Is your backyard PARTY READY? When the warm weather comes, there’s no better place to host your celebration than the great outdoors. From weddings and showers to graduation parties and cookouts, prepping your property is no small task. Whatever the occasion, we’re ready, willing and able!

Planning

With the summer season upon us, you’ve got to get your landscaping in order – and we can help! Cole has you covered with crews prepared to transform your property into the perfect setting to host your event.

Concierge Service:

We work closely with wedding and party planners to ensure that the landscape needs are met leading up to, before and during the event. We provide emergency lawn, tree and shrub installations for outdoor events, as well as all watering and irrigation monitoring.

Outdoor Party Ready “To Do” List

Since there are so many details to attend to for the party itself – invitations, caterer, cake – the list goes on – leave the outdoor tasks to a professional.

Property Care Service

Property Care Service will make your property sparkle. This consists of whatever lawn, shrub, plant and flower care that your property may require: re-edging bed lines, cultivating mulch, weeding beds, hand pruning/trimming and general overall property maintenance.

The Lawn

First and foremost, your lawn should be in top shape. Attend to any problems now. With proper mowing, fertilizing and care, your lawn should feel like a lush green carpet.

Shrubs and Flowers

Equally important is pruning shrubs and grooming flower beds. With today’s busy lifestyles, many homeowners just don’t have time for pruning and deadheading. If you need to add more color to your yard this summer, enhance your color pallet with our award winning annuals.

Containers

Decorating with plants and containers adds visual interest as well as seasonal color. If your event has a theme and color scheme, using containers is the best way to incorporate the colors of your choice.

Hardscapes

Don’t forget your walkways! It’s time to polish up the surfaces you walk (and drive) on. The bricks and pavement that make up your patio or walkway may need some attention. Your true hardscape could be hidden beneath a small layer of weathered dirt. Got cracks and broken stones? Cole can help with structural repairs to any necessary areas, including power cleaning, re-sanding, re-pointing, efflorescence cleaning and re-sealing.

Lighting: Landscape lighting, Outdoor Uplighting and Cafe Lighting

Installing lighting along walkways, steps and dark areas allows your celebration to extend into the evening hours. Besides providing safety from tripping in the dark, outdoor lighting also adds ambiance to your festivities.

Firepit

Add warmth and a fun place to gather with the installation of a fire pit. There are many easy-install models to choose from – the possibilities are endless and your parties will last well into the night!

Let the Celebrations Begin!

If you need help getting PARTY READY, Cole knows just what to do. Extend your indoors outdoors and let us take care of those chores. We are your full service landscape provider and we’ve got you covered, from getting your greenery green to cleaning your hardscapes and lighting your walkways.  Our Signature Services will get you “Party Ready.”

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Landscape lighting sets a special tone for each season and enhances the beauty in the features of your property that you wish to highlight. In the winter, lights glimmer off of snow and ice, producing a soft glow that illuminates the surroundings.  In the spring, the lights capture young leaves and blossoms. Color erupts from every part of the landscape, and the night is replete with rainbow hues. In summer, the leaves mature into their darker, more saturated greens – the landscape lighting reflects this and reveals a lush, verdant panorama emerging from the darkness.

Then time steps into Autumn, and the landscape retreats into a phase where colors change again. In northern climates, the leaves reward you with dazzling displays of reds, yellows, and oranges. This is a short pleasure since the display may last only a few days, followed by a time we know too well – falling leaves and bare branches – perhaps the biggest challenge to our landscape lights.

While leaves are falling, pull out your rake and make sure your lights stay leaf-free! Sorry, but you should do this at least once a week till the leaves stop falling.

Replace Older Halogen Bulbs with New LED Bulbs

There are so many benefits to using LED lights for landscape lighting. Besides being brighter and highly energy efficient (LED lights use about 50% less electricity than other lighting options), LED lights last 30-50 times longer than conventional bulbs. LED lights are not as delicate as other lights, having no glass enclosures or filaments, so they are much more durable. LEDs like the cold! Unlike fluorescent lamps, they don’t require any more energy to illuminate when temperatures drop.

LED lights are very “controllable” – they illuminate instantly and offer continuous dimming.  You can make them scarier in the fall. For the last week of October, go Halloween on your trees and use color filters. Select red, green or purple and orange filters. Just keep in mind these filters cut down the brightness quite a bit, so it only works when you have a very bright spotlight. You can also use these colors on some of your other lights. Have fun!

Perform Annual Transformer and System Maintenance

Make it a part of your autumn landscape lighting upkeep routine.

Remember to:

• Tighten all screws on both sides of your transformerâ€s terminal blocks
• Visually inspect any exposed wire for damage
• Clean any accumulated debris from inside the cabinet housing
• Check the time clock programming and replace the battery
• Clean the photocell and prune any plant material obstructing the light fixtures
• Adjust fixtures that might have been hit or moved.

Fall Back into a New Timer Schedule

Itâ€s that time of year again when youâ€ll need to adjust your outdoor lighting timer. Most timers are set to automatically turn your landscape lighting on at dusk and turn off after a certain number of hours. With the clocks falling back soon, remember to account for the shorter days and update your lighting schedule so that guests (or even family members) donâ€t come home to a dark house. Also, set the schedule to accommodate for leaving for work or the school bus in the dark.

Keep Wires Underground

Buried lighting wires may have been unearthed over the summer months. Before the leaves really start to fall, scan your property for exposed wires. This ensures you are up to code, which requires a wire to be buried a minimum of 6 inches deep. This also ensures overall safety. Exposed wire can be a tripping hazard, and wild animals or pets could chew on it. In either scenario, not only are you threatening people and animals with electrical dangers, but you also risk shorting out your landscape lighting system.

Contact Cole professionals if you want to learn more about enhancing the beauty of your property with landscape lighting.

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Nothing announces the change of the season from summer to fall in New England more than the sight of chrysanthemums — more commonly known as mums — decorating doorsteps. These hardy autumn favorites come in a variety of colors, including the traditional yellow, rust orange, barn red and white as well as other softer color hues such as purple and pink. While mums are hardy and will tolerate cool, almost-freezing, temperatures relatively well, they are not immune to frost, and just one frosty night can do them in. Read on for tips on how to make mums last longer.

Select a Healthy Plant

Choose mums that are not in full bloom. Although mums in bloom may be more attractive at the garden center, they are already well into their life cycle. There is no way to tell if the blooms have just opened or have been open for a few weeks. Mums with closed blooms indicate that the plant is in an earlier stage of its lifecycle, and when they do bloom, they will last longer than those already putting forth flowers. Also check to make sure the stems on the plant are not bent or broken and that the leaves are green.

Choose the Right Container

A sturdy container will anchor the top-heavy plant and support the clusters of blooms. A container that is approximately 1/3 larger than the root ball on all sides is ideal for re-potting a chrysanthemum.

Re-Pot Your Chrysanthemum

Gently remove the mums from the temporary container. Moisten the root ball to aid in removal if necessary. Line the bottom of the new pot with clean potting soil (approximately 1-2 inches) and place the root ball on top of the soil lined pot. Fill the remaining open areas loosely with potting soil.  Do not pack the potting soil. The roots need aerated soil to expand.

General Care for Mums

Place the newly potted plant in a sunny area and keep the soil moist, but do not saturate. Overwatering will result in long stems and mushy, decaying blooms. Deadhead as needed by removing any dead or damaged flowers, leaves, and stems when necessary to keep your mum looking fresh and healthy.  If a frost is expected, move the mums to a protected inside area such as a garage, shed or barn in the evening, before the temperature drops. Place the plants back outside when the temperature rises above 50 degrees the next day. Alternately,  you can cover the potted plants with old towels or sheets to protect from the frost, taking care to cover all exposed areas of the plant.

Cole Landscaping, Inc. offers unique, one-of-a-kind fall landscape display services. See your property burst into color as our designers decorate your home or business with all the hues of the season. Contact Cole if you would like assistance with your fall decor.

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