Big changes are coming!

This is the start of a long story! After 4 years of hearing about Rakow Road being widened along side of our offices and garden center we received our official letter from McHenry County. Since our offices are only 2' 3" from the present right of way and the county is taking 20 more feet it looks like they will take our building, our silo (booo! This is the only remaining structure from the original barn and namesake.) and all of our greenhouses along the north side. Never a dull moment at the Barn!
So, the process of condemnation has just begun. This is our 3rd condemnation in about 20 years. Many of you have watched these changes over the years. When Rakow Road was built, we lost 100 ft, leaving the road mere inches from our windows. (Give a wave while waiting for the light!) A few years later, the state widened Rt 31 and took another 10-20 ft of the front of our property. We do hear the occasional rumors that "The Barn is closing." We want to reassure our customers that despite what you hear, "The Barn is NOT closing" despite this major inconvenience and the huge costs involved with re-building and moving our garden center. It will cost us 1000's of hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars, but we are committed to coming out of this better than ever. So, you will be seeing some major changes over the next couple of years. Please wish us luck and I will keep you posted.

TKSR

What to do with all this snow?

Fluff time is here! When is is 26-30 degrees and it snows we get the wet, high moisture heavy snow. But these last few snows have come with cold temps and that gives us a dry, fluffy snow. Now is when I dont mind shoveling. Not so much because it is easier, because I dont mind the heavy work out that comes when shoveling the heavy stuff. But the fluffy snow is snow I can use to bury my plants without breaking their branches. I actually go around and bury all my sensitive plants or give the trees extra insulation over the root systems. Snow is the best insulation there is. Evern after all the super cold weather, under 12" of snow or more there is still no frozen ground, just nice cool, moist soil.

If you need to apply Wiltpruf or "anti-dessicant" material to your sensitive plants, especially senstive evergreens or broadleaf evergreens now is the time to start watching the weather. You will need a temp of 45 degrees or higher for 4-6 hours to successfully apply this product, so keep a lookout. Anytime this can be applied before March 1st it will really protect those senstive needles and foliage. Some plants that benefit from this are Rhododendron, azalea, arborvitae, spruce and pine, yews, boxwood and false cypress especially when these groups are exposed to heavy west winds, lots of south or west sunlight or are in any road salt & spray.

TKSR

First!!!!

Welcome to Rob’s first posting. Aren’t you excited? I know I am! Now I know you are probably asking yourself what in the world does a landscape designer do during the winter that anybody would care about? Well, the answer is not much, but we’re going to give this thing a go anyway.

This January has already been pretty busy for me. Obviously there was New Years Day and all of the football games (Go Big Ten), the Orange Bowl the 5th (Go Hawks), the National Title Game the 7th (I love college football if you haven’t caught on), a 10 inch snow that I plowed for 14 hours over a 2 day period, and my car is in the shop after someone backed into me while I was parked in our lot at work. Some good, some bad.

Through all of that though I am actually getting some work done around the office. I am currently helping to make our website bigger and better. We are adding more pictures, changing some of the layout, and maybe putting in a few surprises. So make sure to check it out to see what’s new.

I am also helping to work on some new advertizing ideas and layouts. You may see some of these new ideas in the new edition of the Quintessential Barrington.

Another thing that I am helping to work on are monthly newsletters that will be emailed out to all of our Barn Nursery customers. Each month will have a new topic that will feature either current landscape ideas or projects that we are working on or have completed. Hopefully this will be educational if not at least interesting.

Even with all of that I am still working on designs and bids. Most people think they need to wait until spring, but actually this is the best time to get started. Getting started now means that we have more time to work on the designing and planning, which is the most important part. The other benefit is scheduling. If you want to get your job installed before June I would recommend contacting me before April.

Well, that wasn’t so bad. And for those who thought that we had a 3 month vacation once the snow started to fly, think again.

Rob Baughman
Landscape Designer/ Project Manager