2016 Growing Season Wrap-Up

Chip Harkes

We have come to the end of the 2016 growing season. It was another unique year, but aren’t all years unique? Each year has its own quirks and challenges, but like every year, we make our way through. We had a warm start to the spring. However, spring always throws some roller coaster-like weather at us with a high temperature on April 9 of 34 degrees and one week later…

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Landscape Edging

Chip Harkes

When renovating or installing a landscape, something that can be easily overlooked is the type of edging there will be to separate the grass from the landscape beds. We will take a look at the different types of landscape edging to use. Natural Edge – A natural edge has no material between the grass and landscape. It is least expensive to install, but the most costly to maintain. There is…

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Integrated Pest Management

Chip Harkes

Integrated Pest Management, that sounds fancy and confusing. So what is it? It is a way of dealing with pests within an area that involves more that just using pesticides (herbicides, fungicides, insecticides, etc.) Integrated Pest Management involves many different methods of controlling pests. When we think about controlling a pest within a landscape, many times it is thought to just treat the problem with chemicals. Chemicals are an option,…

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Deer Free Landscape

Chip Harkes

To eliminate deer from the landscape would help our plants, however, those same deer do add a bit of interest. But those deer are going to be looking for a meal, and when they are in your yard, if there is something of interest, your plants may be on their menu. Michigan State University has published a document with a more comprehensive list of plants in the area that deer…

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