This is a cooperative blog: a co/blog. We've really just started this experiment, so give a few months to get some momentum. Each of the five charter authors involved are responsible for a different set of topics, and each will post on their own schedule. We hope you enjoy the content provided here, and find it useful. The information provided is meant as opinion and editorial purposes only, and should never be taken as professional advice.

Five Good Reasons to Fertilize Your Lawn

Archived in Landscape, Do-it-Yourself | 1 Comment

Great grass needs tender loving care, and this means regular and meaningful feedings. If you mow and mulch you’re one step closer, but it doesn’t mean you’ve got all your bases covered. Fertilizing your lawn appropriately is as important as keeping it watered. Why? Here are five good reasons to fertilize your lawn.

1) …because grass is unnatural. Don’t believe me? Ask yourself this: if you had neither seeded nor sodded would you have a lawn? Or would you have a muddy, weedy mess full of local scrub, clover, thistle, et cetera? I’d wager on the second. Your lawn is there because you or someone else planted it there. True, it’s a hardy plant and it will do very well where it is if you feed it well, but in the world of landscaping and competitive plant biology, grass is the visiting team. It has a disadvantage right from the start.

2) …because you walk on your lawn. Crush, stomp, rip, tear, break. You use your lawn to separate your feet from the muddy mess hidden below. You know perfectly well that grass is something of a living carpet, and like any carpet can succumb to eventual wear and tear. Lucky for both you and the grass, a healthy (well fed) lawn will look after repairing itself.

3) …because grass can be a real fighter. Weeds are always — repeat, ALWAYS — trying to find a way to break through the defenses put up by your grass. Whether your lawn is twenty days or twenty years old, a fertilized lawn means that it can choke down intruders through strong, healthy root systems and sustained growth.

4) …because you mow. And — especially if you are like some of my neighbors who quickly stuff their clippings into big orange garbage bags that wind up on the curb — the nutrients, minerals, and potential organic fertilizer you just clipped off wind up in the landfill. It’s not like cutting your hair. This is true damage to the plant, and while it will recover you had better feed it occasionally to give back what you just took away.

5) …because your lawn is an ecosystem. Look close. Besides you and your PETS, there are a lot of critters who make use of your grass. From the small — insects, spiders, worms, and other creepers — to the slightly larger — birds, mice, and rabbits — you are hosting a local ecosystem who’s tenants are probably typical renters: messy and destructive. Think of fertilizer as just another landlord duty.

Please remember: I’m just a guy who has done this work for myself, once. This is just my experience, so do more research before you start. I welcome any comments or updates that anyone with more experience might provide. Cheers!

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Gary’s Construction Anecdotes >> For your convenience, here are some of the articles I've written on my landscaping and contruction experiences. As usual remember: I’m just a guy who has done this work for myself, once. This is just my experience, so do more research

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Condominium Bust?

Archived in Construction, Real Estate | No Comments

I couldn’t help noticing that as I’ve been driving around the city lately there are a lot of condominiums on the market. Lots. I counted one medium-sized building with eleven properties for sale. I’ve been thinking about this — and talking about it with friends and colleagues — and have usually claimed that this is “STEP ONE” in a down-turn in the housing market, in general. Why, you ask?

1) Simple Investment Properties

Condos tend to make “good” investment properties. At least that tends to be the perception in this kind of bubble-market. People who are on the fringe of true house-flipping tend not to dive in with both feet in a condo investment. After all, it’s just an “apartment.” No yard to tend, no roof to fix, to exterior to wash. The “condo” looks after this, right?

Barring the RISK of something going completely wrong in that equation, condos are the “simple investment properties” for low-key investors. This is not a problem until one realizes two things:

a) In this kind of market there are LOTS of condos owned simply as investments — and thus those are going to be the first to go up for sale at a hint of trouble in the market.

b) The less seasoned investors hold lots of these properties, and stand to lose the most from a bursting bubble.

2) CONSTRUCTION Rush

The work currently being done to satiate this desire for condo investments has resulted in a lot — A LOT — of new development. Never mind the fact that so many new condos has meant a drop in the availability of rental space for people unable to buy, but the demand for these properties means that owners (who are actually buying the condo as a home versus an investment) are moving into half-built complexes, buildings that have been under CONSTRUCTION for (in some cases) more than a year or two and look as if they may continue to be under CONSTRUCTION for much longer.

But, if demand is dipping (which seems that case from the current inventory of condos to be seen simply by taking a short drive around any neighborhood) three questions come to mind:

a) Will the new condominiums ever fill up with tenants?
b) And if they do, are people just moving into new spaces to leave the older buildings vacant? In other words, can they even sell those properties?
c) AND this is all assuming those new buildings — dozens of them — don’t get left hanging by either (still) increasing CONSTRUCTION costs or an all out bust in the market. Will they?

Of course, if the condo market cools I predict that the housing market is not far behind. Inventory in houses in already increasing: for sale sign sightings have increased markedly and they tend to linger for weeks or a month (rather than days). Just the other day an article was published about the state of CONSTRUCTION in this province, overall:

“A senior REAL ESTATE analyst says Alberta’s residential CONSTRUCTION industry faces a “precarious” future due to high labour costs and ballooning prices.”

To me, it all sounds like the music is about to stop: “Hot potato, hot potato…”

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