Frost Tonight – What can you still do for fall?

Good morning –

I am a die-hard summer guy. Fall is without a doubt my least favorite season. Please don’t yell at me – I know the leaves are beautiful, the sweaters are comfy and we finally get to watch college football after a long KC Royals season. However I have never been able to wrap my little head around the fact that it is the season of death. All that nature spent the entire summer creating is crashing to the ground in a matter of days.

Today is one of those days. We had some patchy frost through the Twin Cities and Minnesota last night but expect more this evening with the calm winds and clear sky. What can you do to

A ravine at the MN Arboretum in late fall.

save your plants?

1) Plants that are prone to frost damage – basil, tomatoes, annual flowers – should be watered during the day and allowed to dry off, then covered with a light cloth. Watering is important because it fills all the cells up with water and makes them stronger and less susceptible to damage.

2) If you want to have some nice color from flowers after the first frosts there is still time to get fall-flowering plants in your beds. Pull out the cold-averse annuals and put in some mums, snapdragons or pansies that will survive temperatures down to 27 or 28 degrees.

3) Now is also the time to be planting spring-flowering bulbs. Daffodils are one of my favorite along with tulips and crocus. You plant them in fall and they emerge in spring with great color and fanfare.

So you are right, fall gets a bad rap in my brain as simply the season of death and destruction

Fall Containers

followed with cold and darkness. I should be able to look at fall for the incredible process it is where plants and animals prepare for winter. Fortunately for my wife and family, I am able to embrace fall once the inevitable begins and see the beauty for what it is and pull out of my funk. It also helps to plant bulbs to remind me of the promise of the coming spring!

Have a great day!

Brad

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

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

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

PS: If you don’t receive our newsletter, sign up here.

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

A New Era of Conservation: Minnesota’s Water Conservation Rates

Starting January 1, 2010, Minnesota is mandating water conservation by requiring public water suppliers adopt a Conservation Rate Structure.

How will this affect you? Read on…

History

Beginning in the early 1990’s, municipalities throughout Minnesota enacted water restrictions to curb water usage – especially during summer months when incredible amounts of water are used for keeping lawns green.

The Minnesota DNR released an informational paper in 2000 regarding Minnesota’s Water Supply. It informs, “Water conservation plays an important role in balancing management objectives including both development and protection of Minnesota’s water resources.”

Conservation Water Rates

The 2008 Minnesota Legislature amended statutes to adopt Conservation Water Rate structures that encourage conservation as opposed to bulk water usage. Simply put, the more water you use, the more you will pay per gallon. This will greatly affect the cost to irrigation many commercial buildings.

Rate structures must fall into one or more of these rate categories:

* Increasing Block – Rate per unit increases within specified blocks. The increase should encourage conservation.

Drought Monitor shows Twin Cities in Severe Drought

Data released last week from the Drought Monitor shows the Twin Cities area continues to be experiencing severe drought conditions with 43% of Minnesota and 55% of Wisconsin abnormally dry to severely dry.

US Drought Monitor – Midwest

Stay tuned tomorrow for a new Quercus News about Minnesota’s new Water Conservation Rates!