oakarbor

[oakarbor]

Hi, Wonderful Clients --

I write this note at the middle of February, 2023 --

2022 turned out to be a difficult continuations of our problems in finding enough good employees. It has truly been frustrating these last several years.

This Winter I have gotten my long time employee into his own business -- he will now handle employees. I will hire him as a subcontractor to get our work done.

He has much more access to the Latino community here than do I -- which should mean he succeeds in finding help more easily than I do. And he will find genuinely wonderful employees who are both trustworthy and work hard. English will be harder for you and them (and me) but their leader is fluent in both languages.

For my part, I will carry on with our regular clients and some new ones as we have been doing -- design, build, maintain -- without change apparent to you. Perhaps I will do a little less in total, so they have some room to develop their own client base.

And, here is something new for me -- I will also go out upon request to do planning, design, and garden problem solving for you. That will be mostly informal meetings to walk and talk and provide advice. That can continue into sketches and images and more formal recommendations, where I work a bit more deeply with you as you wish.

Perhaps that will make me into an Ann Arbor "Landscape Doctor."

There is no doubt that my education and experience over these many decades gives me great ability to give sound advice about mpst things that go on outdoors --

That does not mean I know everything! What I don't know I can find out for you, or connect you to the right place to find out.

Our Fee Schedules are available upon request. Don't hesitate to contact me. The best way is via email: grahamz@oakarbor.net

[oakarbor]

We wanted you to see how a roof top garden we built perhaps a decade ago has aged. The surrounding planters act as railings, and as screening from views up the driveway from the street.

[oakarbor]

In 2020 we able to get out onto Grand Traverse Bay for a sail -- even the late Summer of that year seemed fairly safe from the virus in Michigan. Who would have expected us to be still struggling with it now in 2022?

[oakarbor]

We have collected a number of different Dahlias, whose roots (tubers) are kept in dry soil pots in the garage over Winter. In Spring they are planted at the back of the vegetable garden, mid-Summer they are making these wonderful flower shows.

[oakarbor]

Serendipity at the Cleveland Zoo -- a very happy though small flamboyance of Pink Flamingos. It was nice to be out and about last Summer (2021) for a wedding! Things are back more difficult this year end/New Year (21-22). Those are Hydrangea on the background.

[oakarbor]

Among the true joys of Summer are blooming Lilies. We are fortunate in this neighborhood that deer numbers are way down, and we can again celebrate Summer with these plants.

[oakarbor]

It’s a serious rain garden!  The guys are standing in the overflow path just after a rain. Ann Arbor now requires these to be built to help contain the speed with which water rushes off the land when it rains.

[oakarbor]

Nearly everyone loves Tulips, we do too!

[oakarbor]

Yes we have an awful virus around, which made us a bit stir crazy during the Michigan shut down. Thankfully our State is doing relatively well about cases and deaths -- though the economy, while back started, is many years from fully recovering.  Meanwhile, we have a climate more rapidly warming than expected. These are real challenges!

[oakarbor]

We never know what we will be asked to do -- here our two key employees are installing a new drip irrigation system for the greenhouse at Pioneer High School.

[oakarbor]

Here are a couple of the old Oaks in Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, showing their wonderful November colors.  Oaks rank at the top of ecosystem service value, supporting for example more that 500 species of Lepidoptera (Butterflies and Moths).  That is nearly 100 species more than the next most important plants, Willows.

[oakarbor]

And last for this Spring, we were again at Royal Botanical Gardens Wisley last late Summer (2018), down in the plant trial gardens.  We saw this wonderful wheelbarrow full of pinched flower heads from the Marigold beds.  The gardener had gone to lunch.

[oakarbor]

This bank of the tropical Impatiens, hybrids derived mostly from the African Impatiens walleriana, are very popular annuals here.  The client for whom we plant these loves them very much.

[oakarbor]

We know you love Tulips!  There are a relatively new variety of Green Tulips, that always were commented upon as folks came to our front door last Spring (the deer do not come that close).

[oakarbor]

We have shown you this prairie earlier in the Spring, while it is being burned.  Here is what happens a month or so later.  As mentioned, it is an authentic savanna restoration planted in about 2009.  Once there was turf grass.

[oakarbor]

A gift to the people of London from the people of Kyoto, this garden is a stunning example of the Japanese art.  It’s deep in Holland Park, at the west end of Kensington, in western London.

[oakarbor]

The Waterlilies were in bloom!  Monet’s “garden of water and fire” was the inspiration of his masterpieces painted late in his life, famous around the world.