Well it’s been a while since I posted anything so I figured I’d just pop in and post a quick update.
After a long and fairly dry winter we are just starting to gear up for spring. We are getting all the lawn mowing equipment ready to go as well as our landscaping equipment.
The snowplows and salters are still on the trucks and they won’t be coming off till early April. You never know if winter has on last blast in store till at least April and while I wouldn’t mind on last snow storm I’m sure everyone else is looking forward to an early spring.
On final fun little note, Google street view just came online for Windsor and I am on it (check it out here). Yes I’m talking on my cell phone but don’t worry it’s before the ban went into effect. I actually saw the Google car a few times I just can’t remember where I was when I saw it other than this time.
Well that’s all for now and I’m going to try to remember to update this more often from now on.
It’s been a while since I posted something, our season has been really busy so far. Lots of people are taking advantage of the fact that landscaping services are all eligible for the Canadian Home Renovation Tax Credit.
Anyway here is another job we did, as you can see from this before picture the existing landscaping was very overgrown and out of control. I gave the homeowner a rendering of a much more cleaned up and simplified landscape which you can see here. We came in and removed all the old mulch and pea stone, we also removed quite a lot of the plant material, what trees and shrubs we did leave we trimmed up quite a bit to make them look more clean. We installed new cedar mulch in the top part of the bed then redid the wall dividing the top part of the bed from the bottom, in the bottom part of the bed we installed black granite stone fill. In addition we also put some new plant material including Wintergreen, Japanese Barberry, and Blue Star Juniper.
You can see the final result by clicking here.
I have just finished up a rather large landscaping job in south Windsor and I managed to remember to take pictures of the before and after states of the property.
The first picture shows what the job looked like at the very beginning before we started doing any work.
The second picture is the digital rendering I did when i gave the home owner the quote for the job.
The third picture is the finished product.
We installed a mulch bed around the perimeter with pea stone and a flagstone patio in the center. The homeowner wanted something done a little differently with the flagstone patio than normal, they wanted some ground cover type plants to grow in the cracks, so we put black earth in the cracks between the stones instead of sand then we placed creeping thyme seeds into the soil this will create the nice green fill they wanted and provide a pleasant scent when people walk on it. The portfolio page has some more pictures of this job and shows the finished landscaping from several angles.
We just finished our first patio install of the year, it was only 5′ X 8′ however it still has to be done properly in order to last.
That means digging down between 10″-12″ then tamping the base with a power tamper, after that you have to fill in with screenings to between 8″-10″ then wet and tamp the screenings with a power tamper. The screenings will compact about an inch then you add sand up to an inch or so, this part requires some adjustment in the field because it depends on the thickness of the patio stones you are using, you want to make sure that after you install the patio stones they will be level with the existing surface. Lightly tamp the sand with a hand tamper then put down the stones in. If you are using interlocking pavers you would run a tamper over them after putting some lose sand on top, however with cement patio stones you can’t tamp them as they would shatter into a million pieces so you just have to stomp them down.
After you sweep some loose sand into the cracks, voila, you have yourself a new patio that will last for years.
Today we did our first job, it was just a simple cleanup but it’s still nice to get back into the outdoor work. I was hoping for a little more snow before the end of winter but oh well. I’m sure everyone else is glad the snow is done for this winter.
So now is the time to cleanup your yard before all your perennials start to emerge. Lightly rake your beds to remove the dead leaves and whatever other debris has built up over the winter. Also cut down any of your ornamental grasses to ground level and any other perennial plants that have died back.
This is also a good time to rake your grass with a good stiff leaf rake to remove any excess thatch that has built up. It will also help to make the lawn recover faster from the winter.
Well I got my first quote for ‘09 on Belleperche in Windsor, thanks to Adrian for the referral. I used a new program to edit a picture of the house and add my design to help the home owner visualize what the finished landscaping will look like.
This is the original picture (click for larger image):
And this is what it looks like after editing with the landscape design program (click for larger image):
Now we just have to wait till spring to get started!
I uploaded pictures of a couple of the jobs I did last year. I kept forgeting to take before pictures and some I just neglected to take pictures of period. I’m going to try to be more on the ball about that this year. Anyway head on over to the portfolio to check them out.
Landscaping, Lawn Care, Personal, Random, Snow Removal | admin | 
March 8, 2010 12:37 pm | 
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