| | | Dear Viewer,
I figured this would be a great day to get the newsletter done since you almost get blown over by the wind outside. Hopefully the wind subsides soon and we can enjoy some beautiful spring weather again.
Now is the time of year to look for some beautiful trees or plants for your yard. To get some ideas be sure to check out our plant finder.
| Our Memorial Weekend Hours
We will be open this Memorial Day from 8am until 1 pm. Most of you have the day off to relax, or do some things around the house. So we are trying to make it easier for you to get some work done over the weekend. Stop in Saturday or Monday and we can help you with your Memorial Weekend Projects:
Memorial Weekend Hours:
Saturday 8am - 2pm
Monday 8am - 1pm
|  | Save Your Plants While You Are Gone!!
Keep Plants Happy When You Are Away.
Going on vacation? Give your plants a Vacation too! Vacation is a new all-natural, anti-drought plant treatment perfectly suited to take care of your plants while you are away. Simply mix a small amount of Vacation with water and pour onto your plants. Your plants will remain in a state of hibernation for up to two weeks or until normal watering cycles continue. Vacation is an effective tool to protect against drought and plant transplant shock. Safe & non-toxic for people and pets.
So if you are going away for the weekend, spray this on your plants so you don't have to worry about them drying out while you are gone.
For more info check out the vacation brochure
| Pruning Tips for this Time of Year:
 Get ready to start seeing the lilacs bloom! Most of the ones here are budding and some like the one pictured are already blooming. They look and smell awesome. Make sure to be ready to trim your lilacs when they are done blooming. After your lilacs are done blooming (especially your dwarf korean lilac trees) make sure to give them a good trimming. You want to trim them back quite a bit because the only time you should trim lilacs is early summer after they are done blooming. If you trim them late summer or fall you will trim off the buds that are forming for their flowers for next year.
 Also make sure to trim your mugo pines and any pines that are poodled or pom pom form evergreen trees (some have called them Dr. Seuss trees). You want to make sure you either pull out the candles by hand or trim them off. You don't need to trim the whole candle off. Just so you trim them all fairly equal heights. Be careful only to trim the candles and not the needles. Cutting the needles will cause them to burn and may not look very nice for awhile. If you have any questions feel free to email us at info@scgroundeffects.com or call us at 712-722-4600.
| | Rough Winter For Evergreens
We have received a lot of calls from people asking about what is wrong with their evergreens. Many of the evergreens around have dead or damaged needles on the outside. This last winter was a very rough winter on a lot of plants. I have talked to a couple of the places where I buy plants from and they are telling me it was the worst winter in 10 years! Because of this there has been a lot of winter die-back.
If your boxwood or holly has some die back you can cut the dead parts out and the plant will grow back.
Other types of evergreens don't grow back from the inside like your spruce, fir, or pine. Their new growth comes from the outside. In the next couple of weeks their dead or dying needles will fall off and be replaced with new growth on the outer tips. If you trim the outside you will lose that new growth. Your evergreens might still be looking a little tough but wait a few weeks. It could make a huge difference. Look at all the fresh new growth on this concolor fir above.
| | Pictures of the week
A wall cloud on the way to work the other week.
Some baby birds at Ground Effects.
My daughter cheering after spitting up on me the other morning.
| | Thanks for your time.
Sincerely, Justin Schuiteman
Ground Effects
justin@scgroundeffects.com
P.S. Our Garden Center is overflowing with beautiful looking plants. Make sure to come, walk through, and enjoy. I will try to keep you informed of anything else on the blog.
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