Feeling guilt for under-spending during the first round of holiday consumption?  Don’t try to compensate by eating more cookies or adding another plastic snowman to the front lawn.  Take on a landscaping project!

Veggie Gardens

Now is an excellent time to start a new veggie garden to get ready for spring planting in February/March.  We’ve scaled back our original offerings for turnkey raised bed gardens, simplifying the design and dramatically reducing the overall cost.

We have installed several of these 4′x8′ boxes this year, with great success.  Made from 2″x12″ cedar, these should last at least 10 years, are much safer and cleaner than treated wood, look great, and require much less cost and labor than mortared stone.  Cost for a 4′x8′x1′ cedar box, filled with a high-quality veggie garden soil, placed on a fully prepped and leveled sunny spot, and set up with a bale of alfalfa hay to use as mulch once planting is complete, is $645 plus tax for most landscapes. 

Tree Gifting

Winter is the best time of the year for tree planting, and it’s a great time of year for giving the gift of a tree!  This season, we’re offering reduced pricing on tree planting, to help you avoid the desperate scramble to come up with a thoughtful gift for the hard-to-shop-for-friend or family member.  We can coordinate with the lucky gift recipient by presenting these customized, handmade cards announcing your gift, and planting their choice of native shade or ornamental trees wherever they choose. 

Reduced costs for the purchase, delivery, and installation of a selection of 9 different species of trees are:

5-gallon – $35/tree

10-gallon – $160/tree

30-gallon – $280/tree

45-gallon – $460/tree

Simply let us know how many trees and what size, give us contact information of the person you’d like to gift them to, and we’ll present a gift card to the recipient in your name, help them decide which trees and where if needed, and then quietly take care of the rest.  You’ll receive an invoice from us via email, along with a photo of the finished project.  Super easy!

Winter Maintenance

Winter is generally a good time for winter cleanup.   Once the trees have shed all their leaves and the perennials have gone dormant, it’s time to cut back and prune plants, gather, remove, and recycle excess leaves, remulch beds, and take on any other cleanup projects while most plants have gone to sleep for the season. 

Pruning – Be sure soil temps are low enough to induce hibernation, which usually happens in January/February, after we’ve had several nights of freezing weather.   Pretty much all native perennials can get chopped down to about 3-6″ once they’ve gone dormant, which will help encourage uninhibited spring growth. 

For woody shrubs and trees, keep it simple.  Focus on limbs and branches that are dead, crossing, sprouting from the base of a tree, or pointing in unfavorable directions (like down). 

Clumping grasses like muhlies can be sheared back into the little ‘fros, to help make the spring growth look a little cleaner. 

Lawns-  Resist the temptation to seed your lawn with winter rye, which requires more water and nutrients than anything natural and native should want this time of year.  It’s also a common practice to scalp your lawn before seeding, which does some big time damage to St. Augustine and Zoysia lawns; another reason to avoid it. 

Veggie Gardens –  Veggie gardens will benefit from a winter cover crop, or a heavy mulching of alfalfa, shredded hardwood, pine needles, or excess leaves you have laying around. 

Water – Don’t forget to change the timers on your irrigation system.  Or better yet, turn them off completely.  Once a month, turn on the system  manually, and give a long slow watering to the entire landscape, especially later in the winter and the day before a freeze (be careful with watering restrictions).  The monthly cycle will help keep valves from sticking, and will help prepare lawns, plants, and trees for the spring growth.

Mulch – We were reminded of the importance of mulch this summer, but it’s equally important in winter to protect plant roots and regulate soil temperatures.  Shoot for at least three inches, and try to use dropped leaves in beds as a free, sustainable source of mulch.

Spring Prep- It’s also a great time to start prepping for spring projects; grass removal and bed shaping; soil amending; hardscaping.  Anything to get a jump on the planting rush of March and April, to help make sure your new plants are established before the punishment of summer begins. 

Compost Pile – The combination of free brown material (falling leaves) combined with free green material (kitchen scraps from busy holiday kitchens) makes it a great time of year to start a compost pile.  The City of Austin has some great information on composting, and is offering a free class in January.  See their Solid Waste Services website for more information – http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/sws/

News

Other than building and maintaining landscapes, it’s been a pretty calm year.  No babies, no shiny new contracts, no glamorous awards, no new certifications…hmm, it’s almost like we’re finding our place in the world, sitting a little more comfortably in the saddle, discovering who we really are, digging deeper into the daily tasks and getting better at what we do best, finding comfort in discovering a few more gray hairs, feeling joy and peace in the familiarity of our routine, closing our eyes and breathing in the warmth of what are now long-term relationships with some of our very first clients.  Growing up aint so bad…

Numbers – From an accountant’s perspective, it’s been a good year.  We actually eat shredded 20s for breakfast for now.  6 record-breaking months.  The biggest February ever.  The biggest March ever.  The biggest April.  June.  August.  October.  And barring a big snow storm or hurricane or glitch in the Mayan Calendar, December will make it 7 for the year. 

Alternative Fuels – We burned about 20,000 miles on the veggie-powered truck this year, still without any major problems.   To date, we’ve averaged about 60-65 miles per gallon of diesel on this truck, relying mostly on local restaurant waste to get us from point A to B. 

It’s been such a good experience, we will be converting a second truck to veggie oil by the end of this year, with the help of the most honest, competent, experienced, skilled mechanic in town, our friend Rob.  If you need a reliable mechanic for your vehicle, let me know.  I got the serious hookup.

We used about 1,200 gallons of locally-produced and sourced biodiesel on our other two diesel trucks and two diesel mowers this year, reducing our dependence on foreign petroleum and keeping our money in the Austin community.

We used about 350 gallons of propane in our mowers, which most likely comes from Texas wells, and burns much cleaner than gasoline.   And it doesn’t stink so much.

Jose Buys Big New House – Maybe one of the most exciting highlights of the year:  Jose and his family became first-time homeowners this year.  They even got a dog for the kids.  Well, a toy poodle isn’t exactly a dog but it’s almost close.  Not really.  But anyway, congrats to Jose and his family!

Annual Notes and “Notes”  for the BioGardener Crew

Last year, the BioGardener crew and I were deeply moved by the dozens of notes and ”notes” they received with your November payments.  During one week in the summer, and one week during the winter holidays, the guys are given paid vacation to take a break from the demands of hard labor and to spend time with family.  If you feel inclined to show your appreciation for the work they do, please send a note and/or “note” with the November payment, and I’ll pass it on to the guys before their winter break at the end of December. 

Thank you thank you thank you, so much, for your support.  Please let me know if we can help with anything this season!