July 2016

It is only July, and 2016 has already been an interesting season. The cool and wet May has produced lots of foliar and vascular diseases. We have seen cedar-apple rust for the first time in a few years. Oak leaf blister has been evident all over the Denver Metro area. Fireblight in Apples, Crabapples, and Pears got started early, and is now making many of our wonderful ornamental trees rather unsightly. 

If that wasn’t enough, the abnormally high temperatures of June gave rise to massive insect populations of aphids, mites, leaf hoppers, and scale. We are now concerned that the ample moisture of April and May, combined with the high temps of June, will result in high populations of Japanese beetle showing up throughout July and August. We have already had our first reports of a few early Japanese beetle adults seen in Cherry Hills Village and Englewood.  

There are a few things home owners can do and should know about their lawns as the heat of summer gets into high gear. The transition from cooler spring weather to hot summer weather has been a quick change over this year. This leads to extra stress on the lawn.

Keeping blades sharp will allow the tips of the grass to heal more rapidly and prevent moisture loss and stress. A lawn cut with a dull blade will lose almost double the water as a yard cut with a very sharp blade.Mowing height adjustment is probably the most important practice to prepare lawns for hot weather. Mow at heights of at least 2½ to 3 inches. If in doubt, set the mower as high as it will go. Lawns maintained at higher levels usually develop deeper roots and dry out more slowly than closely mowed turf. Lawn growth will slow as the weather gets drier and hotter.

Eric was born in Cincinnati, Ohio where he began work in the landscape field. His 9 years of experience include working for a garden center, a tree company, commercial lawn maintenance, and residential/ commercial landscaping. He graduated from the Ohio State University with a Bachelor of Science in Landscape Architecture in August of 2016, and left Ohio in pursuit of a lifelong dream to move to Colorado. He had never been here before, but has found it is everything, and more, than what he had imagined. While in Colorado he has spent his winters sharpening his skills in the powder in hopes to one day take a trip to Alaska, and drop in from a helicopter. He says, “I had never dreamed Colorado could get any better, and then the mountains turned green.” He spends every weekend exploring the wilderness far and near. His favorite hobbies include fabrication, photography, and music. He has an interest in all genres, and says he especially enjoyed the CO Symphony’s performance of David Bowie. He says he has found the perfect career for him at Mountain High. He really enjoys having the chance to meet different people, study the native plants, and to paint a living aesthetic with the available palette. What really draws Eric to this career path is the opportunity to still get his hands dirty sweating out the summer sun in beautiful Colorado.

It is important to make your irrigation efforts as efficient as possible. Water that runs off the surface and into the drains and street has no benefit to your landscape. It can be helpful to implement “interval irrigation” to improve the results of your watering. Interval irrigation uses shorter irrigation system run times and more frequent cycles to improve soil saturation. For example, if you have a 15 run time, you can turn that into two cycles running nearly back to back of 8 and 7 minutes respectively. This allows the soil to absorb the water, and with the 2nd cycle it can penetrate deeper into the soil. This will decrease the amount of water that runs off the soil surface.