Author: Petalon Landscape

Tips to Improve Tree Health and Yield

Although your fruit trees might lie dormant until spring, they need protection from cold temperatures, pest infestations, rodent problems and any type of damage to the tree’s structure. Simple measures like cleaning out fallen leaves and using dormant-season sprays, for example, help to deter pests and fight disease. Here are some expert tips on winter care for your fruit trees in Northern California.

Caring for Your Fruit-Bearing Trees in Winter

• Clean out dead leaves: They are likely to have insect eggs or fungus spores that are damaging to the health of your trees.
• Mulch: Replenish the layer of mulch under the trees before winter. Mulch will help rainwater penetrate to the roots and prevent soil erosion. Maintain a three-inch layer to prevent run-off and discourage weed growth.
• Pest control: Apply dormant oil sprays to control pests, minimize fungal infection, and curb the spread of certain diseases. These specially formulated oils are effective against soft-bodied insects such as aphids and mites, some insect eggs, as well as scale. Depending on the type of tree, its age, and overall health, your arborist may also suggest wrapping the tree trunk. This provides added protection from rodents and certain pests.
• Pruning: Removing dead, decaying, diseased, and obstructing limbs will improve light penetration and encourage healthy growth. Knowing when and how much to prune trees is important to ensuring strong growth. Dates, apricots, cherries, and plums each have different pruning schedules and requirements. Young trees will need different care than mature fruit trees.
• Examine tree structure: Damaged tree bark and limbs require timely, professional attention in order to preserve overall tree health.
• Plant new trees: Winter can be a good time for planting new fruit trees. The type of soil, amount of sunlight and growing space are important points to consider before you plant. As well, you must determine whether the new tree will need a partner for pollination to bear fruit.

Fruit Tree Management Services

Properly maintained fruit trees can provide a bountiful harvest. If you are looking to increase the yield of your existing trees or plant new ones, we can help. The Petalon team provides comprehensive services for fruit tree management. We take care of preparing the planting site, fertilizing, mowing, trimming, pruning, pest control, and weeding.

Orchard owners and property managers across Northern California including in San Jose, Fremont, Milpitas, Mountain View, Sunnyvale, and Palo Alto, CA trust us with their fruit tree maintenance requirements.

Call 408-453-3998 or contact us online to book our services and learn more about winter care for fruit trees in Northern California.

Tips to Enhance Your Property’s Appearance and Value

Well-manicured grounds deliver a great impression of your condominium property. From creating attractive seasonal displays to maintaining their lush and vibrant look, an experienced landscape management company can help you maintain curb appeal. How will you choose the right condominium landscape contractors to achieve this goal? Here are some key considerations when making this hiring decision.

How to Select Your HOA Landscaping Contractor

• Condominium landscaping experience: One of the most important considerations is appropriate landscaping experience. You want a professional crew that understands the unique needs of your condo property. Long-standing experience in the industry means the contractor has a reputation to maintain, and customers who can verify the quality of service. Ask for references and be sure to check them out.
• Creative landscaping ideas: Landscaping contractors who take the time to understand your property’s needs before suggesting any landscape enhancements will be thorough in their work, and deliver visible results. Local climate, soil condition, and sunlight patterns are some aspects they will consider when selecting plants and implementing landscape design.
• Expert landscaping techniques: From identifying the ideal planting locations on your property to efficient watering practices, an experienced commercial landscaper can advise you on cost-effective ways to maintain curb appeal. Selecting drought-tolerant ground cover and efficient irrigation management, for instance, will significantly reduce your landscape maintenance efforts and cost.
• Seamless landscape maintenance support: A healthy and vibrant landscape is the result of timely mowing, pruning, fertilization, disease management, and seasonal cleanup. This is a lot to handle when you have several other condo maintenance tasks to fulfill. Hire professionals who can provide you with year-round condominium landscaping services.

Trusted Condominium Landscape Contractors

Our professional HOA landscape maintenance team provides end-to-end service tailored to your unique needs. We combine decades of experience working with condo managers, and customize service plans to give your property an attractive, tidy appearance. We handle everything—fertilizing, mowing, trimming, pruning, pest control, weeding, and annual planting, taking the stress out of landscape management. Year-upon-year awards, and membership to several industry associations demonstrates our commitment to excellence.

Condo managers across the San Jose area, including in Fremont, Milpitas, and Mountain View, CA trust us with their commercial property maintenance requirements.

Call 408-453-3998 or contact us online to request our services or learn about important considerations for hiring condominium landscape contractors.

Summer Tree and Plant Care, for Changing Seasonal Needs

Proper summer plant and tree care is important for the long-term health of your company’s landscape.

Petalon Landscape Management’s commercial clients depend on us to keep their properties looking healthy and vibrant all year long. When the weather turns warm, our staff will to meet the changing seasonal needs of your trees and plants.

We’re able to identify and find solutions when minor landscape problems surface in the summer. With years of experience as our guide, we take steps to make certain they don’t turn into major headaches in the fall.

Elements of Summer Tree and Plant Care

A program of summer tree and plant care by Petalon professionals considers these factors:

Watering 

Proper irrigation is a major issue in the summer. Overwatered landscapes are common in the Bay Area. Too much moisture robs roots of oxygen and can kill plants. A drought-tolerant landscape with shrubs, plants and flowers native to California requires minimal irrigation, even in hot weather.

If you wonder whether your landscape is adequately irrigated, check to see if plant or tree leaves are supple and even-colored. If they are brown and brittle, wilting or yellowed, you may need to adjust your watering schedule.

Climate zones

The Bay Area consists of several climate zones, so the landscaping needs of each Petalon client are varied. We take into account your location, altitude, and proximity to the ocean to customize a program of summer tree and plant care for you.

Pest damage 

Insects do physical damage and can cause disease in plants and trees any time of year. Telltale signs of infection include holes, spots or discoloration on leaves. Petalon first uses organic methods to deter pests or cure the disease and prevent it from spreading throughout your landscape.

Petalon clients often ask if planting trees and shrubs in the summer is OK. We recommend restricting planting to the spring and autumn. Planting in warm or hot weather may shock a plant or tree and root development, which is critical to successful transplanting, does not naturally occur during the summer.

Begin a program of summer tree and plant care by talking with a Petalon Landscape Management professional. Contact us online or call 408-453-3998 today.

After heavy rainfall in the winter and early spring, it’s time to prepare for and take advantage of those hotter, drier days. Summer is the season for drainage maintenance and repairs by your landscaping pro.

Proper drainage is critically important to a landscape. A lack of drainage results in standing water or soggy spots in lawns or flowerbeds. Excessive drainage leaves other areas dry and often results in serious erosion issues.

Petalon Landscape Management makes drainage a priority when installing new landscapes or renovating existing ones. Often, a landscape with areas in which grass, flowers or plants don’t thrive can be revived simply by fixing common drainage problems.

Regular drainage maintenance and repairs will eliminate areas that are too wet or too dry. Landscapes with good drainage have a pleasing, uniform appearance because all the plants, flowers and shrubs consistently retain the right amount of moisture needed to grow.

We Fix Drainage Problems of All Types

Routine drainage maintenance is wise policy for businesses, condominium complexes, HOAs and government entities that care about the appearance of their property. The best way to be certain small drainage problems don’t turn into costly ones is to have a landscaping professional periodically check the drainage after irrigation or rain, then make the necessary adjustments.

When significant drainage issues develop, major repairs are often required. In those cases, a Petalon Landscape Management professional inspects the entire landscape thoroughly to assess the extent of the problem.

Various repairs may be required, depending on the issue, including:

• Re-grading an area. This may involve creating a swale to better accommodate runoff and control incidental erosion.

• Installing drain tiles. Perforated pipes are buried underground to draw away excess water, sometimes to a catch basin. French drains, which are gravel-filled trenches, are another way of redirecting water.

• Reconfiguring irrigation systems. A sprinkler layout that leads to poor drainage is easy to fix, quickly and inexpensively.

Petalon Landscape Management is a full-service Bay Area contractor for commercial properties in the cities of Fremont, Mountain View, Walnut Creek, Danville, Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, San Jose, Palo Alto, Livermore, and Pleasanton.

If you have problem areas on your property, call 408-453-3998 today, or contact us online to request a quote, because summer is the time for drainage maintenance and repairs.