Homeowners Guide to EAB Insecticide Selection, Use and Environmental Impact

Good morning –

The Minnesota Nursery and Landscape Association is disseminating a GREAT publication from the MN Dept of Ag about Emerald Ash Borer treatments and their environmental impacts.

It explains when treatments should be done and which are more likely to affect groundwater and aquatic life. Be sure to read this before you do any EAB treatments.

Click on the photo to the right or the link below to download.

Homeowners Guide to EAB Insecticide Selection, Use and Environmental Impact

Have a great day!

Brad

Sustainability Commissions

Good afternoon!

Fall at the Minnesota Arboretum

I ran into this post on Conservation Minnesota earlier today and it really stuck with me. Many cities throughout the country are starting Sustainability Commissions to evaluate and promote sustainable practices through their towns. This is a great idea!

http://www.conservationminnesota.org/news/?subsec=205&id=4181

We at Quercus evaluate our processes and procedures on an ongoing basis to be sure we are working in the most sustainable and responsible manner.

Have a great day!

Brad

MinnPost – Boreal forest and curbing climate change

I thought this was very interesting.

MinnPost – Boreal forest and curbing climate change.

Hearts & Hammers 2009 Success!

Can you believe how much we lucked out on the weather this year? Friday was wet and Sunday was blustery while Saturday was perfect!

Thank you very much to everyone who helped make Hearts & Hammers possible for ourhomeowners. They are going to be so happy when they get home and see all we did for them. Here are some of our pictures from the day – click here for our gallery.

A special thank you to few people: Pat Haggerty from Marsden for all of her work as co-chair, Dennis Meadows for stepping in as our ‘Construction Guy’ on short notice, Wendy Madsen for her great leadership of the Community Outreach Committee, Ron Vantine for taking all of his pictures and to Kim Ihle, IREM President, for her continued support of Hearts & Hammers.

Thank you very much for volunteering and I look forward to seeing you next year for a great day of service for a family in need.

Best regards,

Brad Tabke, CLP

Landscaping for Water Quality

Good morning!

Today I am giving a presentation titled “Designing and Maintaining Your Landscape to Protect our Lakes and Rivers” for Ryan Companies at their Brown Bag seminars. They use these seminars on different topics to promote Work/Life Balance and I am happy to help out.

I hope to post the presentation on here in the near future, so stay tuned. In the meantime, here are the slideshow notes.

Brown Bag Seminar

Also, visit our knowledge base for more resources on landscape for water quality.

Have a great day!

Brad

Great Mississippi Watershed Management Organization Booklet

Good Fall afternoon! (bums me out to say that)

Tomorrow I am giving a presentation at Ryan Companies at their Brown Bag Seminars (promoting work/life balance. Ryan is great!) about how to improve water quality with your own landscape and ran across this wonderful booklet from the Mississippi Watershed Management Organization (MWMO) called “Green Spaces, Clean Waters. Landscaping ideas to improve water quality along the Mississippi River.”

It has ideas for your commercial sites, home and neighborhood. Check the booklet cover below (opens as pdf) and have a great day!

Brad

Arboretum Pictures

I spent the morning unwinding with a long walk at the Minnesota Arboretum. It was a beautiful time to be there!

When I visit gardens, I like to take as many pictures as possible so we can have examples of plants for our clients and better educate them on plant selection and such. A project for this winter is taking the thousands of photos (and I’m not joking) and getting them in our Knowledge Base for all to see.

Make sure to head out to the Arboretum before winter and check things out. You can’t go wrong!

Click here to see some more of my pictures from today.

Have a wonderful Labor Day Weekend!

Brad

Water (and Cash) Conservation with Smart Irrigation Controllers

Good afternoon all!

I am studying the numbers from a smart irrigation controller we installed in the beginning of August with wonderful results. I will send it out in our Quercus News tomorrow – but here is a little preview. We saved over 88,000 gallons of water on a fairly small retail site over what would have normally run in August. It has amazed me.

Have a great day and look for our newsletter tomorrow.

Brad

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