Planning for the Year Ahead

Christmas Break
This time of the year marks the middle of our winter planting season.  Greencraft has been very busy up to Christmas planting trees and bare root whips to all our sites.  We have a window in our landscaping year from November to March to get all the trees in the ground.  The Christmas break helps to regroup and plan the last phase of planting for the season.  As we return to work in the first days of the new year, we steam straight back into planting.

Trees and whips are planted once they have stopped growing, lost their leaves and they have shut down for winter.  This means that there is no fluid movement in the stem and the tree can be lifted out the ground complete with roots.  If an actively growing tree is lifted out of the surrounding soil, the rising sap would cause air pockets and kill the tree.
When asked what I do and I reply “landscaping” people say what do I do when it slows down in the winter.  Well quite simply it does not.  Apart from tree planting there are always many hard landscaping projects to keep us busy.  It can be a bit more of a challenge this time of the year because certain operations are temperature dependant.  Concrete and mortar does not like to freeze and it is hard to unroll turf when it is frozen.  Resin Bond gravel needs to be laid in temperatures above 5 degrees Celsius and painting needs to be done in the dry.
The best thing about winter is that you are preparing landscapes for the spring bloom.