Human after all
As I work in the field, mistakes creep in and I hate every single one. I want perfection but, alas, I’m human. Sometimes I even shock myself. And then I move on. It’s not the end of the world. But it’s good to show all sides. Not just the hits. Misses happen too.
Scalping, really?
I consider scalping the ultimate sin in lawn care because it erases the grass down to dirt and looks awful. It’s the very opposite of the service we want to provide for our clients. It’s so ugly, I devote a full lesson to scalping in my soon-to-be launched online course on lawn care mistakes (BC Landscape Academy.)
Of course, normally when we think of scalps, we think of mowers. But yesterday I slipped with my line edger because I failed to adjust for the slope of the lawn and my line got snagged long enough to cause a brown spot in my lawn. Arghh.
Oops!
The timing is also extremely poor because the lawn is going dormant and won’t be actively growing. Also, it’s sometimes possible to blend in the scalp by line edging around it but again, this non-irrigated lawn isn’t super lush.
This is similar to later fall lawn scalping. With winter coming on, late season scalps will show up for months. That’s not an ideal situation.
Obscured numbers
This planting went really well and both plant species, Spiraea and Sedum, are doing well. In the case of this Sedum, almost too well. Wanting to preserve consistent spacing I planted this Sedum too close to the sign. And now, several weeks later, we can’t read the complex numbers.
It doesn’t worry me but delivery drivers, busy during a pandemic, go crazy when they can’t see the complex numbers. We might have to prune the plant soon and possibly relocate it.
Learning
Learn from your mistakes but don’t beat yourself up. I’m still learning in my 21st season in the field. Learning should never stop.
