February 17-19, 2012

 

Seagate Centre
401 Jefferson Avenue
Toledo, Ohio 43604

Show Hours
Friday 3pm to 9pm
Saturday 10am to 9pm
Sunday 10am to 5pm

Tickets
$6 at the door

discount tickets available at Appliance Center!

 

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Thank you!
December 29, 2011

We would like to extend our thanks & gratitude to all of our customers who helped to make 2011 a wonderful year! Thank you.

2012 looks like a promising year and we will be rolling out a new app for our website; The Lawn Calculator! If you thought Quick Quotes were fast, now you have the power to click and get a rough estimate instantly! This app will give you, the consumer, an idea of what it may cost to do the lawn based off of square feet. If at that point you are interested, we would be happy to provide a solid estimate by measuring your lawn for the exact square feet. Check back soon and give the software a try.

PLEASE REMEMBER, 2011 SERVICES ROLL OVER TO 2012
Call us at 419-536-4344 to make any changes to your account & services. Have a wonderful and happy New Year!

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Prepping the lawn for winter
November 21, 2011

Last cut of season:
If you have not given your lawn the final cut of the season yet, now is the time to do it. Make it short: clip it near 2 - 2.5 inches. This will help prevent snow mold which tends to form when grass blades are matted under the snow and soil has yet to freeze.

Leaves:
Many of us have been raking or otherwise removing leaves from the surface of our lawns for a month now, and there are still a few trees here and there that have leaves left to drop. Make sure that there are no piles remaining in the lawn before the snow starts to fall; they can smoother out the turf under it if left throughout winter.

Winter Damage on Trees & Shrubs:
Salt can cause excessive damage to our plants, find out how to protect your landscape: http://groundsservices.com/treeshrub_salt.htm
General Winter Damage: http://groundsservices.com/treeshrub_winterstress.htm

Warm Season Grasses in a Cool Season Climate:
Maybe you or one of your neighbors has one of those yards that turn a straw color every year at about this time. Not only does it lose it's color now, but you wont see it green up until sometime in June, if you're lucky! More then likely, that is a southern or warm season turf-type like Zoysia.

Zoysia grass plugs are very popular in the gardening magazines; and although they look fabulous in the heat of summer, they are only green when soil temperatures reach and maintain about sixty-degrees or so. If this sounds like your lawn and you want a solution, plan to aerate and seed your lawn in fall of next year (or even round it up and slice seed it). This will introduce a different turf type that is better adapted for our area.

Our office will be closed Thursday November 24th and Friday November 25th for Thanksgiving. We hope everyone has a wonderful and safe holiday!

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Fall Tips
October 27, 2011

Did you know…
The color leaves turn in fall are actually the ‘true’ color of the leaf? In summer, when the tree is actively growing, chlorophyll is swiftly & continuously replaced thus creating a green leaf. As the days grow shorter, there is less sunlight to break down the chlorophyll and the true leaf pigments are shown.

Fun Activity

Fall is a fun time for crafting with family & friends, check out this link for a creative activity: http://familyfun.go.com

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Nutsedge, Tall Fescue, Crabgrass; what's what?
September 29, 2011

One customer called this year with concerns that crabgrass was creeping through her yard and taking over the Kentucky Blue grass lawn she had worked so hard to maintain. She had spent hours filling up a trash bag with clumps of crabgrass she had been pulling by hand from the lawn. Of course she was mad which is what prompted the call to the office, and in turn we sent a technician out to apply a post emergence for a control measure. Once there, the tech noted a lawn dimpled by her attempts to rid the yard of crabgrass – however, she was not pulling crabgrass at all; she was pulling tall fescue from the lawn (which does stand out when in a Kentucky Bluegrass lawn).

There seems to be some confusion between [visually] similar types of plants, hopefully this article clears up some of those misidentified species:

Identify Nutsedge:

Generally a faster growing plant (resembles grass, though is part of the sedge family)
Color: Yellow-Green leaves produced stem (rhizomes will spread near the surface of the soil to produce more plants)
If allowed to mature, nutsedge produces multiple oblong spiked ‘flowers’

Identify Crabgrass:

Low growing weedy grass type that forms a clump
Produces a branch-like stem with leaves forming from the stems
Seed heads form on stems protruding out like fingers off the plant

Identify Tall Fescue:

*Note: Tall fescue is generally a desired turf type, though sticks out like a sore thumb in some lawns. When Kentucky Bluegrass or Perennial Rye Grass fall dormant in our summer heat, tall fescue continues to thrive and becomes more noticeable when mixed in a lawn. Some people really do not like this turf type and the strategy that works for getting rid of crabgrass or nutsedge will not work at getting rid of tall fescue.
Clumping growth pattern
Fast growth rate
Thicker & coarser blade then Bluegrass