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

PLANET Day of Service 2010 Recap

Good morning!

The Professional Landcare Network (PLANET) introduced a great program in 2009 celebrating Earth Day called PLANET Day of Service. Volunteerism and service to our community is an important part of why Quercus is successful and a huge part of our philosophy.

This year PLANET Day of Service completed over 200 projects with 3,000 volunteers throughout the US. Three of those projects were in Minnesota with Landscape Renovations completing a project at Central Park in Woodbury, we planted shrubs, trimmed trees and cleaned beds at the Scott County Historical Museum and Wild Ways to Garden cleaned up the shoreline of Lake John in Annandale, MN.

Our project went great this year. Our employees volunteered their time and we made a big difference in the gardens around the Stans House at the Scott County Historical Museum. Here is a video with some photos from our day. You can also see more photos on our Flickr page.

I hope everyone had a great Earth Day and keep it in mind every day of the year. I will soon be posting about what Quercus does on an ongoing basis for a better world.

Have a wonderful day!

Brad

Lightning Green Grass

Good afternoon!

We had a very happy thunderstorm come through the Twin Cities last night. A nice rain, beautiful lightning with not too much wind. There was a bit of hail but I didn’t notice any damage.

You ask, “What does this mean for property managers?” I assume many of you know this but it never ceases to amaze me that lightning makes grass greener! This time of year is when it is most evident. Why does this happen?

Green Grass in Kansas City

Turf is a very needy plant. You have to perform a lot of maintenance on it to keep it green and looking great. The nutrient in the soil that is most responsible for the green in your grass is nitrogen. Nitrogen makes up 78% of the Earth’s atmosphere (and nearly all of Pluto’s atmosphere.) However, nitrogen can not be used by plants simply as nitrogen, it needs to be fused with oxygen as a nitrate in order for a blade of grass to utilize it to make more chlorophyll and go green.

Nitrates are actually tough to create. Plants like soybeans, peas – members of the legume family – pair with a bacteria to create them. WWI bomb-makers created nitrates with high temperatures and high pressure and along the same process lightning creates nitrates by combining nitrogen and oxygen in the air with its extremely high temperatures. The nitrates are formed and then rain to the ground, helping green your grass.

UPDATE 4/13: Just recorded how

Lightning Greens Grass

as a podcast. You can find our podcasts in our Knowledge Base under podcasts or subscribe in iTunes!

Have a great day!

Brad

Beware the Emerald Ash Borer Sales Pitch

Good morning!

The past few weeks I’ve had a few property managers and friends ask me about Emerald Ash Borer (EAB) treatments. Tree companies and landscape vendors are are coming to them and saying “You need to get it or their trees will die!” They are 100% accurate, but that isn’t the whole story.

Treatments have proven to be extremely effective in preventing trees from EAB infestations. It is generally a chemical injected into the tree’s vascular system and kills insects that try to make a home inside it. These treatments are expensive and must be done every year!

UPDATE 4/13/2010: I have been informed there is a new product on the market that can be effectively applied every two years. However, this does not change our philosophy on the long-term costs associated with treated ash trees for EAB.

Only treat trees that you REALLY want to keep: old ash at main entrances or trees that may have historical value (like at the state fairgrounds). In my opinion, there aren’t too many ash trees that are worthy of yearly treatments. Ash are not high-value trees or long-lived so you are generally better off using the money you would put into treatments and diversifying with other tree species and waiting for the existing trees to succumb to EAB which probably will not be for many years.

Here is our previous post about EAB that explains a little more in depth Quercus’ approach to EAB.

Emerald Ash Borer

Have a wonderful day!

Brad

Spring is on the march!

If we tried, we could not have imagined a more perfect March 13, 2010 in Minnesota. We had the great fortune of visiting the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum and seeing the last day of their orchid exhibit.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Each spring I get excited about the most miniscule things that signal winter is breaking its hold – they aren’t hard to find when it is

Fresh Quercus News: Holy Snow Mold!

Here is our fresh edition of Quercus News! Over the weekend a wicked snow mold infestation reared its ugly head in the Twin Cities.

Quercus News: Holy Snow Mold

Snow mold is nothing much to worry about but click the link above to learn more about it or visit our Knowledge Base for more information.

Have a great day!

Brad

Do you really need to haul snow?

Good morning!

That ended up being a pretty good-sized snow! The airport is reporting only 5.6″ but the majority of the metro is 8-10″. With this much snow falling and very little melting having occurred, most snow vendors are talking with their property managers about hauling snow.

The very easy answer to the question is: DON’T DO IT!!!!! Making room for new snow is necessary, but is very extremely expensive. Here are a couple of strategies for property managers to avoid hauling snow:

1. Identify new places for piles. It was a great goal in November to retain each and every one of those parking lot spaces, but do you really need them all? Starting to fill those back spaces can save a lot of money.
2. Stack it. Do you have room behind those piles? Have your snow vendor come in with a large bucket and pile that snow pile higher and further back to make room for more snow. This is difficult on small sites but if you have 20-30′ of turf surrounding your parking lot it should be fine.
3. Blow it. Many properties have large turf areas to where you can blow the snow. Have a loader or v-plow push the piles over and then have your snow vendor blow the snow into the open areas. They can hold significant amounts of snow.

If none of these options work for you – and quite often they don’t – hauling is the only option. Be sure to ask your snow vendor where they will be taking the snow. Quite often snow piles are moved to lakes or rivers and all the salt, debris and junk melts directly into the water. Retention ponds are generally alright to drop snow into because most of the debris and salt is filtered out before it hits our water supply.

Please let us know if you have any questions or comments below.

Have a great day!

Brad

Fresh Property Manager’s Landscape Tip Podcast

Hello!

After a bit of a hiatus and reworking, we have a new podcast for you! We have switched up our format to an audio podcast so our production time is greatly reduced and we can regularly get our information out to you.

This podcast is Online Weather Tools for Property Managers to help you stay up on weather events and keep you and your tenants informed on what is happening weather-wise on your properties.

Don’t forget you can subscribe in iTunes (recommended!) or YouTube, or subscribe to our Blog to be alerted when a new podcast appears. (Here is a little video on RSS Feeds.) Lastly, you can find us on Facebook and Twitter for all the really good, juicy updates!

Show Notes:

National Weather Service

Wunderground

MNDOT Traffic Cameras

Conservation Minnesota

MPR’s Updraft Blog

Quercus’ Snow and Ice Management Journal

Feedback? Ideas for info you want? Let us know!

Thank you and have a great day!

Brad