Prime's Clippings November 2016

Time To Order Bulbs!  

If you want a beautiful spring show of annual tulips, daffodils, paper whites or jonquils, now is the time to order them! Tulips are $90 per 100 bulbs installed, and daffodils are $1.50 each with a minimum of 100 bulbs. We will be picking up our bulb orders this month and start planting after Thanksgiving. Call to place your order today!

Not sure what to plant? Email john@primelandscapeservices.com

Winter Can Wait

I know, I know, it’s November, but- this is Texas! Our fall weather is just getting started! It’s possible we might get our first freeze around Thanksgiving, but in general we can expect more mild weather for the next 2 months.

We haven’t seen a lot of rain this October, but there’s been a few good soaks. In spite of the cooler temperatures overall, it’s remained pretty warm during the day these last couple weeks with temps in the mid-high 80s, but hopefully that is about to change.

This is a great time to get plants in the ground and give their roots a chance to develop through the winter, but keep them well watered until we get more regular rain fall. We have pansies going in all month long, so please call or e-mail us at contactus@primelandscapeservices.com if you’d like to schedule your fall color.

It’s pretty splendid weather for doing outdoor chores, but if you aren’t big on chores, remember that’s what we’re here for! So dig this fall weather and leave the real diggin’ to us.

Pansies and Violas are going in now! 

Call to schedule! 

Residential Mowing Clients - Please Read This!

With lawns growing slowly now and leaves starting to fall, please call us if you’d like to make changes to your mowing schedule!

If you do not want your yard mowed, let us know. We maintain several hundred properties, and they all have different needs. Some folks don’t mind letting leaves gather for a few weeks before cleaning them up and some folks prefer to have their sidewalks blown and leaves mulched up every week.Therefore, we do not let our crews decide which yards can be skipped on their list — all their work orders must come through our office.

Crews are paid for every minute of the day, and gas is expensive.

If you do not call in to cancel by 5:00 PM the day before and our crew comes to your house on your regularly scheduled day, you will be charged—no exceptions. 

AND IF YOU HAVE TREES, PLEASE READ THIS!

Every year we like to remind our clients about how we handle leaf clean ups. Leaves are starting to fall, and mulch mowing them into the lawn is the most cost effective way of dealing with them as long as it is done regularly. Soon there will be some really heavy leaf drops and we may need to spend extra time to clean them up if you have a lot of trees. We appreciate your business, and we will always try to work as quickly as we can to keep the cost reasonable, but please note:

WHEN A CREW HAS TO SPEND MORE TIME THAN THEY WOULD FOR A REGULAR LAWN MOWING, WE WILL BILL YOU HOURLY FOR THE CLEAN UP SERVICE.OUR HOURLY RATE IS $38.00 PER MAN HOUR.

(Not applicable to properties that are on pro-rated 12 month contracts that include leaf removal) 

Daylight Savings Reminders

Don't Forget Your Sprinklers!

We haven't seen a ton of rain coming into November, but the cooler temperatures mean we still don't need to run those sprinklers quite as much as we did a month or two ago. Make sure your new shrubs, trees, rye grass, and pansies are getting watered in adequately, however, be careful not to let your soil become too saturated as roots will actually suffer until they dry out a little.

We've seen quite a few yards this month where sprinklers weren't cut back and soil conditions were perfect for lawn diseases like brown patch. If you notice brown circular areas in your lawn call us for a treatment. If wet conditions persist this fungus will spread and cause serious damage to your turf. 

You may also see signs of Take All Patch in St Augustine. There is no full cure for this devastating disease, but a fungicide treatment and applications of peat moss and sulfur to increase acidity are the recommended controls.

Remember to adjust the clock on your sprinklers and replace the batteries in your smoke detectors and sprinkler controller on the weekend that we roll our clocks back for daylight savings time. It's an easy way to remember this simple chore. Note, not all sprinkler controllers have a replaceable battery. If you aren’t sure whether or not yours does, call us for the answer.

Another smart thing to do this time of year is test your rain/freeze sensor. Verify after one of these rains that your red light is on and the controller is inactive. As soon as the temperature drops below 40 the light should also come on to keep the clock from running and creating an ice hazard for cars or pedestrians.

This is especially important for commercial properties due to the high liability they may incur, and rain/freeze sensors are required by law for all sprinkler systems. So if yours is not working properly or if your system is so old that it doesn’t have one call us to schedule a service call.

Fall Water Garden Services

Leaves are dropping regularly and are probably the biggest challenge in maintaining a naturalistic water feature.

It is important to empty the skimmers and keep the leaves scooped out regularly. Clogged skimmers cause a myriad of problems, cutting off flow to the pump, and causing fill valves to run excessively since the water level drops in the skimmer.

Since water plants are starting to go dormant, one solution for shaded ponds is to cover the pond with a leaf net using tubing to suspend the net off the water. We can custom fit a leaf net system to virtually any pond. 

Email spencer@primelandscapeservices.com for more details.

November Chores:

• Mulch mow leaves as they fall
• Treat fire ants with baits
• Mow over-seeded rye lawns weekly
• Apply granular sulfur to buffer our alkaline soils
• Change batteries in smoke detectors and your sprinkler controller when you change your clocks to daylight savings
• Don’t forget to feed the birds!