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Jamie Pal Lush Mountain Landscape and design your kelowna and the surrounding area landscaper: Posted on Tuesday, March 08, 2011 4:44 PM
Benefits of Trees in the Okanagan Most trees and shrubs in cities or communities are planted to provide beauty or shade. These are two excellent reasons for their use. Woody plants also serve many other purposes, and it often is helpful to consider these other functions when selecting a tree or shrub for the landscape. The benefits of trees can be grouped into social, communal, environmental, and economic categories. Social Benefits We like trees around us because they make life more pleasant. |
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Jamie Pal Landscaping Kelowna and the surrounding area: Posted on Monday, March 07, 2011 8:58 PM
Soil Preparation and Maintenance The soil is the basic raw material of the gardener’s art. It should never be dismissed as a mere collection of mineral particles used to anchor roots or, worse still, as “dirt.” It is much more than that. Certainly, its basic structure consists of rock particles broken down by frost and thaw action, wind, and river flow, to produce the different soil “types” (clay,” sand, and so on). However, a large part of its make-up is organic matter — vegetable and animal remains in various stages of decay — along with air and water, all essential for the support of plant and animal life. |
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Jamie Pal Lush Mountain Landscaping in Kelowna and West Kelowna: Posted on Sunday, March 06, 2011 9:25 PM
Lush Mountain Landscape and Design If you have a yard we have a service for you… Late winter and early spring…save money and have your yard ready for the season. · Save money by having afree assessmenton your sprinkler done, the city of Kelowna offers free irrigation assessments from mid-April-Aug 31. Call 250 863 3339 · Irrigation start-upin April is great way to get your system working at its peak; broken heads, cracked lines or clocks that are set too long |
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Jamie Pal Lush Mountain Landscape and Design: Posted on Wednesday, March 02, 2011 10:26 PM
Some of the solutions being developed are: - Reduction of storm water run-off through the use of bio-swales,rain gardensand green roofs and walls.
- Reduction of water use in landscapes through design of water-wise garden techniques (sometimes known asxeriscaping)
- Bio-filtering of wastes through constructed wetlands
- Landscape irrigation using water from showers and sinks, known as gray water
- Integrated Pest Management techniques forpest control
- Creating and enhancing wildlife habitat in urban environments
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Jamie Pal Lush Mountain Landscaping: Posted on Wednesday, March 02, 2011 9:18 PM
WHAT TO DO DURING A DROUGHT for your plants in Kelowna • Doing nothing is sometimes best
• Avoid fertilizer - it can burn root hairs, cause drying out of the tissue
• Avoid pruning - it stimulates new growth, which uses water reserves
• Avoid pesticides - they can injure drought-stressed foliage
• Avoid watering, obviously
• Turn off your controller or adjust moisture sensors for minimum watering
• Allow plants to wilt, up to a point
• Remove unnecessary plants to provide more water for those remaining |
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Jamie Pal Lushmountain Landscape and Design: Posted on Tuesday, March 01, 2011 9:49 PM
Why Xeriscape? If you want your garden to give you the maximum enjoyment and value for your expenditure of time and money,xeriscapingis the answer!Xeri(rhymes with terra) is the Greek word for dry. Xeriscaping is gardening with your natural environmental conditions rather than fighting against them. BENEFITS OF XERISCAPE - Enhances the value of your home with an attractive and water conserving landscape.
- Reduces water use- depending on the design and the plants used, water use can be reduced by over 50%.
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Jamie Pal from the City of Kelowna website: Posted on Monday, February 28, 2011 4:05 PM
A Water Smart soil is a living soil. In a typical suburban lot, good quality living topsoil contains approximately 90 pounds of earthworms, 240 pounds of fungi, 150 pounds of bacteria, 13 pounds of protozoa and 89 pounds of arthropods and algae. This soil life and its food web cultivate and aerate the soil, improve its structure and increase the availability of water and nutrients for plants. If the organic matter in a growing medium is less than one per cent, all this life will die. Optimum amounts of organic matter in a living growing medium provide a garden soil that |
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Jamie Pal Lush Mountain Landscape and Design: Posted on Thursday, February 24, 2011 2:08 PM
DRIP IRRIGATIONS SYSTEMSby Owen E. Dell WHAT'S A DRIP IRRIGATION SYSTEM?A drip irrigation system applies water slowly to the specific root zone of plants. This is accomplished with emitters that are placed at each plant and apply water drop by drop, allowing it to soak in to the soil rather than running off or blowing away. Black polyethylene tubing, placed above ground, carries the water from plant to plant. A valve, automatic or manual, controls the system. A backflow prevention device prevents water from flowing back into the pressure main and contaminating the potable water supply. |
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Jamie Pal Lush Mountain Landscape and Design: Posted on Wednesday, February 23, 2011 4:35 PM
THE THIRTEEN DEADLY SYNDROMESby Owen E. Dell 1. THE SATURDAY MORNING SYNDROME
SYMPTOMS:The urge to venture forth on weekends to the local nursery, to seek out new, mysterious and cheap plants, to bring them home and to look for a place to put them. This leads to a mish-mosh of plants that has no purpose, no appeal and cannot be maintained. The technical term for this is a "mess."CURE:Plan before you plant. Consider that the whole must be the sum of its parts and the parts must serve the whole. |
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Jamie Pal Lush Mountian Landscape and Design: Posted on Saturday, February 19, 2011 10:13 PM
The Seven Principles of Xeriscape PLANNING & DESIGN To begin, think about how you would like to use your property and what features it could have. For example, would you like a patio, a big shade tree, a butterfly garden, or a vegetable garden? Where do you need pathways? How much sun is there in different areas? Are there views you want to frame or things you want to hide? Next, you can make a scale drawing of your property, house and any plants or features that you want to keep. Then try out your ideas using overlays of tracing paper. |
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