Job log
Recent jobs and field notes.
Now hauling: junk, cleanouts and project debrisThe same truck and trailers that haul our brush now take junk, garage and basement cleanouts, and the debris from a tear-out, across the southwest metro.Stones worth a second lookOff the clock, we have been running the small stones we pick up through our own engine. It never names a stone. It rules things out and says what would settle the rest.Deadheading for free seed: what you cut off is next year's gardenDeadheading keeps flowers coming all summer. Stop in September and the same heads turn into seed you can sow this winter or save for spring. Here is when to stop, how to tell seed is ready, and how to keep it alive until you need it.What October shows you that May hidesThe evidence for next year's work is lying on the ground right now and will be invisible by the time most people go looking. Walk it this month, even if nothing happens until spring.Where the salt actually goesEvery storm drain around this lake is a short pipe to the water. Chloride does not break down, a rain garden will not catch it, and most of what gets spread never does any work in the first place.Plant natives now, seed them in DecemberThere are two fall windows for putting natives in, and they do not overlap. Potted plants want to go in while the soil is still warm. Seed wants to wait until nothing can germinate.Why buckthorn comes backThe seed bank is the actual opponent, not the stems. What years one through five look like, and what a contract should commit to if it is honest.Fall cleanup: what to cut and what to leaveMost fall cleanups take too much. What actually has to come off a property before winter, and what is doing a job right where it stands.Seeding after the regradeWhat goes under the seed, why it goes in layers, and why watering is most of the job. The follow-up to the front yard regrade.Read the water before you plant anythingWhere water goes on a property decides what belongs where. Walk it in a storm before you decide anything, because the yard has already made most of the decisions for you.Fall is the window for buckthornBuckthorn holds its leaves green weeks after everything native has dropped. For a few weeks each fall you can see exactly what you are dealing with.Front yard regrade, start to finishTurf stripped, grade re-cut with a tracked mini skid, soil spread and raked out, boulders set into the beds. The unglamorous middle of an install, photographed.What cut-stump treatment actually looks likeThe difference between clearing buckthorn and removing it is what happens to the stump in the sixty seconds after the saw. Photographed close enough to see. 