Come visit us at the 2012 Johnson City HBA Home and Garden Show 2/18-2/19 at the Freedom Hall Civic Center in Johnson City!!

The ELL booth is almost ready! Be sure and stop by the Johnson City HBA Home and Garden Show this Saturday and Sunday to check out our booth, attend seminars preneted by our Design Team, and enter our raffle for a chance to win some amazing prizes! Be sure to bring some pictures and measurements of your property to the show, because we’re providing FREE DESIGNS!! Stop by the Freedom Hall Civic Center in Johnson City this Saturday and Sunday!!!!

Plant Pick of the Week: Leatherleaf Mahonia

Rejuvenation Pruning Pt. 3

Tim talks about tapering the plant to create a natural look and tapering techniques to create a properly rejuvenated plant that will come back beautifully in the spring!

Rejuvenation Pruning Pt. 2

Tim’s back and going through the selective hand pruning of an overgrown shrub.

Rejuvenation Pruning

Here’s Tim Simounet, one of the owners of Englewood Lawn and Landscapes showing us how rejuvenation pruning can bring your diseased and dying shrubs back to life!

A beautiful example of landscape lighting!

Here’s a wonderful example of what landscape lighting can do for your home and landscape! Let Englewood Lawn and Landscapes professionally install your landscape lighting today!

Call (423) 726-2481 or visit www.englewoodlandscapes.com today!

LET ENGLEWOOD LAWN AND LANDSCAPES INSTALL YOUR LANDSCAPE LIGHTING TODAY!

COMMON REASONS PEOPLE CHOOSE PROFESSIONAL LANDSCAPE LIGHTING

BEAUTIFICATION:  Focal points during the day now stand out and become more visible.  Textures not seen in daylight now have eye-catching detail.  Architectural features of the home can be accented, which brings the home and landscape together to create a resort-like feel.

USABILITY:  Landscape lighting enjoyably extends the time spent outdoors.  Now patios, pools and children’s play areas become entertainment venues, or just relaxing places to unwind.

SAFE PASSAGE:  Hazards such as steps, low-hanging or thorny vegetation, abrupt elevation changes or tows in a walkway can be avoided with properly placed landscape lighting.  Even though property owners know their way around, guests may not.

SECURITY:  It is a proven fact that a well-lit landscape will deter potential intruders by eliminating dark areas and shadows that would conceal movement around the property.  Landscape lighting also allows the homeowner and neighbors to see and identify potential intruders.

VALUE:  From a personally pleasing perspective, landscape lighting not only brings the property to life, it brings value to the property.  From a practical perspective, professionally installed landscape lighting provides an excellent return on investment, because it creates a marvelous first impression when viewed by family and friends or possible prospective buyers.

There are numerous benefits of professionally installed landscape lighting, so call Englewood Lawn and Landscapes today at (423) 726-2481 for a free Landscape Lighting estimate!

Visit our website at www.englewoodlandscapes.com for tips, special offers, and a preview of what YOUR landscape could ook like with a little help from Englewood Lawn and Landscapes!

Rejuvenation Pruning: Why you and your plants need it

Among the wide variety of services offered at Englewood Lawn and Landscapes, rejuvenation pruning is one that is often overlooked.  Few people understand the benefits of annual rejuvenation pruning, or even what rejuvenation pruning is.  Well, Englewood Lawn and Landscapes is here to help!

What is rejuvenation pruning?

Simply put, rejuvenation pruning is the cutting back of stems on a plant in winter in order to revitalize them for the spring.

Why do I need rejuvenation pruning?

There are many benefits that rejuvenation pruning provides for the plants in your landscape, including:

-          Restoring individuality to each plant.

-          Giving each plant a distinct outline and creating a crisper, cleaner look.

-          Gives new life to dying or diseased plants.

-          Helps extend the life of the plants in your garden.

How long will it take the plant to fill back out?

Typically the plant will begin to rejuvenate and fill back in the summer time.  Some plants will start in June and July, but some will emerge in late summer.

Will it affect the blooms on my plants?

Rejuvenation pruning will only affect the blooms on plants if the plant blooms before June.  If the plant is a summer bloomer (after June) then the blooms will not be affected, but don’t expect as heavy of a bloom as the year before since a good amount of limbs have been removed.

When should I have rejuvenation pruning done?

Ideally rejuvenation pruning should be done during the winter months, December through March.  The deadline for rejuvenation pruning is right around the first week of April.  However, some select plants can be rejuvenated well into May.

 

If you’re interested in our Rejuvenation Pruning services, or ANY of the services that we offer, please call us at (423) 726-2481!

Stop Tree Topping!

 

Tree topping is a prolific misguided practice in the Tri Cities area. Through proper education we can stop this practice and save our trees!

The misguided practice of tree topping (also referred to as stubbing, dehorning, pollarding, heading, and by several other euphemisms) has risen to crisis proportions nationally over the last decade.  Topping has become the urban forest’s major threat, dramatically shortening the lifespan of trees and creating hazardous trees in high-traffic areas.

The importance of trees to the urban and global ecology is only now becoming fully known and appreciated.  This dawning has not yet been accompanied by adequate public education and sound public policy to ensure tree survival and our own safety.

DON’T TURN YOUR VALUABLE COMMUNITY ASSETS INTO LEGAL, AESTHETIC AND ECONOMIC LIABILITIES! PLEASE READ AND CONSIDER THE FOLLOWING.

1.  IT WON’T WORK.

 

Topping won’t work to keep trees small.  After a deciduous tree is topped, its growth rate increases.  It grows back rapidly in an attempt to replace its missing leaf area.  It needs all of its leaves so that it can manufacture food for the trunk and roots.  It won’t slow down until it reaches about the same size it was before it was topped.  It takes at maximum a few years before your tree returns to near its original size.

An exception to the grow-back-to-size rule comes if you damage a tree’s health so it hasn’t the strength to re-establish itself.  It is, in effect, dying and will continue on a downward spiral for years.  Topping can’t make a significant size difference-not for long.  The species or type of tree you have determines its size.  A dogwood or Japanese maple may grow from 10 to 30 feet in its life, an oak or an ash from 10 to 90 feet.  You can’t “stop” trees with topping.  If you succeed, you have killed them.

2.  IT’S EXPENSIVE.

A topped tree must be done and re-done every few years-and eventually must be removed when it it dies or the owner gives up.  Each time a branch is cut, numerous long, skinny young shoots (called suckers or watersprouts) grow rapidly back to replace it.  They must be cut and recut, but they always regrow the next year making the job exponentially more difficult.  Much like the many-headed Hydra snake that Hercules battled, people create maintenence monsters in their back yards.  A properly pruned tree stays “done” longer, since the work does not stimulate an upsurge of regrowth.  Proper pruning actually improves the health and beauty of a tree, costing you less in the long run.

Topping also reduces the appraised value of your tree.  A tree, like any landscape amenity, adds to the value of your property.  Appraisers subtract hundreds of dollars from the value of a tree when it’s been topped (using the International Society of Arboriculture’s guidelines for evaluation).  You can even sue a tree company for wrongfully topping a tree.

3.  IT’S UGLY.

 

The sight of a topped tree is offensive to many people.  The freshly sawed-off tree limbs are reminiscent of arm or leg amputations.  And the freshly-sawed look is just the beginning of the eyesore; the worst is yet to come, as the tree regrows a witch’s broom of ugly, straight suckers and sprouts.

The natural beauty of the tree’s crown is a function of the uninterrupted taper from the trunk to ever finer and more delicate branches, and the regular division of the branches.  Arborists consider the topping of some trees a criminal act, since a tree’s 90-year achievement of natural beauty can be destroyed in a couple of hours.

Topping destroys the winter silhouette of a tree.  The regrowth of suckers or shoots will bloom poorly, if at all.  Some trees will reestablish themselves after many years-but by then they will be the same size as before. Many topped trees are considered a total loss.

4.  IT’S DANGEROUS.

 

According to Dr. Alex Shigo, world renowned scientist and author on the subject of arboriculture (trees), topping is the most serious injury you can inflict upon your tree.  Severe topping and repeat topping can set up internal columns of rotten wood, the ill effect of which may show up years later in conjunction with a drought or other stress.

Ironically, many people top their trees because they think it will make them safer.  Topping creates hazardous trees.  In many cities, topping is banned because of the public safety factor and the potential for lawsuits.

Topping creates a hazardous tree in four ways:

IT ROTS.  Topping opens the tree up to an invasion of rotting organisms.  A tree can defend itself from rot when side branches are removed, but it has a hard time walling off the pervasive rot to which a topping cut subjects it.  Rotted individual limbs-or the entire tree-may fail as a result, often years later.
• IT STARVES.  Very simply, a tree’s leaves manufacture its food.  Repeated removal of the tree’s leaves-its food source-literally starves the tree.  This makes it susceptible to secondary diseases such as root rot—a common cause of failing trees.
• WEAK LIMBS.  New limbs made from the sucker or shoot regrowth are weakly attached and break easily in wind or snow storms-even many years later when they are large and heavy.  A regrown limb never has the structural integrity of the original.
• INCREASED WIND RESISTANCE.  The thick regrowth of suckers or sprouts resulting from topping make the tree top-heavy and more likely to catch the wind.  This increases the chance of blow-down in a storm.  Selectively-thinned trees allow the wind to pass through the branches. It’s called “taking the sail out” of a tree.

5.  MAKES YOU LOOK BAD.

Topping makes you appear to be a cruel or foolish person.  Your friends know you better.  But the more your neighbors come to understand topping for what it is, the lower you will fall in their esteem.  You may top a tree to create a water view, but you should know that you have some friends and neighbors-who probably won’t say so because they are being tactful-who see a view of a butchered tree with water in the background.

The Bottom Line

• Tree topping is never a justifiable pruning practice; it increases tree health problems and is aesthetically unappealing
  
• A topped tree will require constant maintenance and has an increased potential to become hazardous
  
• Hazardous trees are a liability and ultimately the property owner is responsible for any damage hazard trees cause
  
• Certified arborists and other legitimate landscape professionals do not practice tree topping
  
• There are acceptable pruning techniques designed to keep trees away from power lines and other structures
  
• If problems caused by a tree cannot be solved through acceptable management practices, the tree should be removed and replaced with plant material more appropriate for the site
  
• Think about the mature size of a tree and where it will grow relative to power lines and other structures before you plant it

To learn about proper pruning and receive a quote to have your trees pruned properly- please contact your Englewood Lawn and Landscapes.

 

Thanks to http://www.plantamnesty.org/stoptopping/5reasons.aspx and http://www.plantamnesty.org/stoptopping/window_myth.htm