October Garden Tips

I know what you're asking yourself: I've grown this monster pumpkin, but what do I do now? Look no further than Gardener's Paradise for the answer.

And while you're there, remember that October is the traditional month of the first frost, and now is a good time to take a fresher on October garden tips. Gardener's Paradise has some nice tips; just scroll past the pumpkin recipes to the bottom of the page. 

Go West, Young Man!

Autumn Blaze Maples
Ben's Creek Nursery's Iles Farm

Go west, that is, if you want to see some fall leaf colors in early October. From where I sit in the North Carolina piedmont,  the leaf changes are spotty at best.The real action, where you'll see some of the most spectacular leaf colors on the planet, is west of here: the mountains!

 

At my elevation, a mere 387 feet above sea level, leaf change is predominantly determined by temperature: the colder it is, the faster the leaves will change. In the mountains, however, the shifting weather patterns only nudge things along. It is elevation that primarily determines leaf change.This means that if you're a leaf watcher, you can choose your best time to travel, and know that somewhere in the mountains, at some elevation, you can find some peak colors a-happening.

So where and when should you plan to go to the mountains to catch this dazzling array?

Click 'MORE' for more!

Let the Parade Begin!

Herewith another recent project. This one involved work done in preparation for a local Parade of Homes, wherein we built the landscape from the ground up. UPDATE: see the results of the Parade of Homes competition at the end of this post.

Click 'MORE' for more!

Colors!

Sioux Crape Myrtle

For all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these "it might have been." So said John Greenleaf Whittier, back around 1856. He wrote in a slightly different context (to say the least!). But what called this to mind for me was a recent visit to our Iles Farm and the sight of our Crape Myrtles bursting with color.

August doesn't usually provide such things, what with the heat and often near drought conditions. So, I thought, what might have been .... the look of YOUR yard in August, if you had just installed some Crapes.

Acoma

Here are some more pictures of our Crapes Myrtles. Most of our varieties are Lagerstroemia fauriei, indica, or some other cross pollinated cultivar, but I give here the more charming common identifier for each. Mainly because I like the whimsy of it all!

12 foot Biloxi

Catawba

 Click 'MORE' for more!

From Soup to Nuts - Continued

For those of you just tuning in, we are posting pictures from one of our latest jobs. This was a large, three month project which we literally took from the ground up. In our previous post, we showed you lots of 'before' pictures; below are a few more 'before' photos, followed by the 'after.'

But first, I just have to post these pictures. The one above shows our customer coming from a direction we weren't expecting to conduct a surprise inspection! Needless to say, we had to stop work and look at this classic car.

 

But now, back to the project. Enjoy! We certainly did.

 Click 'MORE' for more!

From Soup to Nuts

 "Soup to Nuts." Wikipedia tells us (so it has to be true, right?) that this is an "American English idiom conveying the meaning of "from beginning to end". Apparently it is derived from someone's notion of a full course dinner, which begins with soup and ends with a dessert of nuts.

My desserts are usually a little sweeter than that.  But be that as it may, here is a recent 'soup to nuts' project, in which our crews built the lawn and landscape literally from the ground up. From excavation to grading, to installation of irrigation, shrubs, flowers, trees, and sod, this project took 3 months of concentrated work.

The work was so extensive that it will take two posts, just to cover it all!

Herewith the 'before' pictures:

Click "More..." for more!