South Eastern Connecticut Landscaping

Author: greenfairy

Posted: Mon May 23, 2011 5:21 am (GMT 0)

once again, i am back. i just returned from an unexpected holiday. went on a visit to dubai to be with my grandson. and i enjoyed my stay there, for 3 weeks. we visited a few places in the limited time my son could manage with his job. and easter came in between, so that was an experience too.

it is amazing the amount of work they put in to make the desert lush with green lawns, colourful petunia beds, and date farms in and around the city. there are a lot of nurseries selling all sorts of plants. my son picked up a bonsai from one of them in the outskirts. let me post some of the pics.

greens & colours in the desert! ( photo / image / picture from greenfairy’s Garden )

in front of hotel atlantis in palm jumeira ( photo / image / picture from greenfairy’s Garden )

hotel atlantis – palm jumeira ( photo / image / picture from greenfairy’s Garden )

fronds of the palm – jumeira ( photo / image / picture from greenfairy’s Garden )

inside the aquarium – swimming with the sharks! ( photo / image / picture from greenfairy’s Garden )

as tall as the tallest building! burj khalifa ( photo / image / picture from greenfairy’s Garden )

desert safari. ( photo / image / picture from greenfairy’s Garden )

a roundabout – huge circle around wich the traffic flows ( photo / image / picture from greenfairy’s Garden )

the bonsai ficus ( photo / image / picture from greenfairy’s Garden )

anthurium inside a mall ( photo / image / picture from greenfairy’s Garden )

outskirts – on the way to fujeira rocky hills all around ( photo / image / picture from greenfairy’s Garden )

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Pressure Wash Driveway: Your Clean Road at Home

You can be meticulous with raking your leaves, trimming your grass and keeping your garden beautiful, but there are some parts of your outdoor areas that you really don’t have a lot of control over. For example, the paved areas tend to get dirty and grimy over time no matter how frequently you sweep or use a garden hose.

You may ask what is the solution for cleaning dirty concrete, cement or asphalt paths and patios? Frequent hosing is more likely to cause mold, moss and mildew to grow than to make those surfaces look really great. For a deeper clean you could get down on your hands and knees and scrub the whole area but that would require a huge amount of time and physical exertion.

Happily there is a much simpler and very effective way you get these areas clean as they can be; you can pressure wash your driveway and other paved areas. The process is simple and gives great results.

Of course in order to pressure wash your driveway you are going to have to get a pressure washer. You will need a pretty strong one, so many of the smaller home versions might not deliver the results you are looking for. You want to find a pressure washer that sprays with at least 3000 psi. This high pressure is strong enough to lift the types of dirt and stains that you are trying to get rid of.

For the type of sludgy, oil stain dirt your car can leave behind, a hot water pressure washer is what you will need to handle the job. Some of your stains may be so bad that you will need to use a cleaner to pre-treat them. You can also use a cleaning solution for the whole surface if it is very dirty or you want to get it extra clean.

It is important to cover the entire surface as you pressure wash your driveway since any little spot that you miss will be obvious once the area has dried. For a very dirty surface you may want to go over it all twice. The first run through can loosen up the dirt and it can be washed away in the second go.

You will be pleased with the look of your newly pressure washed driveway. However, keep in mind that from the moment you finish getting it clean it will start collecting dirt and grime again. For this reason it is a good idea to consider sealing it again to protect the surface from future stains and make your next cleaning session easier.

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I have always found the bathroom to be one of the most difficult rooms to decorate because of the unique atmosphere, and I am not just talking after taco night.

The bathroom is hit with a high amount of humidity on a daily basis. We use hot water to take our showers, some people have laundry facilities in the bathroom, and my little kids love their bath time. The steam covers the walls with little droplets, and more than a little water gets sloshed out of my children’s bath and onto the floor and walls.

You need to take this into account when decorating a bathroom. You can’t put up some random paint or wallpaper and expect everything to go according to plan. Here are some of the biggest pitfalls with bathroom decorating.

Water: When you have small children, bath time is more than just their time to play. It’s also quiet time for Mommy and Daddy. They splash water all over the floor and around the tub. If you have any fabric or paper decorations, then they will get soaked. I once had a fabric covered Kleenex box… well, not any more.

Untreated wood or wood that has been cut may begin to rot because of the barrage of water. I once made the mistake of cutting a vent hole into a sink cabinet. A few months of daily splashing later, and the wood began to soften and rot where the water hit the untreated part of the wood. I ended up getting a new cabinet.

Humidity: Hanging wallpaper in areas of high humidity is a difficult job. The problem isn’t putting up the wallpaper. It’s putting it up again and again because of the peeling from humidity. Standard wallpaper that you would put up in a living room isn’t meant for humidity. The glue that holds it to the wall can heat up and soon, panels start peeling. Make sure the wallpaper you buy is rated for use in the bathroom.

It’s also not a good idea to use a cheaply made water-based latex paint for the bathroom. The humidity can break down the paint, and soon you have pieces chipping off and peeling left and right.

Mold: The most disgusting and potentially most dangerous problem about decorating in the bathroom is the spread of mold. Mold loves warm, damp places, and there is no better place in the home for mold growth than the bathroom. It can start growing up your walls, around the crevices of your tile and on rotting wood. You can help solve the problem by using paint that discourages mold growth and by occasionally cleaning the bathroom with a water-bleach mixture. The bleach kills the mold, but be careful. Inhaling the bleach fumes can cause severe respiratory problems.

The bathroom can be a beautiful place, but make sure that you take the proper precautions, or else you could end up with a watery mess.

Image Source: flickr.com/photos/ms-ito/2543809132

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Do it for the bees!

You can go bare footed or bare skinned if you want to, but, I want you to show a little bare ground for the bees! Seriously, our native ground nesting bees nest in bare soil; so, show some soil!

leaves over bare ground are fine, too.

It’s possible that a heavy mulch may discourage bees from tunneling in your garden. Especially, mining bees. They are super important critters for spring and early summer pollination; critters you don’t want to discourage.

Green Metallic Sweat Bees are ground nesters, too.

I’m not saying don’t mulch! Mulch is good. Just remember that, too much of a good thing means no bare ground for our friends the ground nesting bees. Find a sunny area in your garden that you can leave mulch free or, if bare ground is too exposed, add a light layer of leaf mulch.

Beds are mulched with leaves, paths with pine straw over newspaper

Trust me~You want these bees in your garden! Mining bees are more efficient than honeybees for the amount of pollination they deliver per bee. Add to that the decline in honeybees due to Colony Collapse Disorder and miner bees become even more important to our gardens and agriculture.

There are just over 1,400 hundred species of Mining bees in North America. Mining bees (or Andrenid bees) resemble the typical honeybee in shape and size. Bodies are colored dark with fine light brown or yellow hairs. Mining bees are solitary bees and do not live in socially organized nests. Like the Green Metallic bee and other sweat bees, mining bees nest underground and frequently choose to live in a ‘neighborhood’ of other ground nesters. If you see one bee tunnel, you may see several.

Source: How Things Work

Each female mines out a cylindrical hole to raise offspring. The nest consists of a vertical tunnel and side cells along side the tunnel for hatching eggs. Females forage flowers in spring to buildup food reserve to raise the young. Once a cell has adequate food reserves, the female deposits an egg. The hatching larva feeds on the food reserves throughout the summer. Foraging activity generally lessens during the summer months and the bees become less noticeable. Mature larvae pupate and transform in adults during the late summer. Adults spend the winter inside the burrow and will emerge the following spring to start the whole cycle over. (source The Bee Man)

pine straw laid over newspaper

I mulch! Here in the Middle South we are fortunate to have plenty of pine straw and that’s what I use on the paths throughout C and L. But, all the beds are mulched with leaves. It’s good for bees and other critters.

...and one more thing~Ixnay on the plastic or fabric weed barriers. It’s not good for anything!

xxoogail

PS I trust you already know that pesticide is a No-No!

This post is part of a series on native pollinators in the garden~ Earlier posts and their links are listed below for your convenience.

Part I~Now Is The Time To Bee-gin Thinking About Bees ( here)
This Is The Place To Bee ( here)
If You Could Plant Only One Plant In Your Garden~Don’t (here)
Must Bee The Season of The Witch (here)

Other bee posts you might want to read~
Count Yourself Lucky To Have Hoverflies (here)
Bumblebee Hotel (here)
Still Taking Care Of Bzzness (here)
My Sweet Embraceable You (here)

This post was written by Gail Eichelberger for my blog Clay and Limestone Copyright 2011.This work protected under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Please contact me for permission to copy, reproduce, scrape, etc.

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It’s easy for me to sit here day after day and tell you about how to put in sump pumps or replace a furnace, but the fact is that all of this stuff takes money. The tools and parts and even time means money in this day and age, and if you have a major improvement such as roof shingles, then you need to know how to pay for it.

Home repairs and improvements can cost anywhere from under $100 to over $10,000, depending on the size of the project. There are pros and cons to each way, and you need to choose the one best for you.

1. Saving over time: This is always the best way to do it, because it doesn’t require you to pay money back, and there isn’t any interest. If you have a low cost repair or one that doesn’t need to be done for several months, then you can create a budget and save the money for the repair.

2. Credit cards: Ugh, if there were a way I could eliminate credit cards from this Earth, then I would. They have outrageous interest rates, and it’s easy to get overwhelmed. Credit cards should only be used as a last resort. If you have an emergency repair, then you may need to use the credit card, but pay it back as soon as possible. The last thing you want is to get mired in credit card debt and interest payments.

3. Loans: The banks will generally have lower interest rates than credit card companies and a stricter payment schedule. There are three main loan types that can be used for home repair: personal, home equity and home equity line of credit. A personal loan is simply a loan provided by the bank. They take into account your credit score and any collateral you may provide. These loans tend to be smaller, since the bank’s risk is higher. These are ideal if you rent your home or if do not have much equity built up in your home.

Home equity loans are a lot like personal loans, except they use the equity in your home. If you take how much your house is worth and subtract the amount left on your loan, then that’s the equity. Depending on how much equity you have in your home, the loan can be as much as 80 percent of the total equity, so $60,000 or more depending on the value of the home. In many ways, this is similar to a second mortgage. There is a single lump sum payment and then a set payment plan with a start and end date.

Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC) is like a large-scale credit card with a little better interest rate. The equity is used to decide how much of a revolving line of credit will be available to you. It’s basically like a credit card, where you are only charged for the amount of money you take out, and once that it paid back, with interest, the money is available again. This is good if you plan on spreading repairs out over several months or years. You don’t need a lump sum; instead, you have access to smaller sums over a long period of time.

There are pitfalls with loans involving home equity. If you default on the loan, the bank has the option of foreclosing on the property. You could be completely up to date with your mortgage payment, but still find your home being foreclosed on because of the secondary loans. This is usually a last resort for banks because the primary loan, i.e. the mortgage, must be paid first, and any money left over will go to the secondary loans.

4. Grants: You should check with your local state representatives or even home improvement stores and ask if there are any local, state or federal grants available. You can also check the website for Federal Housing and Urban Development. Grants are good, because they don’t have to be paid back. HUD also has access to low-interest loans for improvement, as well.

Paying for home improvements is never easy, and you always wish the money could go for something else. The hard fact is that no matter how much you love your home and take care of it, there will be a time when something goes wrong.

Image Source:flickr.com/photos/djlicious/2497052527/

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On Monday while all three of my children were napping at the same time (that is a major feat!) I spent some time preparing some cuttings. Until Monday I really haven’t had many opportunities to get outside and garden. The weather has been too cold and with my youngest, who doesn’t seem to like taking naps during the day, I haven’t been able to do much!

Since the historic napping was in progress I went out to the garage to prepare some hardwood cuttings. All the cuttings were about 6-8 inches in length and all of them were treated with rooting hormone prior to sticking. There are two differences between what I did on Monday and what I usually do. First you may notice that I used a soil mixture rather than sand. Why? It was close at hand and I had more of it. It’s also lighter and contains nutrients that plants will need right after rooting. The second difference is that I placed all the cuttings into bundles and stuck them together. Bundles are an easy way to do many cuttings at one time. Each pot pictured below holds 10-15 cuttings! Two of the pots have already rooted lilacs that I divided from a mother plant and one pot holds three hardwood lilac cuttings. 

Schip Laurel, Cherry Laurel, Butterfly Bush, Leyland cypress, Purple Leaf Sandcherry, Lilacs

By using the bundles I can make many cuttings in small amount of space! Now I just need to wait and see how many root. It may be spring before I separate the rooted plants but for now they are safely resting in the garden shed!

The answer to yesterday’s Guess post was the Cherry Laurel! Prunus caroliniana

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For those of us who have fireplaces and chimneys in our homes, we are left with an interesting conundrum every holiday season. What is proper chimney etiquette for when Santa comes climbing down? The last thing we want to do is make Old Saint Nick angry by leaving a few hot coals overnight and lighting Santa’s pants on fire. He’s no liar, after all.

Here is the proper chimney etiquette for when Saint Nick comes calling on Christmas Eve:

Needless to say, no fires. It might be nice to sit next to the fire and cuddle with the kids over hot cocoa with those little marshmallows. Unfortunately, it’s not so good for the jolly fat man. Santa Claus likes the natural fibers like cotton and reindeer fur and hasn’t quite gotten the concept fire-retardant clothing. If Santa comes down a chimney that is fully engulfed in fireplace flam age, then he’s going to go up like tinder, and you will have officially ruined Christmas for millions by roasting Santa Claus. Hopefully, he’ll notice the smoke and not even try.

Keep the chimney open. With no fire, it’s tempting to close the flue to keep the cold air out. Santa’s a big guy, and no amount of Christmas magic short of Weight Watchers is going to make it easy for him to slip down that chimney in the first place. But if you close the flue, then Santa’s going to come to a complete stop, and then what? It’s embarrassing, but the reindeer will have to throw down a rope and pull him out. Santa won’t hear the end of it for years, especially from that jerk Prancer. Pretty soon, the whole North Pole will be brimming with the gossip that Santa had to be pulled out of a chimney.

Keep the chimney free of rodents and other animals. If you don’t use your chimney regularly, then animals such as mice, bats and raccoons can make their homes in it, and that could spell disaster for Santa. Imagine this scenario: Santa goes down the chimney and meets a family of raccoons, and being the jolly man that he is, he smiles and tries to pet the little baby raccoon. (He’s Santa! It’s what he does.) Next thing you know, Santa Claus is screaming in pain because raccoons are trying to scratch his eyes out. One bite and Santa’s got hepatitis, and imagine trying to explain that one to Mrs. Claus.

Keep the little things in mind this Christmas to make it safe, not only for you and your loved ones, but also for Kris Kringle.

Image Source: flickr.com/photos/caveman_92223/4212560970

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Here in Illinois, it gets so cold in the winter that even Jack Frost gets frostbite, and when the wind blows, there’s a chill is in the air no matter how good your heat is. This is especially true if you have an older home without modern insulated windows. There are things you can do to your home to help winterize and keep things warn during the cold winter months.

I once moved into an apartment during summer and was enamored with the patio-balcony I had that was right off the living room. My wife and I could go outside and sit on the balcony and watch the sun set every night. It wasn’t so cozy when winter hit.

The giant sliding doors and open field across from us created a draft that no amount of electric heat could have fixed. We had the thermostat up to 90, and it never got above 55.

If you have drafty windows and doors that you don’t use, then you can purchase plastic sheeting to cover them during the winter. The plastic keeps the wind out, but I suggest stapling as well as taping it down. Glue combined with weather causes the tape to not adhere, and soon, your cozy love nest is once again an arctic tundra.

Another option is closing off a part of the home that you don’t use. My sister bought a giant two-story home several years ago and found that it was too big for her family. The cost of heating it during the winter along with the difficulty in heating the second story causes them to live on the bottom floor during the winter. They taped up all the upstairs’ vents, shut all the doors and lived in the downstairs bedrooms. When the weather warmed up, they started living upstairs again.

If you are still cold despite these winterizing techniques, then you can supplement your heat with portable space heaters. This used to be a major fire hazard, but with the latest safety standards, there is little chance of fire unless you do something like leave paper next to it.

If you have older children or no children, then an electric heater is best, because it creates a large amount of heat. But it’s also very hot and can burn small children who may be attracted to the color of the heated coils.

If you have small children, then an oil heater is a safer alternative. These resemble a radiator and are filled with heating oil. The oil is heated, and then the room is heated by the ambient heat. They still get hot, but not nearly as hot as the electric coil variety. However, they do not produce as much heat.

These simple tips can make the winter months bearable until the spring comes calling in several months.

Image Source: flickr.com/photos/stuartpilbrow/3087691787

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The watchword these days seems to be green everything. The cars are greener; the grass is greener, but only on the other side; and heating systems are greener. What? You haven’t heard of a green heating system? You thought you were stuck with the standard gas or electric options?

If you are thinking about building or remodeling your home, then try a geothermal heating system to keep the costs and your carbon footprint down.

A home-sized geothermal heating system will cost you about twice the regular amount of the gas and electric alternative, but will more than make up for the cost over time. It is a bit construction intensive, though. It starts with a system of pipes that are placed underground below the frost line, where the temperature is constant.

The pipes are connected to a fan in the home that sucks in the air and circulates it through the pipes and then blows back into the home. The key is the temperature in the underground piping. Let’s say the temperature outside is -10 degrees. The air gets sucked into and runs through the underground pipes, where the ambient temperature in the ground warms it to the temperature of the ground about 60 to 65 degrees.

The reverse is true in the summer. If it is 100 degrees out, then the pipes will cool the air to the ambient temperature in the ground. The constantly cool air is circulated though the home. The only cost is the electricity of the fan.

You should always have a smaller backup heating and cooling unit for those days when it is too hot or cold and it needs that extra boost. Geothermal heating systems are becoming popular in new-home construction because they have a much smaller carbon footprint than electric and natural gas furnaces, and are actually healthier in the long run.

The air that circulates is not flash heated in a furnace, so the moisture is not taken out. As someone who suffers from sinus infections easily, I wake up most days during the winter with a sore throat and a congested nose. That wouldn’t happen with a geothermal unit.

You can boost your efficiency by having large windows to capture the sunlight and concrete floors to absorb the heat and cold. Everyone wants to be green, and geothermal is about as green as you can get without living in the wild.

Image Source: flickr.com/photos/thinkgeoenergy/4553405115

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Installing a new mulch bed sounds simple enough of a job until you are presented with such a job and have never done it before. Then you start to think about all the different ways you could go about doing it and then wonder to yourself, which way is best and will take the least amount of effort so as to maximize your profit. That is what one business owner was wondering when he wrote on the Gopher Lawn Care Business Forum “I have a job tomorrow to put in a new mulch bed. Do I need to remove the sod or can I just put down weed barrier over the grass? Any ideas, I don’t have any big equipment to remove sod. Just my hands and a shovel.”

One lawn care business owner replied “I will tell you from experience, if you do not want to go back to fix anything after the job is complete, you need to get rid of the sod first. You don’t want anything in the way of successfully performing the job. Take out the sod then lay your barrier and lay in the mulch. Charge the customer for all work done including sod removal.

A second business owner said “There are a lot of determining factors here.

• Is this going to be a raised bed?
• Will there be plantings in it?
• How thick will you be applying the mulch?

I would never apply a mulch or soil directly over turf, if you do you may be asking for problems.

Here are some problems you can encounter;

• Poor drainage for the bed

By leaving the layer of turf under the bed you are adding a barrier for water to pool/collect. Therefore drowning the plantings in the bed and decomposing the mulch too quickly.

• Organic matter stealing nitrogen

Turf is organic matter and when it breaks down it actually steals nitrogen from the soil to do so. Leaving the turf may stunt the growth of any plantings you install in the bed.

• High maintenance for the bed

Leaving the turf under the bed is asking for hours of weed/grass pulling over the growing season, which is counterproductive in my book.

In closing, do it right in the beginning. Remove the turf before installing planting/mulch beds and you’ll save your self headaches in the future. Plus it makes you look better as a contractor to clients. You’ll leave them in a peace of mind knowing that the job was done correctly.

If it is a large area that needs to be removed and you don’t have the equipment to do the job, sub out the sod removal and then finish the job.”

A third lawn care business owner said “spray the area you want removed with round up first. Then wait two weeks for a good kill. Scalp the area that is to become the mulch bed to the ground or rent a sod cutter and cut it out. Leaving the roots in the soil actually aids in the aeration of the soil so water, nutrients, and air moves more readily to the root zone. Weed block is a very short term answer for suppression of weeds.

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