Coeur d'Alene Lawn Care & Property Preservation - Coeur d'Alene Blog

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Coeur d'Alene - Is your grass getting enough water?

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 23:36:46 -0800

It is important to measure your water to make sure your lawn is getting enough to drink during the warm summer days in Coeur d'Alene.
A general rule of thumb is that your lawn should receive at least 1 inch of water per week. However, how often you water also depends on how you want you lawn to look. You can water your lawn to much. Basically, your lawn needs moisture (water), nutrients, and air to grow. By watering to much, you can continuously saturate your soil to the point were the grass roots lack air and cannot grow deep enough roots. On the flip side, by not watering enough, you can dry-out the grass, soil, and root system, and your lawn may either go dormant or ultimately die during hot summer months! Here are a few tips to keep that from happening to you:

1. The best way to gauge if your lawn is not receiving enough water is to probe the soil to see how moist or dry it is. Soil probes usually either take a sample out of the ground or use electronic sensors to test the moisture. If you're not interested in buying one of these instruments, you can simply take a narrow screw driver or stiff wire and push it into ground in several places. If you are able to penetrate to the suggested root depth (usually 6-8 inches), then your soil is properly saturated. If not, then your watering is not reaching the desired depth and you may need to water for longer periods of time.

2. You may want to perform a sprinkler test if you find that you're not getting enough water in the soil but do not know how much your sprinkler produces in a given time. A sprinkler test can be carried out by simply placing equal sized old coffee cans or containers around the area that you run your sprinkler and let it run for 20 minutes. Once completed, take a measurement of the water that has accumulated in each container. This will show you two things: One, if you are getting an equal distribution of water in the area. If not, make the necessary adjustments to your sprinkler or sprinkler heads and test again. Two, it will tell you how much water is sprayed in twenty minutes. For example, if you have accumulated 1 inch of water in your container, then you are spraying 3 inches (20 minutes X 3 = 60 minutes) of water per hour. As discussed in the soil section, the desired water amount can depend on the soil and its ability to absorb. As a rule of thumb, to reach the desired root depth (usually 6-8 inches) it generally can take sandy soils 1 hour per inch of water, clay soils 4-5 hours per inch of water, and Loam Soils up to 2 hours per one inch of water. However, this is only a general guide and it will vary for each lawn. In many cases, to reach the desired depths, clay soils will take 1 1/2 inches of water, loam soils can take 1 inch of water, and sand soils can take 1/2 an inch of water. So, depending on your soil type, make your adjustments accordingly.

3. The ideal situation is to have your lawn develop a deep, healthy root system (usually 6-8 inches deep) by watering just enough (especially during the summer months) to keep your lawn nice and green. If you're unclear as to how much water is needed for your grass, your soil, or what the best time to water is. As a general rule of thumb, you want to water more in times of high heat, lots of sunlight, high winds, dry air, and drought. Alternately, you may want to water less in times of cooler temperatures, lots of clouds or shade, low winds, humidity, and high rainfall.

Express Property Cleanup

Summer is finally here in Coeur d'Alene

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 23:25:16 -0800

The nice summer weather is here time to jump on your boat, pull out the golf clubs and enjoy your family. Have plans to go out to the movies, having friends over for a BBQ, leaving town for a get away. Sounds like a fun summer. But wait who is going to mow the lawn? Don't let your lawn keep you from enjoying your weekend call Express Property Cleanup today so you can keep your summer plans.

208-755-3639

Coeur d'Alene Early Bird Special

Sun, 28 Mar 2010 14:33:40 -0800

Express Property Cleanup would like to be your lawn care provider here in Coeurd ’Alene, Hayden, Dalton Gardens, Post Falls and with spring just around the corner we are offering an Early Bird Special for all NEW customers that sign up for lawn care services with Express Property Cleanup for the 2010 season. Whether residential or commercial, if you mention this ad here on our web-site and sign up before April 30th, 2010 we will give you a 10% discount on your first month of lawn care service as our way to say Thank You for choosing Express Property Cleanup to be your lawn care provider.

We would also like to extend this offer to those who need a reliable lawn care business to perform a spring cleanup on your property, call or email today to schedule a FREE estimate and sign up before April 30th to receive 10% off your total cleanup bill. Remember to mention that you saw our ad here on our web-site.

Six-month foreclosure filings jump in Coeur d'Alene

Sat, 01 Aug 2009 11:50:25 -0800

By Mike McLean
Of the Journal of Business

The Spokane County Auditor recorded 378 foreclosure filings here in the first half of this year, up 49 percent from 254 filings in the year-earlier period.

If that rate were to continue, total foreclosures here for the year would reach 834, which would be the highest since 2003, when foreclosure filings in the county totaled 1,030. Foreclosures here peaked at 1,152 in 2002.

Some economic and real estate observers here expect Spokane County's foreclosure numbers to climb near or above the 2002 peak that followed the last recession, and RealtyTrac, an Irvin, Calif- based real estate data-collection service, reports that nationwide foreclosure activity also is continuing to rise to record levels.

Randy Barcus, chief economist for Spokane-based Avista Corp., says he expects foreclosure numbers here to continue to rise for another year or two before they begin to fall.

"I'm decidedly pessimistic about the tend in foreclosures for the next couple of years," Barcus says. "It will repeat prior recession patterns."

Yet, he says the magnitude of foreclosure actions here won't be as profound as in other parts of the country.

"I don't want to understate people's pain" he says of Spokane's foreclosure numbers. It's unfortunate for the folks it happens to, but it's a normal part of the economic cycle." RealtyTrac reported that one in 138 homes was the subject of a foreclosure filing in the first half of the year, up from one in 283 homes in the first quarter.

In Washington state, one in 138 homes was the subject of a foreclosure filing in the first half of the year, up from one in 283 homes in the first quarter.

Michelle Sabolich, spokeswoman for RealtyTrac, says the company hasn't completes all of its calculations yet for foreclosure rates for metropolitan areas in January through June this year.

Spokane County, however had more than double the foreclosure filings as of June than it had in the first quarter, when RealtyTrac reported that ine in every 1,060 homes had faced foreclosure rate of 203 metropolitan areas in the U.S. with populations of more than 200,000.

Barcus says the rising foreclosure rate is tied to more to the unemployment rate than to the real estate speculation and unconventional lending practices that contributed to housing market devastion in other parts of the country.

The unemployment rate here in June was 8.9 percent, up sharply from 5.3 percent in the year-earlier month, according to figures from the Washington State Department of Employment Security.

Doug Tweedy, the department's Spokane-based regional labor market economist, says the unemployment rate here peaked at 10.6% in March, and he expects it will remain in a "saw-tooth" pattern at between 8 percent and 9 percent through 2010.

"Improvement in employment numbers probably will lag the economic recovery," he says.

Barcus says foreclosures will remain in an upward trend until the employment rate improves significantly.

High unemployment will persist for the next two years," he says. "I think we're going to see foreclosure numbers up around 1,000 to 1,200 next year and the year after."

Rob Higgins, executive vice president of the Spokane Association of Realtors, says he doubts that rising foreclosure numbers are having a significant effect on the real estate market here.

Although the median home sales price here in June was $177,500, down 8 percent from $193,000 in the year-earlier month, the price decline was driven more by overall slow sales than by foreclosed, or stressed, properties, Higgins says.

"It looks like 5 percent of sales are short sales," he says, meaning the selling price is less than what is owed on a mortgage. In other areas where foreclosures are contributing to declines in real estate prices, such as some California markets, 30 percent or more of sales involve stressed or bank-owned properties, he says.

Judging by earlier economic cycles, Higgins says he doesn't expect to see a quick turnaround in foreclosure numbers here.

We're going to see foreclosures going up," he says. Foreclosures lagged the bottom of the last recession by about a year."