion thereof.

In the spirit of good rain days everywhere, this one started off in a downright cold drizzle, but before I had to run back to the truck for more fuel, it had stopped and the rain jacket was proving too hot on the trail.

Three of us were able to trim the entire Prairie Grass Trail - most of which is in fairly good shape thanks to earlier efforts in July and August. Although trimming over a mile of trail takes effort, it's not without rewards. Although my eyes were most often focused on the grasses that grew on the trail or the rocks that made for careful choices for locations to place the next step, there were a few times I looked up to enjoy the early Autumn color of the trees or the fog rising on the side of the ridge ahead, obscuring the top where the Appalachian Trail runs. On the walk back, coyote tracks were spotted, and, at one point on the trail a bear run - looking more like a steamroller's passing - ran perpendicular to the trail. A couple of immature bald eagles were sighted - one moments before I arrived so I missed out on that, and the other when we were wrapping things up at the Osprey House.

There are two more work sessions to work on the habitat garden - one this Monday, the 6th, and the other Tuesday the 7th. I hope to be able to attend one or both sessions.

~ ~ ~

I've been volunteering my services (and, quite often, my son's) for the nature center for a few years now, and, once the company began, it was a natural choice (no pun intended) to have the company support that volunteering effort. I look forward to once again providing snowplow support for the trail access roads and parking lots this Winter, and to more trail work next year!

PSA: Audience Participation Landscaping!

2008-09-24T18:12:00.004-04:00

I've got a number of things to update, and a number of allegedly interesting and informative bits to write in here, but for now we'll go with some seasonal service information (EDIT: moved to its own post!) and a simple and immediate public service announcement:

Lehigh Gap Nature Center - work day Saturday, September 27, 9am-noon; if anyone wants to jump in and make trails with us, bring a string trimmer; if anyone wants to jump in for non-string trimmery stuff, there will be a group of folks working at the habitat garden by the Osprey House, and more volunteers are always welcome!

Services Update

2008-09-24T16:03:00.000-04:00

Autumn is officially here, and a few days old at that, and prime planting season is upon us. Autumn seeding is best done a bit later in the season - or back in August! - but container plants will still do well now. Bareroot plantings need to wait until after a good freeze or three kicks everything into dormancy, but now is still the time to plan and schedule this work.

We're also scheduling for Autumn cleanup - the lawn vacuum is up and running after technical difficulties late last year, and it's prepped to pick up and shred the leaves when they fall. We also offer a mulch refreshing service: the hose on the lawn vac pulls up the mulch - and leaves - and shreds them. We can then add the material to a compost bin for further processing or return it to the bed and top it off with more mulch. This service works well this season, to help provide some protection over the winter, or can be done as part of the natural refreshing of mulch in the Spring.

Now is also the time to schedule snow plowing services - we need to see the area to be cleared before snow falls on it, to protect your property and our equipment from obstacles that might hide under a few inches or more of snow. We can plow gravel drives as well as asphalt and concrete. We are currently bidding on commercial properties for plowing/snow blowing/shoveling. If there is an interest, we will investigate de-icing/traction products that are environmentally friendly.

We are now scheduling Spring cleanup, maintenance, and mulching services - commercial, residential, and estate properties. Please see our full list of services for more information on what we offer, and then contact us for an estimate.

Picking Your Battles

2008-08-01T16:27:00.002-04:00

It's a difficult balancing act. On one hand, you have an issue - a problem, an opportunity, a stumbling block, a challenge; whatever you decide to call it - and, on the other hand, you have a potential solution.

Not so tough, eh?

Things are seldom so simple.

Generally, you have another hand, and another potential solution. Maybe a fourth hand with ever more troublesome entanglements. Several hands come in with more solutions, and most of them include further complications and warnings should you attempt one of the more obvious resolutions. Many of the hands come with conditions: you must do all of several options or else you're not with us, and if you're not with us your against us.

Sides are invented, lines are drawn, and a whole bunch of people who should be working together wind up at each others throats while those who oppose them simply give a little push here and there.

Sometimes the environmental movement seems like that.

~ ~ ~

There are folks who cast doubt on the validity of the reasons for taking care of the natural world and helping it remain, well, natural. They often do so by questioning the level of commitment of an environmentalist.

"How can they be green if..."

Of course, it's even worse when it's infighting. Someone may have a perfectly good way to do something - say a more efficient solar cell - yet they have the landscaping at their facility handled by a typical mow-and-blow chemical-spray lawn service. While I'd really like them to give me a call, as we could definitely help them improve on a point or two, I wouldn't refuse to use a better product that would have a large impact in my energy costs.

In some ways you have to pick and choose what's important to you - do you want to cut costs slightly or do you want to invest a little now to save a lot later? Do you want artificial turf or do you want a wild and free meadow? I'm obviously slanting these examples just a wee little bit to make one seem more attractive than the other. The decisions we face everyday are seldom that easy.

~ ~ ~

One trade-off I make, and one battle line I choose not to draw is with gas powered equipment. I've read quite a number of articles on how zero-emissions electrical appliances are the only way to maintain your lawn and be kind to the environment.

Lets, for a moment, exist in a vacuum. We'll pretend that it doesn't take any emissions, any fossil fuels, or anything else to mold, cut, form, and assemble the actual equipment itself. At the least, we'll call the production costs roughly equal between, say, an electric mower and a gas powered mower.

Now, once we fire it up, that gas powered mower has exhaust in your face and a louder whine in your ears. The electric mower, lauded as a zero-emissions product, is much quieter - but still needs hearing protection for the operator - and there's no foul smoke in your face.

Of course, there's whole communities down wind and down stream from the coal that's burning to fuel that zero-emission experience.

I color the situation in my favor, of course. I prefer the pariah of environmentalism and the green movement, the workhorse of the green industry.

Why? What ever could I be thinking?

Well, aside from the issues I have with manufacturers and resellers inability to understand that "zero" needs to be "zero, zilch, nada, none" and not "shifted, relocated, not in my backyard", the power levels and capabilities of the equipment just aren't enough to make it work for me. Instead, I choose to make sure the gas powered equipment is properly maintained and running efficiently. Newer equipment is far more efficient - and quieter - than older pieces of similar gear. I use the exhaust fumes - in my face, not in those of some far removed, easily forgotten place on the other side of the power grid - to remind me to keep harping on manufacturers to do their part to make the products more efficient, more friendly in the manufacturing process, and a better thing all along. And if something better comes along, I will certainly consider it.

I'll be looking at larger and larger equipment over the next few years, as the company grows, and biodiesel - waste vegetable oil, actually; I have issues with the all-or-nothing approach that equates biodiesel with corn or any other single fuel source - will have a big part in that.

On that other hand, we do a lot of work with hand-powered equipment. Although a skid steer or track loader would have shaved days off of one project we worked on back in June, we managed it with good ol' fashioned wheelbarrows and shovels.

I've even toyed with the idea of picking up an unpowered reel mower - a much heavier duty model than those found in most stores - and if there was demand for it, I'd certainly offer unpowered lawn care. That would be a great option for those who wouldn't mind the higher labor costs, and would appreciate the lower noise levels. That's a battle I suspect most wouldn't want to get involved in, though, and so I choose to mark the line on a map for later strategic use.

~ ~ ~

There's plenty of other room in my own lifestyle for improvement, to make sure I "walk the walk" to go along with talking the talk.

This year, I joined a CSA - Community Supported Agriculture - at 14 Acre Farm (Summit Hill, PA). Not only do I get fresh, organically grown produce, I support a local business. That was something I'd been meaning to improve on for a long time, and I wish I had done it a year or so before when I first heard of it, and wish I had heard of it many years before!

In prior years, I've been responsible for planting things I later discovered were invasives. It happens! Most nurseries really play up the pest-free, beautiful appearances some of these things have while, deep in their roots, they scheme and plan on how to spread all over the place. After spending a few days plucking out multiflora roses from one nature preserve to tackling butterfly bushes, tree-of-Heavens, and Japanese barberry from another, I don't mind so much when a visitor accidentally tramples the butterfly bush I had planted a season or two before. I can kick myself for not knowing that years ago, when I planted another one that has, by now, escaped into the wilds of the near-Boston suburbs. I'm almost certain that seeds from it will escape and give the chemicals and sprays they use to maintain the nearby golf course a challenge. Now, as I mentioned, I can kick myself over those two I planted, or I can learn from it and never plant another one, and just move on.

I suppose that's really the point of picking your battles - you have to decide where battle lines will be drawn, and how dearly you want to hold onto them.

Over the next few years, I'll be making improvements to my own property - from some permeable patios to increasing the meadow, to adding a wildlife-supporting waterfall and stream to setting out an impressive retaining wall that supports a large, flat bit of less-than-friendly lawn. I rationalize that last one as an environmental improvement for the kids, although, truthfully, its fulfilling a commandment from my wife that I'm not allowed to take up the entire yard with woodlands and meadows...

I'm planning to harness some solar energy for landscape lighting and to power the water features - this is turning up a decided lack of fixtures and products, so I expect some things will have to be cobbled together, or handled in unexpected fashion. Down the line, I'd love to get the whole house solar powered, but until that happens, a propane-fired generator will be used to help keep things running when the grid goes down. Off-grid is good, but I don't see that happening for a while. As a landscaper, I want to make sure my own property reflects what I can do.

In some ways, it does do that now - it reflects what one can do on $100 to $200 a year for five years, which equals out to "not that much" and certainly not a showpiece of landscaping design. Then again, it shows that one battle line - literally a small trench - works well as the first stage in drawing excess rainwater away from foundations and sand mounds. It's even starting to show that certain plantings are thirsty enough to start reducing runoff and preventing it from heading downstream... which is to say, down the street into my neighbors basements.

~ ~ ~

The real battle I'm facing right now is much simpler - do I edit this down to one topic? I bounce around from example to example; a finely written piece of literature it's not. It presents possible weaknesses, especially when viewed by the more fanatical environmentalists - and their equally fanatical opposition - that can be used to show exactly how far from green I am.

But that's the whole point.

I do what I can, I figure out where I think I can make the most impact, what I can improve, and then I act on it. I make mistakes and then, with any luck, I learn from them. Through it all, I have the goal in mind: to make the world I live in a healthier one.

Greening Up The Garden

2008-07-10T00:31:00.002-04:00

In the nearly-too-late-breaking-news department, I will be giving a presentation - called "Greening Up The Garden" - at the Moravian Bookshop this coming Saturday, July 12, from 3 to 5pm.

Although I have a set agenda for the core of the presentation - a green agenda, of course! - there will be plenty of time for questions and hopefully I'll be able to provide a decent proportion of answers. I will be bringing along some of my favorite books on natural landscaping and native plants - and they've ordered in a bunch of them to have in stock - and those will provide jumping off points for further discussion.

I hope to see you there!

Web Update

2008-07-10T00:28:00.002-04:00

I updated GreenManEnvy.com - minor tweaks with major impact: added hardscaping to the list of services, removed the "don't do hardscaping" bit; added a more commercial-account friendly bit to the about page, removed the bit about accepting commercial accounts but not expecting them (that part never quite sounded right!); adjusted the employment opportunities page to reflect that we don't have an open position but would like to hear from folks anyway.

Added a photo gallery page (it was there, but only had the one truck shot and you could only get there from the old news item; now it's on the menu everywhere).

Added photos for two of the projects we've done recently, with before and after pictures for each one.

Expos and Anniversaries and More

2008-05-05T12:02:00.005-04:00

This past weekend we didn't get to the Great Green America Fest, however we did stop by Sugar Hollow Farms on Sunday for their Spring Expo. They had a nice gathering of vendors and contractors and other folks, and we browsed their supply of stone and pavers... I expect to be ordering some materials from them in the future.

I had a lot of good conversations with the folks they had in attendance - a long term project to get a generator installed on my own property made it a step or two closer to happening with one connection I made there. I also spent a while talking with the guys from Drop Zone Tree Works. As I had mentioned in an earlier post, I'm not ready to offer arborist services - and while I'm confident enough to drop a few of the trees I need to on my own property, there's a few hanging over the house (literally) and showing signs of bacterial wet wood (aka slime flux) to boot, so I'll be inviting them over to take care of a number of trees on my property.

Although it's often considered a typical sign of, say, an automotive mechanic to have a number of inoperable in-progress cars sitting in his driveway, it's also true that a landscaper's own yard often suffers. If it's not an experimental bed for new services, it's a victim of the "did that all day and it's time to relax" syndrome. My own yard isn't all that much different, and as it's the address for the company, that's not the best public front to set out there. With that in mind, I've got some big plans that will be unfolding during spare time over the next few years.

We recently celebrated our fifth anniversary in our house, and I figure that means we've got another 295 years to go before some of the earlier plans come into their full glory. One of the guiding theories I've used from the beginning, assisted by my wife's budgetary, erm, assistance, is to invest very little in money and make up for that in passing time. Planting seedlings - mostly bareroot twigs - is great for the wallet (some trees ring in at less than a dollar a piece), but I've been joking from the start that they'll look really great in 300 years. I'll be gearing up to get a few select trees in place that will start off somewhat larger - not all that much, as a small bareroot will, believe it or not, catch up and quite possibly surpass a larger specimen.

While trees - especially the eastern hemlock I favor - are the ultimate long-term planting, establishing a meadow also takes some time. This is really only our second spring - third if you count the first meek and mild attempt at scattering a few wildflower seeds around - with our own meadow, so it's still got another three years or so before it achieves the intended effect. I'll likely be beefing a little by adding in some larger specimen plants of some of the wildflowers, just to give it a bit of color while everything else develops along more natural courses.

The most obvious changes that will be occurring will involve some hardscaping - look for some permeable pavers, stone walls, and a few boulders to make their appearance sometime soon! We'll also be installing a front walk. After five years, it's long past time to replace those temporary slate stepping stones the builder - or realtor - puts out to keep prospective owners from tracking in mud.

As parts of those projects finish up, I'll be sharing the results on the company web site.