Happy Thanksgiving!

We hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving and enjoy the long weekend!

Testimonial Tuesday!

Here is some recent customer feedback on a recent lighting job we did:

"What an incredible lighting job your men did lighting our Mediterranean Palms and Trees!  It has given us many hours of pleasure - now and in the future."  

Irrigation Advice from SAWS

SAWS sends out a great newsletter with really useful tips on how to conserve water and care for your San Antonio Landscape.  The following is a link to an article they sent out last week that had some great information about changing your irrigation settings on your controller.

 http://www.saws.org/conservation/newsletter/enews/issue.cfm?id=299

 In case you can't follow the link, the following is an excerpt:

 "At this time of year we encourage you to just turn off your irrigation system and run it manually on the few occasions when watering is recommended.

Consider your landscape's watering needs:

•          Plants are preparing for dormancy. This means they don't take in as much water and the rate at which moisture evaporates from the soil is significantly less than it was just one month ago.

•          Roots continue to grow at a snail's pace during dormancy. Apply mulch to conserve existing soil moisture and help protect plant roots from freezing temperatures.

•          The cooler, wetter weather is usually sufficient for our soon-to-be-dormant lawns. Any additional irrigation – especially during certain times of the day – only encourages the growth of fungi."

If you have any questions or need any help, please feel free to give us a call and we would be happy to help.

Reminder from SAWS

The following is an email SAWS sent out this morning and we wanted to pass it along.  If you need help resetting your irrigation controller, please let us know!

"SAWS Conservation are seeing a lot of commercial properties that obviously have not changed the controllers back to CST.  A word to the wise should be sufficient……"

Testimonial Tuesday

The following is an email we received from another happy customer! 

 

"Just a quick note to tell you how pleased we are with your landscaping crew. They arrived on schedule yesterday, did an enormous amount of work, and did a splendid job cleaning up their portion of the work site at the end of the day...the guy sweeping my driveway was awesome! All of them were respectful and friendly toward me and my two children."

Before and After - Hardscape Project

One of my favorite things to post on the blog is before and after pictures from our recent projects.  The following shots show some recent paver and flagstone work.  We think the project turned out beautiful - what do you think?

How to Protect your Garden From Frost

Now that November has rolled in, it is important to know that the first freeze is predicted around November 28th in San Antonio.  That leaves only a few weeks to get your plants cold weather protected!

What can you do to protect your garden from frost?
1.  Mulch, Mulch, Mulch - mulching all landscape plantings and the garden is a standard cold-protection technique.  It helps insulate the root systems of all your plants.  It also traps soil warmth built up during the growing season and preserves any soil moisture.

2.  Move container grown plants into the garage or even indoors to protect them.

3.  When a heavy freeze is predicted, cover any freeze-sensitive plants at dusk after the soil and plants have absorbed the sun's heat; covering the plants traps the radiating heat. 

4.  Don't use plastic coverings or sheets to cover your plants!  Better choices include large cardboard boxes, thick wool blankets or bubblewrap.  Make sure the covering goes all the way to the ground to trap the heat.

5.  Uncover plants when the temperature rises above freezing to let the plant processes resume normal function - don't keep them covered all winter - they will suffocate!

Thank you to our Veterans

We are proud to have 5 veterans part of our Preferred Family:

Alan Burroughs

Mike Anderson

John Whisner

Janet Worley

Yvonne Uhl

A big thank you to them and all other veterans for their service.  Thank you for protecting the country that we love. 

New $100 Rebate from SAWS

San Antonio Water System is offering a new coupon that inspires customers to replace parts of their traditional lawns with a new patio.

The WaterSaver Patioscape Coupon provides SAWS residential water customers another way to reduce landscape water use while making their outdoor living space more beautiful — and more functional. Qualified applicants will receive either a $100 coupon if they don't have irrigation in their landscape or $200 if they do have an irrigation system.

The coupon is good only for the purchase of the feature item that will comprise the main surface of the patioscape: flagstones, pavers or stepping stones. Base and fill materials also are required to construct a functional patio but are not covered by the coupon.

• Patioscapes must be constructed in a way that makes them pervious to water, allowing rain to reach the ground underneath.
• No concrete, mortar, asphalt or other impervious construction is allowed.
• Patioscapes must be at least 10 feet wide and cannot be used to create a pathway.
• Projects must be completed by March 1, 2014.
• If you have an irrigation system, you must schedule a free irrigation checkup with a SAWS conservation consultant by calling 210-704-SAVE (7283) before any coupon(s) can be issued.

The Patioscape Coupon program runs Nov. 1-Dec. 31. For more information or to apply, visit saws.org/patio.

Remember to set your clocks back before bed on Saturday!

Daylight savings time ends this Sunday so remember to set your clocks back an hour.

We also recommend checking the timer on your lighting system as it is getting darker earlier now and many systems are set for our long summer days.  If you need help setting your timer, please let us know and we can help you.

It is also a good time to check your irrigation system.  If you have an established landscape, you can scale your watering down significantly.