It is important to winterize your irrigation system. It is just as important to maintain the your irrigation system during the spring. You want your irrigation in tip top condition for the entire season going into summer. This post is going to give you a step by step guide how to give your irrigation system proper maintenance during springtime. Continue reading
Are you looking for a way to add a little extra something to your landscaping scheme? There’s really no better addition or way to refresh your property than with pavers. Pavers are precast masonry blocks. Pavers are the alternative to pouring concrete, using hot asphalt. or using clay bricks. Pavers are used mainly to create pathways and driveways for the most part. But if you have vision pavers can become part of a landscaping oasis. Pavers can be found in sandstone, granite and clay. The use of pavers is becoming a hot trend. They are not only affordable, they are safe with a non-skid surface, versatile and come in a wide array of colors and styles.
There are so many positive aspects to using pavers. Price is just one. Once they’ve been installed, homeowners can relax and enjoy the product as they are virtually maintenance free and extremely durable. You can also use a waterproofing agent to seal it from weather and retain the beauty of the stones. Concrete pavers are four times more durable than poured concrete while still withstanding the elements of Mother Nature. These pavers can easily take the freeze and thaw conditions of typical winters and will not crack. They are also flexible and allow for movement.
If you’re planning a springtime landscaping job or if you want a makeover for your property, there are many recent landscaping trends you should consider.
1. Game Courts - The cost of travel has many people either vacationing close to home or actually vacationing at home. This is a great opportunity to install some extra features on your property. A common extra are game courts. Adding a shuffleboard deck, tennis court, mini-golf course, or basketball court is a great landscaping idea and keeps the family active.
New Jersey is a gorgeous state. It is especially beautiful during early spring as the leaves on the trees start to come out and flowers start to bloom. Some places look like a lush green paradise. Trees are magnificent things that give back in so many ways. This post is going to highlight 10 of the best growing trees in the state of New Jersey.
Are you building a patio on your home? Do you already have a patio but you are unhappy with its look? Are you seeking a way to make your patio stand out by creating a center focal point? One way to create a warm, inviting atmosphere on your outdoor patio is the addition of an outdoor firepit. Firepits are said to be the number one request for landscaping schemes by the American Society of Landscaping Architects.
One of the biggest benefits of adding a firepit is the fact that it makes your patio usable at night. Typically, once the sun goes down, it is too difficult (and chilly) to stay outside on a patio, so outdoor activities have to be moved inside. However, using a firepit to create a warm environment can allow you to have outdoor dinner parties in the evenings or grill out even at night.
Last year, as you’ve read (and read, and read….), was a year for weather upheavals. I was so looking forward to starting the new growing season on a new topic, but here in the Northeast, Mother Nature is toying with us again.
St. Patrick’s Day 2012 was a picture-perfect day in Northern Jersey, and I took the opportunity to get started on cleaning up my perennial garden and getting it ready for the new season. Now, perennials have a habit of teaching us something new every year, even when we are seasoned gardeners. This spring is no exception. Due to an extremely mild winter with a cold snap in the middle, nature can’t quite figure out if it’s coming or going. I saw bulb flowers sprouting and trees budding in February, only to be slapped by by a short shot of frost. Fortunately the cold didn’t linger long enough to do any real damage, at least from what I’ve seen, the plants seem to be recovering quite nicely.
Weather. We can predict it fairly accurately, but we can’t control it. We often have a mix of seasons, some wild and some mild, thank goodness, so we can at least shake ourselves off and move on to the next one. But not this year. As I look back on 2011, I’m amazed at all of the weather records that were broken in New Jersey.
Record snowfalls for the northeast left us hungry for spring.
‘Tis the season for celebrating. ”Happy Holidays” has long been our social mantra, encompassing Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, the winter solstice, and even the fictional Festivus. I’m sure there are other holidays, both religious and secular, in the mix as well. My upbringing focuses on Christmas, and since I am not intimately familiar with any of the other celebrations listed here, I would not dare to write about them lest I say anything to minimize their importance; it’s not a matter of political correctness, but rather a respect for that which matters to someone else.
That being said, all of us at Horizon Landscape Company share the same wish for our clients, vendors and readers – that the peace, love, hope and joy of Christmas surrounds you, and that the coming year brings you good health and happiness. It doesn’t matter what your gender or race are, what religion you ascribe to, or your political persuasion – the sentiment is the same. You are important to us, we thank you for your trust in us, and we wish only good things for you.
As I look out of our office window at the poor mum plants that were damaged by the early snow of October 29 and see new growth popping out due to the unusually mild weather for mid-December, it’s hard getting my thoughts together about winter. But Mother Nature is out there, waiting patiently to slam us again soon, and we would be wise to get ready. If you use a snow removal service, you should already have your contracts in place. If not, you should be having your snowblowers serviced, buying your shovels, hats and gloves, and stocking up ice melting products, the most familiar of which is that ancient mineral, salt.
Inside a Kansas salt mine
Christmas is just around the corner, although thanks to advertising and retail stores, you’d think it’s been here for months. I saw my first Christmas decorations in our local Walgreen’s store the week before Halloween. It really did bother me a bit, rushing the season like that, but when we got hit with a freak snowstorm on October 29 I simply threw my hands up in surrender.
So, here it is two weeks before Christmas, and I am woefully unprepared as usual. It was so much easier to prepare for the traditional festivities when my children were younger, mostly because their enthusiasm was infectious and they wanted to help with everything. Now that they are grown, I find that I procrastinate my preparations almost to the point of not being ready at all.
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day, a treasured and truly revered American holiday. It is a time when we gather to give thanks for all the good things the year has brought. It is that magical time of year when some of the most outrageously wonderful foods find their way to our tables, thanks to hardworking hands and generous hearts. And it is, most likely, the last chance to breathe before the onslaught of the frenzy that surrounds Christmas.
Last year, a new ‘tradition’ was born, filling the gap between Black Friday and Cyber Monday, a little gem called Small Business Saturday, sponsored by American Express. As a small business in Wyckoff, NJ, I appreciate the fact that there are people who think so much of us and businesses like ours that they are willing to organize a day to promote what we do. From a selling perspective, it really doesn’t help Horizon Landscape directly, since it targets retail shops, but keeping our local retail stores in business helps our local economy, which in turn, helps us to keep our doors open. It’s just a little link in the big business food chain, but a vitally important one.
Finally, the day that everyone has been talking about all year has arrived – 11/11/11. So in honor of this auspicious day, I thought it might be fun to make a list of 11 things to smooth your transition through the winter and into next spring. Most of the tips are for your lawn and landscape, but I threw in a few other pre-winter household helps as well.
It’s October 28, and believe it or not, we are in a winter storm watch for the weekend. According to the latest forecast, we’re going to get 2 to 4 inches of snow in Wyckoff Saturday afternoon, and another possible 1 to 2 inches overnight into Sunday.
After record breaking heat in July, and days upon days of rain, including Hurricane Irene, many of us in the Northeast are wondering where Autumn is. We had a peek of it – the leaves are turning, the air has been beautifully crisp for about a week. A whole week. Wow. And now we’re getting the white stuff.
A very good question, indeed. For a number of years, I worked as the Irrigation secretary here at Horizon, and one of my duties was to contact any of our customers at the end of the season who had not winterized their sprinkler systems. I had a number of clients over the years who never winterized the sprinklers ever, and never had a problem. These were the ones who would ask me what the point of winterizing was, besides giving us a reason to bill them for a service call. They were also the ones who never had a clue just how fortunate they were.
It's important to get all the excess water out of your sprinkler system before freezing temperatures hit.
Today’s blog title is a quote from Aaron Rose. It was the first quote that struck me when I thought about writing a piece on low voltage lighting, and this simple statement really says it all.
Outdoor lights create mood and drama.
…… goodnight Irene. I’ll see you in my dreams.” Huddie Ledbetter
Irene just as she made landfall in the Carolinas
Hurricane Irene has now come and gone in the Northeast, but her aftermath will be with us for months to come. Our thoughts and prayers are with all who are dealing with flooding and personal loss, and our deepest sympathies go out to the families of those whose lives she took.
One of the drawbacks to being in the landscape and lawn care industry is that we are constantly caring for living, breathing things. This is a good thing for us, since we are never without something to do during the growing season. But it also requires us to have a great deal of knowledge on a wide range of subjects, from the proper feeding and watering requirements of grass and trees to keeping insects and diseases at bay. Fortunately, we are not alone in these endeavors – we have many reliable and knowledgeable partners to help us find answers when needed.
One of our partners is the Rutgers Cooperative Extension, which is also the home of the Office of the NJ State Climatologist. In the most recent edition of their Plant and Pest Advisory publication, David A Robinson, the NJ State Climatologist, wrote a wonderful article regarding our July 2011 heat. I thought it was a subject you might like to know more about, so here are some excerpts:
One of the most common questions we have been hearing the last few weeks is, “Why does my lawn look so terrible, and how are you planning on fixing it?” As much as those of us in the lawn maintenance industry like to feel in control of the animal known as your lawn, the reality is, there are some things we can do very little about.
A drought-stressed lawn.
So, what does the blog title have to do with landscape, irrigation or lawn maintenance, you ask? Not a darn thing. But after 5 months of blogging and blog comment administration, I just simply couldn’t help myself.
The Horizon Landscape Company blog became active on March 1, 2011. As a new blogger, I had an awful lot to learn about how blogging works, how to write to stay interesting and timely, and how to get your blog out to internet land so that it can be found. By the time we went live I was reasonably prepared for all of that – I already was comfortable with the written word, and sought advice from some wonderful professionals. What I wasn’t prepared for was the amount of spam that I would be receiving daily.
July is Smart Irrigation Month, and a perfect time to reassess the efficiency of your lawn sprinkler system. If you have been thinking about making some changes to your sprinklers because of alterations to your property or if your system is older and not equipped with some of the newest water saving features, you may be able to benefit from a full assessment from your sprinkler system service company. Horizon Landscape Company is running a promotion this month in honor of Smart Irrigation Month, and no doubt, other irrigation companies are as well.
According to statistics provided by the NJ Watershed Ambassadors Program, each person uses about 100 gallons of water per day at home. At least 50 percent of a household’s water usage goes into lawn watering. Smart irrigation is not only a good economic choice, but a wise environmental one as well.
| Today | Saturday | Sunday |
|---|---|---|
 Clear 72°/46° | Clear 79°/54° |  Partly Cloudy 77°/55° |
I have been a part of the Horizon Landscape team since 1992, and consider it a privilege to be asked to write our blog posts. I'd love to hear from you, and welcome your comments and suggestions as to what you'd like to read about. If you have any questions about Horizon Landscape and the services we provide, please feel free to email me using the icon below.
