Heritage Lawns and Irrigation

We are really getting with the web world now. Check out our New Lawn Gateway which will allow you to pay your bill on line, see your current programs, find out when your last application was, how many treatments do you have left for the season, request a service call, add a service and view your history.   Basically giving you access to your account at your convenience.

It’s easy to get to right off our home page      http://www.heritagelawnskc.com/

It’s secure. Set up your own log in and password.

It’s Convenient.  It gives you all of your account information in one place when you want it.

We are receiving a few calls about birch trees dropping leaves.  It can be a little alarming as they can drop 50% of all their leaves pretty quickly.
But there is no need to worry since this is the birch tree’s natural self defence mechanism to deal with drought stress.  In an effort to reduce water loss the tree sheds excess leaves to minimize the amount of water lost through evapotranspiration ( through the leaf).
If we continue with a prolonged dry spell a deep soaking with a slow trickling garden hose once a week will help.

Never forget those that died to give us the freedom to be the greatest nation in the history of the world.
Have a happy and safe 4th of July.

I’m proud to say we get these kind of notes on a regular basis. Clients saying thank you and relaying their experience with their lawn coach.  But this one got me to to thinking about how grateful I am to have the team we’ve built here at Heritage.
I’m attaching this note to publicly recognize this great team!

Hi Wes:

I often see the days of customer service going away as we move further into another decade.  But your team exemplifies customer service and continually provides that service which is beyond the 15 minute yard or 30 minute tree application.  Your team is customer service.   An example would be Matt where he assesses the yard before and after and follows up with me to make sure all is ok (I have a great yard because of him).  Jay this last time knows I always have issues with spider mites in my boxwoods.  He found a couple of bushes with them, sprayed them and told me that he would check them this week to make sure they did not spread and you know spider mites follow me and love me like me the plague (thank you Jay).   I appreciate that customer service tremendously and think very highly of these two individuals.  However, I got another story.

Yesterday Jeremy went above the call of the sprinkler.  I am in the process of planting a row of Annabelle hydrangeas and I ran into significant trouble on Sunday with one hole .  Out of 13 holes that is pretty good, but that one hole contained this massive and enormous rectangular shaped boulder that I could not move.  I literally spent over an hour digging around the boulder and trying to move it and could barely budge this rock that the developer through into my berm. Not only did I spend the afternoon trying to move it, I broke my best shovel trying to hoist it out of the hole.  Jeremy was out to the house yesterday adding an replacing a sprinkler head with an extension and I asked him to see if there might be some cost effective options for watering this row of water sucking hydrangeas.  I mention to Jeremy that this idea might not be the smartest idea I have had and besides me having to water them daily, I have run into boulder problems.   Upon my nightly inspection, it is to my wildest amazement that this boulder which weighs more than me has been excavated from this hole and onto the berm.  Unbelievable and amazing!!!!   Let me tell you – that is beyond the call of sprinkler duty because that was not one little rock.    Many thanks go out to him.  I am very appreciative of what he did.  After spending Sunday trying to move the boulder and then some time on Monday, I had almost given up.   What a man – that took some amazing strength to move that rock!   Thank you Jeremy.

Thank you Wes for having such a great team.

Todd

A Wet but Smiling Crew

Civil war memorial statue donated by the Grand Army of the Republic

Spreading Lime the easy way

Service in the rain.  Our annual service day project at Olathe Cemetery was a wet one again this year.   We have several history buffs in our group so we chose the Olathe Cemetery for a way to help the community.  It is our local piece of history with an amazing World Wars section and a Civil War section that really blows you away.  We decided to help by doing what we do best, maintain the turf.   After conducting several soil tests it was determined that Lime applications would help keep the turf healthy but not lead to extra growth (more mowing).  We also do spot weed control treatments in areas with heavy weed populations to allow the grass to thicken and naturally keep out the weeds.  This year we also applied a special bed pre-emergent in the flower and shrub beds to help keep the weeds down and minimize labor later in the year pulling the weeds.  A big thanks to Helena again this year for their product donations.

Duct tape repair

I know every sprinkler company in the city is busy now but there is no excuse for this kind of work. We ran across the proverbial “Duct Tape” repair this week. Supposedly repaired last summer by another service. It shows there is huge difference between a guy in a truck and professional irrigation co.  The other place we see this is the mowing/landscape/whatever company.  Jack of all trades master of none.

It’s always better to do the job once and do it right.

Surprise guest

You never know what you’re going to find.  While trying to start up a sprinkler system we couldn’t get the backflow device to seal shut.  Upon opening and closer inspection we found this little guy.  (if you look close you can see a small toad on the left side of the cup)  How he got inside we don’t know, and he wasn’t harmed when we turned the water on.  When we turned him loose, shut everything back up  then the system sealed up good as new.

Even though this van came on line last spring, I really noticed the new logo when it was parked next to an older unit.  I really like the new logo and design but still feel nostalgic for the original.

Gotta give an A for effort but I just shake my head when I see this.  The home owner had the right idea that it is time to put the Pre- emergent down but he didn’t apply it properly.   Uneven fertilizer application will cause this and in the case of the pre-emergent will give them poor crabgrass control later in the year.  Proper rates and even application of any product is a big piece of the puzzle to achieve good results.  Last but not least for the same amount of money (may be less) he will spend on the application and the fix he could have a professional deliver top notch results.  

Someone likes coffee

Art is what we call…………………  the thing an artist does.

It’s not the medium or the oil or the price or whether it hangs on a wall or you eat it. What matters, what makes it art, is that the person who made it overcame the resistance, ignored the voice of doubt and made something worth making. Something risky. Something human. Art is not in the eye of the beholder. It’s in the soul of the artist.

This is a quote form the great Seth Godinhttp://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2011/02/art-is-what-we-call.html? I’m not a deep thinker like he is but when you read short, profound thoughts like this I have the utmost respect for people who can do this.  What I think are great about comments like these is that everyone can put it in their own context.  For me,  I think of the different “yard art” that I see in our daily stops.  Some make you shake your head and some you go “wow”.   The neat part is that the “artist/homeowner” cared enough to do something to make their lawn unique and give them some joy.  So don’t be afraid to invest a little of yourself in your lawn.