Evokes visions of driving a vintage sports car down a country lane with the leaves swirling behind the car doesn't it? Unless you're a landscaper who has to come in after and pick up all those leaves. 

Or how about those crisp clear mornings with the fresh breezy conditions following a storm front that makes you want to take a big deep breath and starts you thinking about the ski, hunting, or Holiday season ahead. Unless you're a landscaper who has to again pick up those leaves that are being blown all over a project even if we had just picked up the leaves the day before or the trees aren't even on your property. 

Then there are those glorious views of the hills, mountains, and/or ocean during our seasonal winds. Unless they are the typical dry superheated "Santa Ana" winds, which even following a rainstorm can sap all the moisture out of the leaves leaving them limp or burned and sometimes irreparably damaged. This is particularly true in the case of Seasonal Color. 

The winds certainly give us a sense of fall and Saturday afternoon college football games. Unless you're a landscaper who, many times in the middle of the winds, has to cut down or try to stake up the trees which have blown over. Particularly those trees in between mid rise buildings where the 'venturi' effect can accelerate winds to twice their speed. This condition is even more pronounced with properties located below canyons or down the Santa Ana riverbed.

What about those cold crisp nights where you look up and see how the sky is supposed to look with more stars than you can count seemingly pulsating in the clear air. Unless you're a landscaper trying to germinate acres of grass seed as a result of turf renovations performed during the one time of the year we can be effective in eradicating the toughest unwanted grasses. 

We sound like farmers who are always complaining about the weather don't we? But the point I'm trying to make is that every season of the year has its different challenges for us as landscapers. What we do to try to overcome these challenges is to prepare ahead of time for these eventualities by changing the focus of our service towards these issues. For instance in conjunction with fall tree trimming our supervisors all carry chain saws, tree guying, and staking equipment so we can react first thing in the morning to trees which have blown over during the night. Or since the grass is growing at a slower rate we end up not cutting or handling as much cuttings so more of our time is focused on picking up leaves until mid January when most of the leaves are gone.

Trust me sometimes it can be frustrating for us to go back to a project a couple hours after just cleaning it up only find it covered with leaves again! The good news is that as of the date of this printing, we have had more rain in September and October than we have had for at least five years. Even with the current start of "Santa Ana" winds this rain has helped lower our fire danger and has leached out some of the salts in the soil of the landscapes that build up over the spring and summer. This is very beneficial to the plants and helps them withstand the dry winds and hot afternoon/cold nights we experience this time of the year.

On a related subject you might be interested in knowing that we are finally experiencing 'normal' weather (whatever that is) as for the first time in five years we do not have either the "El Nino" (warm water) or "La Nina" (cold water) effect taking place out in the Pacific. So far I believe it has been responsible for our early rainfall. We'll see how that affects the rest of our fall and winter. For now put away some of those summer toys and start dusting off the ski equipment, it looks like an early season!