Donn Garden Estate- Ann Arbor Landscape Maintenance

Posted on April 5, 2018

We don’t often feature work by a very important division at Lotus: our landscape maintenance team! From spring to fall they work fastidiously to maintain one of our favorite client’s property  (you may be familiar with home’s award-winning sculptural entry garden, designed by Traven Pelletier).

 

The Donn property is truly a garden estate, somewhat rare in the Ann Arbor area: A beautiful 10 acre property with about 2.5 acres of cultivated gardens, a spring fed pond, and a woodland preserve. As one of our most dedicated clients, we dedicate our best horticultural maintenance crew for a full day weekly visit to take care of the beds. Paula, the owner and talented master gardener, is constantly adding new features and rearranging the beds; we work hard to keep up with the maintenance and add new hardscape features annually.

The season-long challenge for crew members is keeping up with Paula’s love of seed collection from her extensive perennial beds. This requires precise timing and extensive knowledge of when to cut back spent herbaceous plants.  As some seeds are raised in Paula’s sunporch, many uncommon annuals and bienniels are sown in situ. The crew consistently need to learn new seedling stages to differentiate between seedlings and weedlings. Many new species are planted each year, so plant identification becomes part and parcel of the crew’s ability to learn specific care for each plant.

  

Proper organic fertilization keeps the garden looking it’s best. A seemingly straight forward task by some, this is complicated by the fact this is a strictly organic garden due to the water features housing pet Koi and a larger natural pond downhill. No run off allowed! Early disease diagnosis and eradication by organic method keep problems at bay. This is no easy feat when the dominant shrubs are every form of Rosa. Combined with ericaceous, alpine,woodland, fruit production, bog and annual container displays our crew consistently gain knowledge and experience that shows in this wonderful garden.