Day in the Life- Episode 1:Greg Wagner
I'm going to spend a day with various King Green employees and document it here on the blog. What does an Agronomist do all day? Or what about a Service Manager? Now we'll all find out! :)Up first is Greg Wagner, our Vice-President. Greg has been with King Green for over 25 years. Greg and his wife, Michele, have two teenagers, Nicholas and Carmen, and two labs, Storm and Coda. Nicholas is an honor student and a two-time all American shooter. Nicholas has competed both locally and abroad against the nation's top ranked marksmen. Carmen excels both academically and on the soccer field. In addition to playing for a local soccer league and her school, Carmen was also chosen to train with the Georgia Olympic development pool this past year.
Last week, a few of our staff members were out on vacation. We didn't have anyone to provide estimates to the mountain region. So, in their absence, Greg and I headed north. This isn't a typical day for myself or Greg, but it was the perfect opportunity to begin this blog series. We had only three stops, but it took us a few hours to complete all of the estimates due to their distance. The views were gorgeous and I enjoyed learning from one of King Green's first employees!Our first stop was a huge corner lot in Cleveland, Georgia. The turf was what we call "country combo". It wasn't sodded, but it might have been seeded many years ago. An eclectic mix of weeds and grass are what comprise this lawn now. If mowed regularly, this "turf type" actually ends up looking OK. In fact, my last house had a lawn chock full of country combo! Oftentimes, you find this mix in rural areas or in lawns that are not part of a neighborhood type setting. It's certainly not a bad grass to have, just not exactly turf type quality. Our options would be to either strictly fertilize and encourage what's already growing or to choose a predominant turf and encourage it. A lot of the brown coloring in the pictures below are due to infrequent mowing. You never want to mow off more than one third of the grass blade. Doing so leaves too many clippings on the lawn and impedes root growth. Regular mowing is the easiest, most beneficial task that you can do on your own to aid in keeping your lawn healthy.
As you can see in the pictures, the lawn really doesn't look bad from a distance. The mowing needs to be a bit more regular, but with some fertilizer this lawn could improve.
Up close, the lawn is a mix-match of grasses and weeds. In the picture above, you can easily see the clover, but there are also some grassy weeds.
Our second stop was also in Cleveland. We used to service this property a couple of years ago for the previous owners. The new owners contacted us about resuming the service. We went out to assess the landscape for Lawn Care and Tree & Shrub Care. In general, the lawn is in good shape. There are a few weeds to mention, but nothing unmanageable.
The tree-like weeds scattered across the lawn are fireweed. In the picture above, the fireweed can be noted by its light green color. Fireweed is an ugly nuisance. It grows in the thatch layer, above soil level. Because this weed grows in thatch, it's almost impossible to control. Fireweed has been especially bad this year because of the extremely wet winter. However, it's easy to knock it out once it has germinated. It's a bit difficult to see in this photo, but this lawn was also plagued with poa annua, dog fennel, and nutsedge.Our final stop was to evaluate this lawn in Clarkesville. The potential customer does a great job caring for the lawn and landscape himself. The landscape and the fescue in back looked great (I didn't even get a picture!). However, the front lawn was struggling. The Mr. wasn't home, but we did speak with his wife. Her husband has devoted a lot of time and energy into caring for the lawn, but it just wasn't measuring up. The turf is thin and riddled with weeds. True to form, the lawn had a lot of fireweed. In addtion to the fireweed, there was also dallisgrass, oxalis, nutsedge, and dog fennel.
Fireweed in the forefront and dog fennel behind it.
Oxalis and fireweed are the predominant weeds in this picture. You can tell that the homeowner has applied product to the grassy weeds as they are starting to wilt.Next time, I will take more pictures! This guys's back lawn looked great. It was clear that he took pride in his landscape, he just needs a little help. We suggested a good core aeration for the front lawn now, a full program for the entire lawn, and an aeration and seeding for the back lawn (fescue) this fall. Hopefully they will start our program soon!We ended our day picking Carmen up from her last day of school before summer! Greg's day is never typical. His days range from providing estimates to potential customers, meeting with current customers, meeting with commercial clients, traveling between our branches, and so on and so on. I appreciated his company; he helped me brush up on my weed identification skills :).Later this week I'm scheduled to go out for the day with our Gainesville Service Manager, Chris Calefate. Blog post will be up shortly after.