Updated Winter Outlook

Good Monday morning to all! I hope you had a great weekend – or at least a great Sunday in Minnesota.

We drove to Iowa over the weekend to help my family with harvest but the wettest, coldest (by 4 degrees!) early October in recorded history didn’t allow for any combining to happen.

A couple of months ago I wrote about a couple of winter weather predictions. The National Weather Service has updated its winter outlook with a few tasty tidbits. They are still predicting a warmer winter. El Nino averages 3 degrees warmer than other years. However the precipitation is tough to predict from an El Nino with swings from 17″ in 1984-85 to 84″ in 1991-92. They have solidified their equal chances for above or below average precipitation this winter.

Our fall cleanups are also running far behind schedule this year due to the impressively wet fall. The leaves are finally falling, but yesterday and today have been the first days we have gotten out to work on cleanups and it looks like the rest of the week will be a bust as well.

Have a great week!

Brad

Ugh…Snow, really?!

Good morning…wait, we’ll just go with ‘Morning’ today.

Sedum 'Autumn Joy' adorned with snow

My alarm went off with some chipper MN Public Radio folks talking about weather this morning. Half listening: decent morning today, rain this afternoon, rain tomorrow, blah, blah snow on Friday and Saturday. My eyes went open in panic. They aren’t calling for much but just the threat of snow seems ridiculous.

Significant rains over the next few days with 2-3″ again which will probably delay our crews again this week. We’ll see what happens. Our mowing crews are starting to wrap up for the season. This is our last week of mowing and we are starting to cut back withering daylilies, hostas and summer flowers. The leaves have yet to start falling, but it won’t be long.

Have a great day and hope for snow to be out of the headlines for the rest of the week!

Brad

Quercus News: How can you save 89,000 gallons of water in one month? Install a Smart Irrigation Controller

The newest addition of Quercus News was just sent out! We talk this month about how we installed a Smart Irrigation Controller on a small commercial site that saved

A smart controller looks just like a regular controller except it is hooked to a weather station on site. It then waters to whatever the turf needs in the current weather.

89,000 gallons of water and $235.00 in costs. I am pretty excited! Here it is:

Quercus News: How can a Smart Controller help you?

Have a wonderful Labor Day Weekend and go Cyclones!

Brad

Trees need some lovin’ too!

The dog-days of summer have officially arrived in Minnesota – except this year they are a bit different. We have been having cool and dry weather. Luckily the cooler weather is helping our plants but they still need a lot of water to stay healthy.

Just this past week, we have had a couple of weaker trees die on properties due to drought stress.

Trees are on irrigated properties, they should be receiving plenty of water with the irrigation system. Trees on unirrigated properties need to start watering their trees and taking a few corrective

Urban trees have a tough time in drought and need some extra lovin.

actions:

1) Put a hose out near the trunk and let water trickle at low level for an 1/2 hour or so. Don’t let water run off, just enough to introduce it into the root zone.

2) Mulch the trees. Installing mulched tree rings reduces the tree’s competition for water with the turf, keeps the soil cooler and returns nutrients to the root zone as the mulch breaks down.

3) Monitor your trees for stress. Younger trees and trees where the soil has been disturbed in recent years have the most difficult time navigating droughts – give them some love.

Have a great day!

Bad

Rain this week?

We are looking – and hoping – for some more rain this week. What we received a few weekends ago helped a lot but we need to regain some of the inches we are down for the year.

Looks like we might be delayed some again this week due to storms but we will keep our clients informed or schedule changes.

Have a great day!

Brad