Environmental Insights

We all feel the increased cost of groceries lately, and analysts predict prices will continue to grow for the foreseeable future.  One of the significant factors driving this is an incredible rise in fertilizer costs, due to raw material scarcity and rising fuel costs.  In most cases, farmers have to make an economic decision to either reduce fertilization levels or skip an application altogether, resulting in lower yields.  It's a lose-lose proposition, but it doesn't have to be.

Take a look at your azaleas. Go on, get close. Right up in there. Now do the same with your camellias, magnolias, privet, and dogwoods. See those? Bugs. There’s a reason these plants (and others) have struggled to flourish in central Georgia for the last few years. And that reason lives right under our noses. 

A healthy landscape starts from the ground up. Regardless of how you care for your turf and shrubs, if your soil is unhealthy, everything else will suffer. 

The development of chemical fertilizers in the early 1900s revolutionized gardening and farming for people across the globe. From wheat fields to residential lawns, petroleum-based fertilizers and herbicides have allowed farmers, gardeners, and landscapers more control over the types of plants they grow, and helped them to achieve successful harvests in challenging conditions. 

When you picture the perfect outdoor space, what do you see? Greenery? Flowers? Shaded areas? Perhaps a bubbling boulder, or a small pond? Each of us has different ideas about what makes a space great, but the chances are, they will all share one thing in common: life. 

Unusual weather conditions always pose challenges to maintaining a healthy landscape. But when Mother Nature decides to play hardball by pitching from one extreme to the next, it calls for extra special TLC for Georgia landscapes.

Ask any landscape contractor, big or small, if they have a safety plan and they’ll inevitably say, “Oh yes, of course we do!” But what does that really mean?

We’re always excited to welcome new team members, especially when they bring diversity and new skills to our team. This fall, we are extra pumped to introduce the newest and most uniquely talented member of the T.Lake team: our brand new DJI Phantom 4 Pro V2.0 quadcopter drone!

Here at T. Lake we are problem solvers to the core. We love a challenge! In addition to the whole range of landscape work from hardscape design and installation to tree service to wetland mitigation, we’ve done everything from caulking and applying epoxy coatings onto warehouse floors to fly-over roof inspections with drones, to removal of slag and millings from manufacturing floor pits.

Our thought process is to look at the particular issue you have and find a better way to deal with it. This will often require solutions beyond the ordinary—and it is not uncommon for those solutions to require the use of specialty equipment.

Erosion control is a major concern on construction sites for a wide variety of reasons: safety, aesthetics, cost control, and environmental concerns. There are many ways to address and prevent erosion problems, many of which I addressed in detail here. But today I’d like to delve a little deeper into the concept.

I was asked recently to define T. Lake’s core values. And the best I can say is that our values are derived first and foremost from the land.

Both of my grandfathers and theirs before them and theirs before them were farmers and timbermen. They loved the land. They made a living from the land. They appreciated and valued it. It took care of them, and they took care of it. That’s the attitude I grew up with.

I consider myself part of the lineage of the first job God gave a human being, and that's to tend the garden. Humankind’s first job was to get our hands in the dirt. We’re here to be good stewards.