Russian Sage

On a Friday! Okay so I clearly missed Friendly reminder Tuesday, WOW what a week it has been! My friendly reminder is all about the shrub pictured above. It has pretty purple flowers on its gray-green foliage and when properly grown reaches 3-5 feet in height. This is a pretty great shrub we have them planted in our yard at home! The only down fall is bees, they LOVE this plant. As I pulled up to a drive-thru window of a fast food restaurant this morning I noticed a bee flying close to the vehicle in front of me. The window quickly went up! I then noticed 3 Russian Sage planted all around the ordering voice box. I was rolling up my window and ordering in a hurry too as I am pretty afraid of bees! (yes I know they do AWESOME things for our plants!) Probably not the best placement on the landscape designers part!

So, remember if you love this shrub but maybe have kids, or are a scaredy cat like me don’t plant them close to your front door, patio or playhouse! Enjoy them from a far! Happy Friday Folks!

The above pictures are from Sunday! (Unfortunately, I didn’t think to take them at the same time of day, duh?!?!) Remember the first photos are from Thursday! If you look at the first picture above you will noticed how LONG the grass is, so long that my camera struggled to grab focus from the level I had the camera at. I wonder if I will even be able to take the picture on Thursday? The second one looks a bit different but I’m wondering if that is more due to the color rather than the length of the grass? What do you think, she a lot of change???

Hehe! So we have had many people calling to discuss their lawns this year! From people who’s yards that we maintain to new customers just having general questions. So I decided to photgraph a lawn for one week and show you the pictures of the lawn from fresh mow to minutes before the fresh mow a week later! It is CRAZY how fast lawns can grow and change in just a few days so this will be intersting to see.

 The first picture you see is a ground level view. If you look REALLY closley you can see a few stray blades of grass sticking up and this is because this particular lawn was cut the morning after a rain storm!

The next two are just showing you the mow pattern. A good practice when mowing is to change directions each time you mow. Today it was just your typical up (the lighter color in the middle) and back, but who knows next week could be a checker board! Kidding The last thing I want you to notice is the great green color of this lawn! Would you believe there are 3 dogs who live here?

Pay attention as I will try and capture these exact same photos for the next week to chart the progress!

Quick Question for all you blog readers: How often do you think this lawn is watered?? ~Robben

Today is Arbor Day! Did you know the first Arbor Day was April 10th 1872 in Nebraska, started by a man named Sterling Morton? The State made it an offical holiday two years later and by 1882 most states had in school celebrations planned for the day. Now of course it is observed the last Friday in April.

There are so many ways to celebrate Arbor Day, of course there is the obvious tree planting but if thats not in your budget you could plan a day to clean up your yard. You could also take the time to read a book about trees or visit your local nursery and learn something new about trees and plants! Take a hike or mountain bike ride. I personally will celebrate by taking a stroll through our city park to take in the gorgeous, old trees. However you choose to celebrate the day remember to make it personal to you and Happy Planting!

-Robben