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    Spring Brings Messy Lawns - March 25, 2014 by Mr HomeBuilder

    Spring may have sprung, but it will be hard to forget a long winter after you look at your lawn.

    Saturated grass, downed tree limbs and snow mold are all effects of a brutal winter that MSU consumer horticulturists are finding hard to top.

    "There's been some very severe low temperatures this winter, there were heavy winds, heavy snow loads, so we will see damage later in the spring," said Consumer Horticulturist Bob Bricault.

    "There hasn't been a thaw," agreed Consumer Horticulturist Rebecca Krans. "We've had lots of snow and wind, which causes drying, desiccation of tissues."

    Snow mold, which forms under snow cover, plagues Dana Davis's lawn in Mason. The horticulturist's yard is dotted with brown spots. But it looks worse than it is, Davis said.

    "It's not a big deal," he said. "Usually a light raking and the grass will recuperate and a little fertilizer."

    Occasionally, the grass will require some reseeding, Davis said, but the bigger pain will be in clearing up damage from salt and plows, something that could also make a dent in the checkbook.

    "Peoples' budgets have been crunched because of snow removal," he said. "So this cleanup and all this snow is really challenging peoples' budgets."

    But for many lawn companies, the cleanup can't start for several more weeks. Davis says he's expecting his employer, Outdoor Specialties, will be pushed back 2-3 weeks.

    "In the green industry, it just means when the weather's nice we've gotta hustle a little harder to get caught up," he said. "It's always a challenge. Mother Nature's not often kind."

    See more here:
    Spring Brings Messy Lawns

    No chemical, mechanical way of preventing fruit before it makes a mess - March 23, 2014 by Mr HomeBuilder

    Dear Neil: Is there any way to keep wild persimmons from bearing fruit? We track the mess into our house, and they make the patio almost unusable.

    A: Im often asked that question relative to fruiting mulberries, and unfortunately, the answer is about the same for both. There is no mechanical or chemical means of preventing or removing fruit before it becomes messy. While I dont want to be the executioner for what might otherwise be very nice trees, your only recourse short of removing them will be to sweep or blow them away daily (or more often). I wish I had a more satisfactory answer for you.

    Dear Neil: My wife has seen an ad for a grass that says it was Bred in Texas to help save one of our most precious resources water! It says they will ship plugs to us, and that we will need to get ready for a green lawn in sun or in shade. What do you know about this grass? Are its claims true or just hype?

    A: Ive rewritten my answer three times. I so want to caution you against believing extravagant claims. You do not want to buy turfgrass through the mail any more than you would want to buy new carpeting that way. Talk to a local sod vendor, and buy new turfgrass where you can see what youll be getting ahead of time. Buy it from someone who can refer you to a home where that grass has been growing for a year or two, so you can see how it is performing. Although its a different type of grass, the ad youre describing is very similar to the zoysia ads that have been running for many decades. This is not a grass that Im comfortable recommending to you.

    Dear Neil: I have a constantly enlarging ring of dead grass in my lawn. I tried insecticides, and I replaced the grass, but the dead circular area continues to spread. Any idea what this might be and what can be done?

    A: Ill give it my best shot, but I have to admit that without a photo and without even knowing what type of grass is involved, my shot is one taken in the dark. Im asked this same general question many times each year. When I delve into the details, I usually hear that there are trees involved, perhaps the side of the house and other things that are casting shade onto the grass. When its a circular area, that suggests to me that it might be the ground directly beneath a shade tree. As the tree gets larger, so does the shade pattern. Even St. Augustine, our most shade-tolerant grass, requires at least four to six hours of direct sunlight per day in the growing season. Without it, it thins and disappears. If you have a tree anywhere near the center of this dying area, shade is the issue and its time to plant a shade-tolerant groundcover such as mondograss or its big sister liriope, English ivy or even purple wintercreeper euonymus or Asian jasmine. I hope that helps.

    Dear Neil: You mentioned a product that could be applied to pears to prevent fire blight. What was that and how it is applied?

    A: Spray agricultural streptomycin onto the pears while they are in full bloom. That time has passed for most pears for this year, and with freeze damage to the pear flowers over so much of Texas, it would have been difficult to get it applied anyway. Bees carry the fire blight bacterium from an infected tree into the flowers of a healthy tree as they are pollinating the blooms. Thats why this spray must be made at the flowering time. Agricultural streptomycin is a specialty product that youll seldom see in national retail stores. Youre much better off buying through a local independent retail garden center or hardware store. They can order it for you if they dont already have it on hand.

    Dear Neil: I need your advice on plant spacings. Let me know if any of these might be too close. A Natchez crape myrtle 7 feet from concrete piers under house and 8 feet from concrete stairs; a Choctaw pecan 23 feet from the piers and from the roofline; a Texas red oak 15 feet from concrete piers; a cedar elm 18 feet from the house and piers and 13 feet from a concrete porch and sidewalk; and a chinquapin oak 12 feet from a wood fence. I have no problems currently. Just thinking ahead.

    A: Youve been busy measuring. Those distances sound quite adequate to me. I have several of those trees in similar settings, although mine are closer. Your best bet is to have a certified arborist check the trees every couple of years. Watch for roots that could cause damage to become obvious.

    Read the original here:
    No chemical, mechanical way of preventing fruit before it makes a mess

    EMPIRE Sod / Turf / Grass – Video - March 20, 2014 by Mr HomeBuilder


    EMPIRE Sod / Turf / Grass
    Choose the perfect sod for your landscape project. From Big Earth Landscape Supply located in Bradenton, Tampa, Sarasota and Palmetto, Florida. For more help...

    By: Adam Rickert

    Continued here:
    EMPIRE Sod / Turf / Grass - Video

    Blade brigade: Field of green laid for Tigers' Opening Day - March 20, 2014 by Mr HomeBuilder

    Anjana Schroeder / Crain's Detroit Business

    The crew putting in new sod works Thursday at Comerica Park less than two weeks before opening day.

    Workers began installing 103,000 square feet of Kentucky bluegrass at Comerica Park today, the first full re-sod of the Detroit Tigers ballpark since 2007.

    After scraping away snow and ice from the barren playing surface the old grass was removed late last year so a temporary ice rink could be built on the infield the ground was prepped to receive the grass from Fort Morgan, Colo.-based Graff's Turf Farm. The turf was shipped in several trucks, and is expected to be ready for Opening Day on March 31, when the Tigers host the Kansas City Royals.

    New natural grass fields at major league ballparks range in price from $100,000 to $250,000. The National Hockey League agreed to pick up replacement grass costs at Comerica Park as part of the deal it swung with Red Wings and Tigers owner Mike Ilitch to host its Winter Classic at Michigan Stadium instead of Comerica Park.

    If you enjoy the content on the Crain's Detroit Business Web site and want to see more, try 8 issues of our print edition risk-free. If you wish to continue, you will receive 44 more issues (for a total of 52 in all), including the annual Book of Lists for just $59. That's over 55% off the cover price. If you decide Crain's is not for you, just write "Cancel" on the invoice, return it and owe nothing. The 8 issues are yours to keep with no further obligation to us. Sign up below.

    Offer valid for new MI subscribers only. Non-MI subscribers - $79. All other Foreign - $127.

    If you enjoy the content on the Crain's Detroit Business Web site and want to see more, try 8 issues of our print edition risk-free. If you wish to continue, you will receive 44 more issues (for a total of 52 in all), including the annual Book of Lists for just $59. That's over 55% off the cover price. If you decide Crain's is not for you, just write "Cancel" on the invoice, return it and owe nothing. The 8 issues are yours to keep with no further obligation to us. Sign up below.

    Continued here:
    Blade brigade: Field of green laid for Tigers' Opening Day

    A thoughtful walk through Art Dubai - March 20, 2014 by Mr HomeBuilder

    DUBAI: Anyone walking through the main entrance of the Madinat Jumeira conference center nowadays must run a gauntlet of thigh-high marsh grass. A miniature meadow of the stuff has been planted in the foyer, in a few dozen small flowerpots, and arranged in thick rows on either side of the twin doors.By Tuesday evening the day before the eighth edition of Art Dubai opened to the public several of the pots had already been knocked over and the grass trampled underfoot by the fairs patrons, who may not have realized they were walking though a piece of installation art.

    That seems to have been the intention behind The Desired Path, a two-stage work by New York-based Lebanese artist Youmna Chlala.

    The title The Desired Path is an architectural term, Chlala explained. Whenever theres a concrete footpath through a green space, you always see another one that pedestrians take across the grass. Its more-or-less parallel to the official pathway but less direct, and thats the one people want to take.

    The works second stage is located a few hundred meters north of the first, beyond the far side of the Madinat Jumeira, at the base of a set of outdoor stairs leading to the Mina al-Salam hotel the venue of Art Dubai Modern and the fairs Global Art Forum.

    Here, art buyers dont find pots of marsh grass, but strips of sod the sort of weed-free grass cultivated in nurseries, cut from the soil like a scalp from the skull and sold to impatient and wealthy homeowners that has been arranged into a square. If you raise one of the once-green strips and peer beneath, as the public is encouraged to do, you see the sod has been laid on a bed of sterile sand.

    For me, Chlala said, this piece is all about time.

    The most-obvious temporal element is the degradation of the plants over the course of Art Dubai from green to a shade of gray-beige. For the artist, the work is also meant to evoke sensory memory in the public recollected encounters with greenery that are accentuated by the pieces incongruity within the meticulously manicured space.

    The two different types of flora used in The Desired Path juxtapose the way in which this patch of turf may once have looked (when it was still called Chicago Beach) with what it has become since being transformed into the upscale hotel district of Jumeirah.

    There is also a performative aspect not simply the publics tramping through and over the grasses, but in their maintenance. The plants are being watered daily, with a spray bottle.

    If The Desired Path has a weakness, its less in the work itself than its spatial deployment. The two stages are so far from each other that preoccupied art-market aficionados may have trouble keeping both in mind at once, or even noticing that they are both facets of the same artwork, rather than the detritus of some grounds-maintenance project at the hotel complex.

    Read more here:
    A thoughtful walk through Art Dubai

    Tale of two drought impacts: Landscapers, gardeners prepare for challenging year - March 19, 2014 by Mr HomeBuilder

    The drought gives and the drought takes away, at least for the state's multibillion dollar landscaping, gardening and nursing industry.

    Many consumers are postponing or canceling planting or landscaping changes because of worries over water shortages and drought-based water rates. Gov. Jerry Brown has ordered a moratorium on nonessential new landscaping on or along state freeways, highways, and buildings.

    But other consumers see this as the time to overhaul yards, landscape with drought-resistant plants and add efficient irrigation. And many water agencies are paying bounties to customers who jettison lawns.

    Landscaper Roxy Wolosenko is benefiting from both sides of the coin.

    Mario Maldonado, left, and Godofredo Delgado, right, harvest sod at the Grass Farm on Thursday, March 13, 2014, in Morgan Hill, Calif. California's drought could cause hardships for the state's landscaping and gardening industry as people think twice about putting in new lawns and plants amid water shortages and potential restrictions. (Aric Crabb/Bay Area News Group) ( ARIC CRABB )

    "People are definitely landscaping," said the owner of Roxy Designs in Pleasant Hill, "and they're hiring me to take out a lot of lawns." She said she averages five to six calls a week from people who want to replace lawns with drought tolerant plants and ground cover.

    Experts say it is still hard to predict how the industry will fare this year, but many are optimistic.

    "This drought is a huge opportunity for people to make horticultural changes that can save money and water," said Jon Singley, founder of Blue Spruce Landscaping and Construction in Campbell. "I think a green industry professional who is well educated and appreciates using the appropriate material on the right site is going to come out of this fine."

    He and other landscapers say their business is anything but drying up as people plan landscaping and irrigation changes to reduce outdoor watering -- which consumes more than half of the water used at the typical California home. Of course, in the Bay Area's microclimates, water use -- and availability -- can vary significantly from place to place.

    "People are keenly aware of their water bills and what they could become this year," Singley said.

    Go here to read the rest:
    Tale of two drought impacts: Landscapers, gardeners prepare for challenging year

    Mixed reaction to Rawtenstall town centre plan - March 15, 2014 by Mr HomeBuilder

    Mixed reaction to Rawtenstall town centre plan

    11:30am Friday 14th March 2014 in News

    OPINION is divided on plans for the future of Rawtenstall town centre following a public consultation on the masterplan.

    Rossendale Together Barnfield Partnership unveiled initial ideas for the redevelopment, including a town square, a new bus station and grass-covered roofs.

    Council leader Alyson Barnes said she was very happy with the turnout for the two-day consultation at Longholme Methodist Church.

    She said: It was fantastic to see so many people taking the opportunity to look at the plans and discuss the ideas with the architectural team.

    I think the plans demonstrate that we really mean business and are committed to doing whats right for Rossendale.

    The plans have been put forward by the board, comprised of the council, development partners Barnfield, Together Housing and designers Day Architectural.

    However the proposals were criticised by Rossendale MP Jake Berry, who said: There were some interesting ideas, with what appeared to be a lot of steel, glass and green roofs.

    Excerpt from:
    Mixed reaction to Rawtenstall town centre plan

    Snow not helping, but Comerica to be re-sodded - March 14, 2014 by Mr HomeBuilder

    LAKELAND, Fla. -- Long before the first snowflake fell in Michigan this winter, the Tigers had planned to re-sod the playing surface at Comerica Park for the first time since 2007. Now that Detroit is on the verge of breaking its record snowfall for a winter season, having just witnessed eight more inches fall on Wednesday, the question is whether the new grass will be in the ground before Opening Day on March 31.

    The answer from the Tigers is yes. It won't be as easy as head groundskeeper Heather Nabozny and her crew would've liked it, but it'll happen.

    "There will be a playing field on Opening Day," Tigers vice president of communications Ron Colangelo said Thursday.

    The old sod was removed ahead of the Hockeytown Winter Festival in December, which brought outdoor hockey to the park over the holidays. Nabozny said a couple of weeks later that the new sod would be installed in March, and that they could do so even if the spring thaw hadn't arrived yet. They would have to do so in segments, rather than all at once.

    The plan goes into place next week when the sod arrives from Colorado. The re-sodding is scheduled to begin next Thursday and last three days. That will give the field a little over a week to take root before Opening Day.

    As for Thursday evening, the forecast for next weekend in Detroit calls for temperatures in the low 40s.

    LAKELAND, Fla. -- Don Kelly spent years of his Tigers tenure with the reputation as a Jim Leyland favorite. It's a new era of leadership in Detroit these days, but Kelly seems to be making some of the same impressions on new manager Brad Ausmus.

    "The thing I didn't know about Don Kelly is, one, he's got some baseball savvy to him," Ausmus said Thursday. "He knows what he's doing on the bases. We talked about his versatility, but I don't know that I realized what type of outfielder he really was and what type of arm he had.

    "I'm certainly learning things about Don Kelly that I didn't know. I knew he was a valuable utility guy that you could put in many spots with a left-handed bat, but so far he's been much better than my initial thoughts or projections were. And he's a great guy, great teammate to boot. They don't really have ratings that put a number of that."

    Whether those impressions earn Kelly a share of the left-field mix at season's open remains to be seen. As Ausmus looks for a left-handed hitter to plug into left field with Andy Dirks out until June, that insight is worth noting. It doesn't mean Kelly will comprise the lefty half of the left-field platoon, but if the Tigers end up filling Dirks' absence from within, Kelly looks bound to get some starts.

    Link:
    Snow not helping, but Comerica to be re-sodded

    Fendt Farmer 307 LS Turbomatik mowing grass sod | 2014 | The Netherlands. – Video - March 13, 2014 by Mr HomeBuilder


    Fendt Farmer 307 LS Turbomatik mowing grass sod | 2014 | The Netherlands.
    This Fendt Farmer 307 LS Turbomatik is from Van Hierden grass sod nursery in Uddel in The Netherlands. His son is here mowing the new grass sods. Deze Fendt ...

    By: Jan van den Hardenberg

    Original post:
    Fendt Farmer 307 LS Turbomatik mowing grass sod | 2014 | The Netherlands. - Video

    Pride, Hullabaloo booted from Wheeler Park to protect the grass - March 13, 2014 by Mr HomeBuilder

    The art can stay, but the large parties have to go.

    After this summer, there will be no more revelers treading on the grass at Wheeler Park during multi-day festivals. The city of Flagstaff believes the downtown lawn cant handle the abuse, and it will close most of Wheeler Park for July and August this year to replant sod.

    That park was not designed as an event facility, and thats why we have issues with the number of people in there, and we have turf damage, said City of Flagstaff Parks Manager Steve Zimmerman. We dont have this going on at any of our other parks.

    Zimmerman said that maintenance staff realized they werent giving the grass three weeks of rest between multi-day events, as specified in the parks management plan. And his office has the power to deny permits for maintenance reasons, he said.

    City officials decided to approach Pride in the Pines and Hullabaloo to tell them they could either move their festivals this year or move them next year. But the events with more seniority and less traffic will be allowed to stay. That includes Art in the Park on Labor Day and the Fourth of July, as well as other one-day events.

    Whats going to happen is after this season, theyre doing this major rework of Wheeler because all the grass is dying, said City of Flagstaff Public Works Section Head Mike OConnor.

    He added that Wheeler Park will be closed for maintenance from July 7 to Aug. 29. During that time, a large section of grass will be fenced and off-limits to everyone, including all the other weekend events planned throughout the summer. OConnor said the replanting was happening during those months to take advantage of Flagstaffs wet season.

    My goal is to maintain the turf in that park, Zimmerman said. For some of these multi-day events, Ive got to shut off the water. It causes damage to the park. In trying to get that park to look better, we decided to ask two groups to leave and in that process, knowing we cant just tell them Get out of here, we did give them some alternative sites.

    WHEELER PARK COSTLY

    But Kathryn Jim, president of Northern Arizona Pride Association, said Pride in the Pines was ready to move anyway and made the choice themselves, approaching the city first they werent pushed out. Pride took a big hit on last years festival and was debating whether they would continue their event into its 18th year.

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    Pride, Hullabaloo booted from Wheeler Park to protect the grass

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