Looking back over the last Year
2004 was a busy year for Lawrence Park Garden Care.
We brought in some exciting new environmentally friendly innovations, and took steps to improve and
expand our services to clients.

• Our clients can now pay their bills online and feedback from you has been a big ‘thank goodness for the convenience’.
  
  
• Our new line of LPGC organic fertilizer for turf has been a huge success. We worked hard to help develop this 100% organically derived product and saw excellent results from its use.
  
  
• Curbside composting has attracted the most comments, interest and excitement from clients.
  Read about the curbside composter in more detail.
  
  
• Our new power washing service kept decks, patios and hard surfaces free from winter mould, moss, stains and dirt for many of our clients.
  

What's new in 2005

• LPGC will now provide Irrigation System maintenance, adjustment and repair. This will ensure your irrigation system is providing peak performance from spring start up to fall shut down.
  
  
• We’re launching our long-term plan to convert LPGC’s truck fleet to bio-diesel fuel – cutting harmful emissions by over 90%. This will continue over the next several years.
  
  
• The purchase and installation of a new crane on one of our trucks now allows us to transport and plant much larger trees. This gives new and re-designed gardens a filled in and mature look, shaving years off the maturing process.
  
  
• Three major stone masonry jobs kick off the season this spring. Unique designs and extensive water features will make these some of the most dramatic gardens in the park.
  
  
• LPGC’s commitment to education continues as we work toward our goal of having every member of our team certified as Horticultural Technicians. This means all garden care staff will be completing courses in weed identification and diagnosis, perennial identification, pruning and stone masonry over the next several years.

• Lawrence Park Garden Care made the cover of Horticultural Review Magazine! We were profiled as a garden care company that’s making a difference’ with our progressive approach to training, education and leadership.
  

• We continued our efforts to reduce and eliminate emissions by converting our small engine equipment (leaf blowers, trimmers, lawn mowers, etc.) to the new, much cleaner, 4-stroke engine technology.

Just because it’s winter doesn’t mean there’s no work to be done in the garden. Late February through to the end of March is the best time for pruning trees and shrubs in our gardens. Dormant, leafless plants are easily assessed for structure and form, which allows corrective pruning to ensure successful continued growth.

Most evergreens, late flowering shrubs and trees prefer to be pruned in late winter. This isn’t a substitute for summer pruning since the goals of each are different.

Winter pruning is about refining and improving the overall structure of a plant. Summer pruning is both aesthetic and functional; here you’re giving form and shape as well as improving health during the growing season. Finally, winter pruning reduces the risk of spreading disease: when plants and trees are old and dormant, so are many of the fungal diseases that can attack them. Cast a painterly eye on your winter garden

For these next three months, most of the time you spend with your garden will be looking at it through the frame of your windows. Now’s the time to ask yourself ‘what am I seeing?’

Winter is unique in your garden. It’s not about the bloom or the leaf now. Your garden becomes interesting for things like the texture of the bark on a tree. Aesthetics are about shape, colour and structure against a great white canvas. A corkscrew hazel turns magical. The brilliant green of kerria branches contrast wonderfully with the rich red of a dogwood.

You can’t plant now, but you can look around your garden and think about where you would like to add a stone element, a statue, an urn. Look at where your focal points are, and where they might be missing.

Where would you like to see green all year round? Should you add tall grasses that withstand winter to add texture? Are there one or two changes that will make a significant difference to the overall picture your winter garden presents?

These months are a time of reflection on your garden. Making notes – even sketches – now will help you create the great bone structure your garden needs to look spectacular all year round.

Rob Kennedy and Chris McEwen are Lawrence Park Garden Care’s own composting super heroes. Driving their converted Mitsubishi truck, they attracted lots of attention this fall as they vacuumed up and mulched your leaves – at your curb.

Gone was that annoying line of bagged leaves that would sit, sag, split and spill across the front of your property for a week or more. Instead, these guys kept Lawrence Park looking great – and helped the environment at the same time.

Leaves take between two and five years to compost into soil. Mulching – chopping – reduces that break down time to between three and six months.

When they were mulched, Rob and Chris whisked them away to a compost site where they are recycled into usable organic
material.