Keepin It Green Commercial and Residential Lawn and Landscape Maintenance

04/10/2025

11/09/2024

If you’re going to grow something pretty in your garden, it might as well be yummy too!

08/26/2024

This year’s harvest from the plum tree! Now all I need are your best recipes!

08/16/2024

Mother Nature’s Pruners

Momma and her little ones come and nibble at the lower leaves of the prune tree and its offerings. Do you have any close up photos of “wildlife” where you are from?

07/10/2024

If it’s your first time in the Okanagan, you’re probably wondering why you decided to move to or perhaps just take a tour on the surface of the sun!

Welcome! Can you believe people pay more to live here? We call it “sunshine tax,” but I digress.

What I really wanted to talk about can be controversial but it’s time we had a conversation - grass vs rock bed - that is the question.

The number one reason people choose to remove their lawn and replace it with rock mulch is because it saves on water usage. The second reason is because it’s less maintenance. I’ll come back to that one but does the water usage.

There is no doubt that a lawn requires water and the rock bed requires none. Let’s face it. We need water to live and water costs money so it’s an easy decision for most. But there are other factors to consider and the water thing is not as simple as it may seem… on the surface. Yes, I’m a dad. 😂

I like to make my choices by considering all the factors and weighing them out. First a little lesson on air temps and how they affect precipitation.

Hot air holds more moisture. Once you understand this, the rest makes sense. We live in a deep wide mountain valley so the air pressure is higher. Higher pressure means higher temps. It also means less rain because the air will absorb more water than it releases. The keen ones who made it this far may already see where this is going.

So how do we reduce the air temps so our aquifers can get more rain water - reducing the need for restrictions and the need to water with irrigation systems? Simple, don’t replace your lawn with rock mulch!

Did you know that a rock mulch area increases the surface temperatures by nearly double. On a 35 degree day the rock mulch air near the surface will be 65 degrees! Compare that to an irrigated lawn - 37 degrees. 45 if it’s not irrigated.

Either way, it’s much less. Now take a quick look at your map app on your phone and set it to satellite view. How much of what you are looking at is rooftops, asphalt, rock, and the like compared to anything green? Cities like Vernon and Kelowna can increase air temp by 5-10 degrees in the local area because of the low proportion of green spaces compared to other types of ground cover.

Now what about water quality. Having water is no good if it’s contaminated. A lawn will capture runoff and filter it while the rock bed will shed rainwater onto the oily asphalt and end up in our waterways.

And I said I would come back to the maintenance. Anyone who has had a rock bed for more than a year will know that rocks don’t prevent w**ds. Weeds will grow in the cracks of a sidewalk. They don’t need soil. I personally just finished w**ding and sizzling in the hot sun for hours pulling w**ds in a rock bed until my fingers were numb. I would rather be able to mow solid w**ds on an unirrigated “lawn” once or twice a summer than do that again.

I could go on and on as to why you should reconsider if you’re thinking of getting rid of the lawn but I’ll leave you with a well written article instead.

Enjoy and please, Keep It Green!

While we were in Colorado there was a trend to rip out anything that was growing and replace it with a gravel landscape. Every time I saw someone ripping out their grass to do this: I wanted to thr…

06/14/2024

We have a cherry tree in our front yard. Last year we had hundreds of cherries. This year not so much. A premature warm-up in late winter/early spring followed by a cold snap tricked the trees into thinking it was time to start the fruiting process but the cold damaged the delicate, fresh new growth. The result - not a lot of fruit this year. Our plumb tree however, is doing great! How are your fruit trees?

05/20/2024

When this Columbine first started growing in this garden, someone thought it was a w**d. I said, “wait! I like those w**ds!” Now look at it!

05/14/2024

My pollen meter is in the red zone today! 😂 What do you take during allergy season? I’ve found citirizine hydrochloride works best for me.

04/05/2024

www.keepinitgreen.ca

The website is finally here! Click on the link above or in the bio on our main page to check it out! You can also visit our page by clicking on the link in the bio or clicking on the icon on the website if you want to share it with that neighbour of yours who could use a little help with the yard work! 😉

04/05/2024

The website is finally here! Thank you to Svice Online Marketing for all the work you put in!

Check it out and share it with anyone you might know who could use a little help with some yard maintenance!

North Okanagan's Go-To Expert for Irrigation, Lawn, and Landscape Maintenance Through honesty and reliability we help greenspace lovers maintain their landscapes when they lack the physical ability, tools, time or expertise to do so on their own. Get a No-Cost Quote! Strata/Commercial Property Servi...

03/19/2024

Transform your yard into a paradise! We're open for business and eager to tackle all your landscape challenges - from lawn cuts to irrigation repairs, and beyond!

Website coming soon! Contact us by phone or email!