Tools & Tech
Air Spade
The air spade is a tool that allows us to remove the soil from around the roots without damaging the roots. There are a few reasons why this method is ideal.
When excavation must take place around existing trees, typically motorized equipment is used. When this happens, existing roots are damaged in a blunt-force way. This trauma causes slow healing wounds and stressed trees. With an air spade, the roots are exposed and selective cuts can be made, with sharp saws, in order to produce fast-healing wounds and the trees are better off.
Another benefit of using an air spade is that suspect or contaminated soil can be removed from around the roots while keeping the root zone intact. After removing the soil, new corrective soil can then be placed over the exposed roots and watered into place, filling the void. This allows immediate soil replacement without removing the tree itself.
Olive Fruit Control
Olive Trees have been around for centuries and are a welcome addition in our modern landscapes. It is common these days to dig a mature, large Olive Tree out of the grove where they have been growing for decades and install at your property. It creates instant maturity and character.
Of course, these trees do not stop fruiting simply because they change locations. When the fruit matures in late summer, the dropping begins. This creates problems with oily staining on pavers and concrete walkways. We have tried many chemicals over the years in an attempt to eliminate or lessen the fruit drop on Olive Trees, but have had mixed results at best. Because of this, years ago we started harvesting the olives in advance of them dropping. This process results in nearly 95% of fruit being eliminated in one instance. Recently, we have acquired olive harvesting rakes to aid in this process.
Tree Shaker
The air spade is a tool that allows us to remove the soil from around the roots without damaging the roots. There are a few reasons why this method is ideal.
When excavation must take place around existing trees, typically motorized equipment is used. When this happens, existing roots are damaged in a blunt-force way. This trauma causes slow healing wounds and stressed trees. With an air spade, the roots are exposed and selective cuts can be made, with sharp saws, in order to produce fast-healing wounds and the trees are better off.
Another benefit of using an air spade is that suspect or contaminated soil can be removed from around the roots while keeping the root zone intact. After removing the soil, new corrective soil can then be placed over the exposed roots and watered into place, filling the void. This allows immediate soil replacement without removing the tree itself.
Drones
At Green Perspectives, we are experimenting with drone technology to give us better understanding of the landscapes we manage. For example, when assessing the health of a tree from the ground, one can almost never get an overall picture of what is happening in the canopy of the tree. Drones alleviate the need to climb the tree or use a boom lift to get a better look. They can provide us a quicker, more complete view of the tree’s canopy with less risk to an employee.
We also see potential for drones to be used for plant health care. Drones can be used to make more precise, and therefore safer, pesticide applications.
The potential also exists for drones to prune trees. This would again reduces the danger of climbing trees.
Fertigation
Fertigation is the process of introducing minute amounts of fertilizer into the water stream of an irrigation system. This method of micro-fertilization has been in practice in agriculture for decades and has recently become more popular for commercial landscapes recently.
This method of fertilization is very effective because it allows for regular, consistent feeding utilizing fertilizer that plants to absorb immediately, using the irrigation system already in place as the delivery method.
Dog Damage Solutions
As more and more apartment and home dwellers become dog owners, the issue of dog damage in turf continues to worsen. We have seen no difference between female and male dogs in terms of damage to turf. There is no chemical that “neutralizes” urine that we know of (if you have one that works, we can make you a millionaire!). There currently isn’t a type of turf grass that is resistant to the damage that urine causes.
With decades of thought and working with the issue, we have determined two methods of at least dealing with the issue.
- The first one is to consider weekly re-sodding of the area if it is an important area such as near a building entrance, along a main drive isle, or highly visible walk path.
- A second method would be to consider converting the area from turf or grass to shrubs or ground cover.
An alternative to this is to surround a turf area heavily used by dogs with taller shrubs effectively screening the area from view.
