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Grant’s Gardens “Holistic Healthy Habitats” Lawn and Ornamental Maintenance Program:
Download our Maintenance Brochure Lawn/Turf Management: Turf managers face a growing challenge to keep fertilizer nutrients in the soil and prevent leaching. Florikan fertilizers can help meet this challenge. The Florikan fertilizer prill is wrapped in a special resin coating that ensures controlled and precise release of nutrients. This process allows nutrients to become available at about the same rate they are needed by turf and plants. The special coating ensures that nutrients are released evenly and consistently over a nine month period. Florikan fertilizers provide a sustainable approach to fertilizing because it mimics the slow release characters of organic fertilizers, allowing plants and turf to use the nutrients before leaching occurs. Other synthetic fertilizers leach because they dissolve easily and release nutrients faster than plants use them. These excess nitrates and phosphates can pollute our rivers, lakes and wells. Improvements in plant color, growth, and health are long lasting because nutrients are released slowly. In sandy soil, Florikan fertilizers can improve nutrient and water holding capacity, thereby reducing the need for excess watering. Gypsum is added to soil to improve turf growth and health. Gypsum releases nutrients and improves soil structure. Improving soil structure, improves soil quality by loosening compacted soils to promote deep rooting and allow better penetration of water and nutrients. Plant and Palm Management: Grant’s Gardens does not just focus on pests and diseases that are affecting plant health and vigor, we look at the basic cultural problems afflicting plants. When diagnosing sick plants we find that half of the sick plants we diagnose are not suffering from insect pests or disease organisms. Instead, their problems result from cultural and environmental factors such as over watering, poor drainage, planted too deep, drought stress, or winter damage. In an attempt to develop a more holistic system that focuses on healthy landscapes, Grant’s Gardens promotes sustainable and maintainable landscapes. Sustainable Landscapes is as much a change in attitude as a change in technique. Not only does it emphasize plant health over pest management, it takes an ecosystem approach that emphasizes working with nature instead of fighting nature; it sees proper culture as the foundation of a healthy landscape. The first step in implementing a Sustainable Landscape is to identify and list all plants on a property. Typically there are key plants that are problem-prone and likely to require monitoring. The next step is to determine key problems on your property. Biotic (living organisms such as insects, fungi, slugs, deer, rabbits, nematodes, etc), and abiotic (non-living factors such as weather, fertility, irrigation, etc) are problems that need to be identified and solutions recommended by our Horticulturalists. Key problems are the ones most likely to impact plant health and require attention. Our next step is to study the landscape ecosystem. All landscapes are an ecosystem, with complex interrelationships among flora, fauna, soil, weather, and other factors. Our horticulturists are aware of climatic factors, such as minimum temperatures, the amount of sun received by various parts of your property, prevailing winds, and seasonal patterns of precipitation. We also understand soils and drainage patterns. This information is essential, because healthy landscapes are a result from carefully matching plants to the habitats in your yard. Landscapes are dynamic. Grant’s Gardens monitor them constantly to keep up with both seasonal and long-term changes. A key to any sustainable landscape program is frequent monitoring, at least every two - three weeks during the growing season and perhaps once a month during the winter. When monitoring, we pay particular attention to signs of plant stress (yellow or wilted leaves, dead twigs, etc.), and be on the lookout for developing pest problems. A healthy plant, planted correctly in the right location, is more likely to remain healthy, being less susceptible to attack by disease or insects. Selecting a plant is much more than choosing one that fits our hardiness zone. It means selecting plants that we can maintain well. And it means selecting plants, when possible, with inherent disease resistance, insect resistance, and ability to withstand other stresses that may be present. Grant’s Gardens sustainable landscape program requires the following reports:
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