Sod Versus Seed

There is always a certain amount of satisfaction when you complete a job and when you sod that satisfaction is more immediate. There is a lot to be said for being able to mow your grass two weeks after it is planted. We experienced hot, dry spells in July this year having set an all time record for heat and lack of rain. These are the perfect conditions for weeds. The upshot is nearly all the grass we planted this spring and summer is now infested with crabgrass and nutsedge.

This makes an even stronger case for fall seeding. The optimal time according to Purdue University to seed in Steuben County is August 15 to October 15. Weed seeds have slowed down, dew helps dampen the seeds and the cooler temperatures promote better germination. When we use only bluegrass seed the results are even more disastrous if the weather does not cooperate. Many of our customers want the benefits of a seeded yard but are not willing to wait out the growing period.

You can expect it to take two growing seasons for a sewn yard to become completely established. Even then you need to work on it, watering, fertilizing, mowing properly; it is the cultural practices of turf maintenance that are most important. Lawns are tricky business and I am often pleased that we do not mow but then again I see the poor techniques used by others and think, Millgrove could do that better. Maybe that is what we will do upon retirement, some lighter landscaping duties.

We completed this guest house on Crooked Lake having changed out the original viburnums I had installed to obtain more privacy for the patio. The customer requested a more symmetrical look so more boxwood's and hydrangeas were added, we moved the Japanese maple planting pachysandra in front of the existing Hickory.

This job is very crisp and well defined it should be pretty easy to maintain and never out grow the location. We will be adding five spruce trees this fall.

Question Mark, Joey O and Marg

Once a year we throw a party people from out of town come and we have a lot of fun. It takes a bit of preparation and between getting ready for the party and staying on top of business posting on the blog has taken a back seat. In addition I am still having difficulty loading video but nephew Lee may have fixed that, we'll see.

One of the best things that happened for me during this years party was that my sister Cass came to stay for nearly two weeks. She loves the blues so we got tickets to see The Joey O Band, a local Fort Wayne area award winning blues band and an old rock and roll legend band ? Mark and the Mysterians. It was a fund raiser for Serenity House in Auburn, IN, judging from the poor turn out I doubt their monetary goals were met.

Joey O took the stage first and they were delightful a nice tight blues band with a decent repertoire of cover songs and a couple of their own. Front man Joey O is into his guitar when he pounds out the chords and coaxes the squeals, you feel each note he reaches and the feeling is good. I will definitely try and catch their act again.

"I'm gonna cry 96 tears, to many teardrops, 96 tears, cry, cry, cry......", that was the hook line from one hit wonder band ? Mark and the Mysterians and they saved it for the last song. The flamboyant ? Mark states in his autobiography that he is from Mars, the words to 96 Tears were sent to him from outer space and that he must always wear sunglasses to protect his alien eyes, that is what I learned when I Googled him.

On stage he does not disappoint even when performing for a small, somewhat nervous crowd who seems to be shocked by the androgynous ? Mark , even Cass thought he was a woman for the first two songs. The band lived up to its garage band image even as ? Mark relegated the 100 people in attendance with past snippets of Vegas and London. The whole scene was rather surreal reminded Cass and I of similar instance in a bistro in Niece, France. Don't get me wrong we had fun both times.

Marg our book keeper posed for these photo's in our gardens and I could not resist sharing them. Marge took the pictures for a fund raising calender.

Three Little Birds Upon My Barnbeam

This is the third set of baby barn swallows that the pair of birds living in our barn have raised this season. The annual event makes for messy floors but we all enjoy watching the babies grow up and fly off plus barn swallows eat lots of mosquitoes.

Van Gordan Construction has begun work on a project that Bruce is spearheading, they are excavating to begin pouring a concrete wheelchair path. We got involved in this project after a local amateur built some Allan Block retaining walls without having any idea what he was doing. The walls failed, blew out once and were currently sagging horribly.

We just installed this 6' diameter compacted, crushed granite pathway around a fire pit we built in 05'. The pit was originally built to allow our customer to burn large debris. Now since his beloved dog Sammy is buried beneath the ashes this seating ring will make graveside visits easier.

Updating Susie and Jeff's landscaping was a fun process, we worked on two sides of the house but could not help pulling out a couple of over grown shrubs on the other two sides as well. Using Belgard universal block to build walls this past couple of weeks has been the standard as we built both retaining walls and seating walls using this medium in two different locales.

I pulled the Captain off the front deck and incorporated the statue into a bed of houseplants that will go back inside this fall. Lavender rings a specimen scotch pine in one terrace while zebra grass and a gold mop fill out the third. On the north side of the house I used Patriot hosta set in stone for a clean low maintenance landscape.

We've a good start on Jo and Sam's house having all the big plants in and the seating wall built, we are waiting on Terry to finish up the irrigation. The Belgard three piece system made a great wall but the concrete design we followed had lots of sharp curves so it was necessary to cut 90% of the block times five rows, the saw ran non stop for two days. It would be best to design your shape according to the curves the block naturally makes with its various tapered pieces to avoid all that cutting, we did not design the shape of this patio.

This house is on a corner lot of a busy lake neighborhood so the patio was not afforded much privacy as you can see what all the neighbors are doing. Once we installed these five foot viburnums and the Jap maple we effectively created instant privacy. Jo is not sure she likes the look of the viburnum she feels she may prefer a more symmetrical look. A change out may be in order.