It’s great to have big shade trees in your yard.  But come fall you can start to resent them.  Those big trees drop leaves and that means extra work for you.  However, there’s good news!  A recent study done at Michigan State University shows that you can forget about raking, blowing, and bagging leaves.  Instead, just mulch them with your lawn mower.  It’ll save you work, improve your soil, and add nutrients.  Take the grass catcher off your mower and mow over the leaves on your lawn.  You want to reduce your leaf clutter to dime-size pieces.  You’ll know you’re done when about half an inch of grass can be seen through the mulched leaf layer.  Once the leaf crumbs settle in, microbes and worms get to work recycling them.  Any kind of rotary-action mower will do the job, and any kind of leaves can be chopped up.  With several passes of your mower, you can mulch up to 18 inches of leaf clutter.  When spring arrives, you’ll notice that the leaf litter you mulched up in the fall will have disappeared and your grass will look greener than ever.

If you answered yes to this question, then you probably have VOLES.  Voles are field mice.  They spend the winter under the snow eating the bark off bushes and trees.  They survive quite well under the snow because the snow cover insulates them from the cold air and predators cannot find them.  Voles chew the grass at ground level and build nests with the grass.  This creates trails throughout the lawn.  Voles are also able to tunnel in the bark.  They leave holes the size of quarters in the bark. 

We now offer a granular repellent application to deter their digging in your bark beds.  This application should go down prior to snow.  If we have a thaw in the winter, it is a good idea to apply it again.  One application in your foundational beds costs $50.00.  We can also treat your entire lawn.  Contact us for a price to treat your entire lawn and other non-foundational beds.