It’s about that time. The time when the temperature starts dropping, the leaves start falling, and the holidays are approaching. This is an exciting time for change because we see the earth physically changing before our eyes. Before your trees start hibernating for the winter season, make sure you get them well prepared. Follow these guidelines for fall to help keep your trees healthy:

Fall Fertilization

When was the last time you had your trees fertilized? Fall is the perfect time to fertilize trees. The changes between the summer heat and insect activity, and the chill winter and ice capped trees means your trees go through many drastic changes during the year. These changes can cause trees to lose some of their nutrients and minerals that are important to their health. To make sure that your trees stay healthy during every season, apply a fertilizer to help improve resistance to winter damage and intense weather.

Prepared for Snow

Start preparing for colder temperatures before they arrive. Even if your trees don’t have to face the snow, they’ll still be hit with a temperature drop. If you start pruning and grooming trees now, they’ll be better able to withstand chilly winds and frosted tips. Pruning is easier in the fall since most of the leaves have already fallen, making it less heavy and easier to see the skeleton of the tree. 

Keep Trees Hydrated

Trees, especially young trees, need adequate water and soil moisture during the winter. Even during the winter, roots need a significant supply of water to stay nourished. During cold temperatures, the ground can freeze, meaning that the water in the ground freezes up. When the water is frozen, roots aren’t able to absorb as much water as they need. To prevent trees from getting too thirsty, stock them up on water while they can still absorb it. This also helps prevent winter dieback.

Remove Fallen Leaves

Raking up and removing leaves from the ground reduces the amount of fungal leaf disease after winter. All debris should be removed from around the tree before the first new leaf bud in the spring. This allows the new leaves and flowers to grow without the spoilage of old leaves. Disposing of infected leaves from the previous season can help control the disease by removing spores that can re-infect the new leaves.

For help with tree care, call the professionals at Grandiflora tree service in Spring, Texas!

We all love trees. But sometimes they can grow to an out-of-control size that can cause them to be dangerous. Just like people, trees should also have checkups. These checkups are meant to examine their health and potential hazards. These tree inspections should be done by a certified arborist who knows what to look for, and knows what a hazardous tree looks like. Here are a few symptoms of what to look for before calling your arborist:

Check the Root
A tree’s root structure is the whole base to it’s support. The anchoring roots keep the tree’s foundation in the ground and keep it secure and stable. The smaller roots consume nutrients through the water in the soil. Unfortunately, roots can sometimes decay and deteriorate, making them a hazard. Since the roots are no longer strong and stable, a gust of wind or a rainstorm can cause the tree to fall unexpectedly. Without knowing that the tree is hazardous, it can be a danger to your yard. To inspect your tree for rotten roots, you will need to evaluate the base of the tree. If you spot fungus or other growths around the base, this could be an indication of a problem. Cracked soil can also indicate that the tree is starting to lean downwards and beginning to fall over.

Check the Trunk
Like the roots, cracks or decays in the trunk can be a prediction of a future tree split. It is common that trees have cracks, so it is important to be able to inspect how bad the crack is and if it stems from other sources. Another indication to keep an eye on is if insects have been attacking your tree. Insects normally eat tree trunks if they are sick. These insects will leave round circles of sap on the trunk. If any of these symptoms have been detected, it is time to call your arborist.

Check the Branches
Dead wood on a tree is normally an easy symptom to identify. You can tell when branches are dead, because the leaves on those branches become brown and frail. Those leaves will start falling off, and if it’s not during the fall season, then it is easy to tell. If the branches on the tree start to die at a steady rate, then it is time to get it inspected. To protect yourself from these potentially hazardous situations, dead branches should be trimmed or removed.

When you notice that something is wrong with your tree, it is best to call a certified arborist to handle the situation in a professional way. Grandiflora’s ISA certified arborists understand a tree’s needs and will do their best to preserve the tree while keeping you safe and out of danger. Don’t wait until the tree causes damages, get it inspected today to take care of the problem.

With summer in full swing, now is the perfect time to enjoy Texas’ beautiful weather and spend time outside! Whether you’re looking to barbecue, lay around the pool or cozy up next to a bonfire, the Texas sun creates the perfect atmosphere for almost any occasion. However, taking advantage of our beautiful weather can be made that much easier with a custom tree house from Grandiflora Services! Whether you’re looking for a tree house as an escape from the busy household or the setting for your children’s imagination to run wild, our certified arborists can help you create the perfect blueprint for your own tree house! Here at Grandiflora Services, whenever we build a treehouse we take into strong consideration the tree itself, the sustainability of the surrounding landscape, and the impact of the tree’s health. Here are some things our arborists always consider before starting a tree house build:

The Tree’s Health

When building a treehouse, the healthier and stronger the tree the better. However, an unhealthy tree shouldn’t be automatically disqualified. If a tree suffers from a small disease presence, it can still be built upon, however it’s important to have an arborist assess it beforehand. Because trees only have a limited amount of energy, you want to make sure the tree has enough to handle the structure being built on top of it. Other factors to consider when assessing the tree’s health include age, condition, and the surrounding environment.

Type of Wood

In order to properly construct a tree house, using bolts, screws and other hardware is essential. Because these are made out of metal they don’t typically bend or move normally. However, if the tree’s composition isn’t strong enough the tree could start sinking or will start getting crushed. For this reason, a tree with stronger wood like oak, walnut or cherry is better for support. Trees with weaker or more malleable wood include pine, cedar or redwood. If you would like to build on a tree with more malleable wood, it can be done however it’s best to construct a lighter tree house frame.

Receive a Professional Arborist Opinion

Once you’ve chosen which tree you want to build on and constructed the perfect tree house design, its best to consult a certified arborist for an opinion. A certified arborist can look into the current health of the tree, identify any potential problems and properly assess the tree’s strength. With a certified arborist’s opinion and approval, you’ll be ready to build with confidence!

To get a thorough evaluation of your tree or discuss tree house design and the best methods, contract Grandiflora Services today. Our knowledgeable arborists and tree experts look forward to helping you!

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Unfortunately, our nation’s drinking water infrastructure is slowly deteriorating and is reaching the end of its lifeline. According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and National Association of Water Companies, 7 trillion gallons of water per day are wasted due to inefficiencies in our system. The unstable infrastructure has annually over 240,000 water main breaks resulting in a drastic amount of lost water. Unfortunately, repairing our system would be costly and time consuming. It is quoted that in California alone, we will need to fund $39 billion to fix the drinking water infrastructure.

Installing a Rainwater Harvesting System
Although fixing the system is a daunting task faced by our government, there are steps as citizens we can take to help the problem at hand. By switching our main use of water from utility water to rainwater harvesting, we will help take away from the stress the infrastructure is facing. Having a personal rainwater harvesting system installed on your property will provide your home with safe, high-quality drinking water for both residential and personal use.

Why not capitalize on nature’s resources?
Annually, there is an average of 12 inches of rainfall. This means that a standard rainwater system can collect 10,000 gallons of rainfall from a 1,500 ft2 residential roof. The 10,000 gallons of rainwater collected from your single home will benefit you financially due to the drastic decrease in your water bill. In addition, if every home was able to collect 10,000 gallons of fresh water, the stress put on our nation’s drinking water infrastructure will be reduced drastically. Also, collecting rainwater will help reduce stormwater runoff and therefore decrease pollution being dragged into our local freshwater lakes and rivers.

Still considering whether or not a rainwater harvesting system is the right fit for you? Contact Grandiflora Services today and we will walk you through a long list benefits experienced by our current and past clients!

Most trees are planted to provide shade or for visual appeal. Although these are great reasons for their existence, trees also provide many other benefits. A landscape full of trees tend to bring relaxing vibes, lower our heart rates, and reduce our stress. However, in addition to their plethora of health benefits, trees also better the environment as a whole. For more reasons why you should defend a tree’s standing, read about their environmental benefits:

1. An average tree produces enough oxygen in one year to keep a family of 4 breathing.
Without trees in our environment, the Earth would almost be uninhabitable. Trees convert carbon dioxide into oxygen through a process called photosynthesis. Through photosynthesis, the tree uses the energy from the sun and to combine carbon dioxide and water and produce a sugar. The tree uses the sugar that’s produced as their food. However, in this process the tree also releases extra oxygen from the water particle. This extra oxygen is released into the environment and therefore gives us oxygen we can breathe. So in short, a tree does the exact opposite as humans- trees breathe in carbon dioxide and exhale oxygen. Therefore, trees are our perfect counterpart!

2. Trees provide shelter and food for wildlife such as squirrels, birds, and bugs.
For many species, trees act as a year-round form of shelter, protection, and food. Birds for instance use trees to scan the environment, build nests for their eggs, and source food. Having trees on your property encourages the ecosystem to continue thriving, wildlife to keep producing, and allows natural predators to control unwanted pests.

3. Trees help with water conservation by reducing storm runoff. 
When a storm hits and rain pours down onto a tree’s canopy, a large percentage of the water is caught on a tree’s leaves or absorbed by a tree. When tree’s capture rainwater, the tree allows some of the water to evaporate while the rest of the water is able to slowly filter into the ground. Trees slow down the process of a storm and give the ground time to absorb a storm’s shock. By absorbing some of the storm, trees can reduce as much as 65% of water runoff. Less water runoff means less water rushing into city gutters and as a result, water is cleaner when it reaches a reservoir such as a river or lake.

Trees are not only beneficial for our personal health and property value, but they also help encourage a better quality environment to all of Earth’s species. For these reasons and so many more, plant a new tree on your property today!

The ARCSA (American Rainwater Catchment Systems Association) recently published a press release demonstrating their concern for the quality of America’s drinking water. A recent contamination of West Virginia’s water supply demonstrated the vulnerability of America’s water supply and the need for creating safe, decentralized water supplies throughout the country. With this main goal in mind, ARCSA strongly supports rainwater harvesting to help increase the availability of fresh drinking water and help solve energy challenges throughout the country.

Throughout the attached press release, ARCSA describes the benefits of a rainwater harvesting system both for residential and commercial uses. Currently, our water is subject to over 200 potential contaminants. Some of these contaminants may be in such small traces that they go unnoticed by EPA Drinking Water standards. This means, the water you’re currently consuming may be full of a variety of potential contaminants. For this reason and many more, there has been a resurgence in rainwater harvesting popularity.

For more information on the benefits of rainwater harvesting from ARCSA, read the included press release. For information on how to set up your own rainwater harvesting system, contact Grandiflora Services today!

All so often I have customers ask what would be a good tree for fall color, I always follow that with a question of what about the other 360 days of the year. Remember when planting to consider a good tree for the right location will be an asset for years to come. On the other side of the coin, a good tree in a bad location will one day be a liability, it’s just a matter of time. With that, some of my favorite trees for fall color is a Shumard Red Oak, a Red Maple, a Sweet gum, a Flaming Sumac, a Chinese Pistachio, these are just to name a few. Also remember to consider the long term ramifications when planting. Chances are that the tree you plant today will be here long after you are not.

Need help, check out www.texastreeplanting.tamu.edu for a tree planting guide and tree planting tips. This is a great website to help you make the right decision on what to plant. If you need more help, give us a call and we can come out and consult with you as to what to plant and where, or we can plant it for you. Just let us know.

As of today, we are renaming the tree care division of Grandiflora Services to ArborWorks by Grandiflora Services. Our primary purpose of being in business is to provide superior care for the most expensive plants in your landscape, your trees. We begin our focus on well trained employees. A well trained employee will provide safe services, be it tree removal, pruning, planting, cabling and bracing, fertilization or insect control. Our goal is to provide a 100% safety rating, through guaranteed accurate estimates, and ending with immaculate cleanup. Your satisfaction is our guarantee, and we take that seriously.

For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up yo the present time.

It’s almost planting season in Southeast Texas, but it’s never to early to start planning what you are going to plant. Citrus trees don’t take a tremendous amount of space, and are relatively easy to care for. You can even start them in large pots. Be sure to put them in full sun. There are plenty of varieties to plant in our area, lemon, lime, and grapefruit, just to name a few. I love fresh lime in my tea, how about you?