One of the great things about doing business in Seattle is the number of resources available to help businesses improve on environmental practices. We recently had a consultant from ECOSS (Environmental Coalition of South Seattle) come out to help us improve our spill prevention practices.

Ecoyards’ new spill response kit.

ECOSS is a nonprofit that works toward improving the environment and provides education, resources and technical assistance to businesses and communities. One of its fields of expertise is stormwater pollution prevention. The group provides free, confidential services. We recommend it to other businesses.

The group, working with Seattle Public Utilities and other groups, offers free emergency spill cleanup materials and spill contingency plans to Seattle businesses. ECOSS helped us prepare a spill prevention plan and gave us free spill skits for our trucks and warehouse located along the Duwamish in West Seattle. The spill kits are 6.5 gallon buckets that include absorbent booms, absorbent pads, goggles and other items.

Ecoyards is pleased to announce we recently achieved the highest five-star rating from the EnviroStars program, which certifies businesses with environmentally responsible practices.

Certified businesses have demonstrated a commitment to protecting the environment by properly managing and reducing hazardous materials and waste and other practices. The EnviroStars program was created by King County in 1995, and seeks to create healthier communities and protect natural resources by keeping hazardous and other unwanted waste out of the environment.

What does the EnviroStar rating mean for customers like you? It’s just one more reassurance that Ecoyards is committed to reducing our overall environmental impact and that we are being proactive in minimizing our footprint. To get a five-star rating, we have to show environment-related leadership in our industry or community, have a solid waste reduction program and implement measures to save energy, protect air and water quality and incorporate an multitude of “greener” business practices.

An EnviroStars staff completes a site inspection, reviews our practices and decides whether we qualify. As the program notes:

companies receive a rating from 2- to 5-Stars; the higher the rating, the more thoroughly environment-friendly practices are built into the company’s policies and operations. To improve the star rating, a company has to become more proactive in reducing wastes and the use of hazardous materials. Five-stars demonstrate leadership on environmental issues beyond their own facilities – within their industry, organization and/or community.

Daffodils in full bloom in January. Photo by Ecoyards.

It’s always a welcome relief to see early signs of spring around Seattle. Our Ecoyards maintenance crews spotted daffodils in full bloom recently, and they’re also reporting that weeds are popping up with a vengeance in landscape beds and lawns.

Are we seeing signs of an early spring in Seattle and elsewhere? The weather-predicting groundhog Punxsutawney Phil says yes. The Pennsylvania groundhog didn’t see his shadow last week when he popped out of his burrow, so his handlers say spring is on its way.

You can dismiss the groundhog as folklore, but a couple of recent studies have shown that we’re experiencing warmer springs and that’s causing flowers to bloom and trees to leaf earlier than they have in past years. What do you think?

One study published last month in the journal PLoS ONE uses flowering records kept by author and naturalist Henry David Thoreau and naturalist Aldo Leopold to investigate the question of whether flowering times will continue to advance as temperatures rise. As the New York Times notes, the researchers relied on Henry David Thoreau’s somewhat obsessive effort to record the first blooms of the year. Thoreau recorded flowering dates for many well-known flowers including the wild columbine and the pink-lade slipper orchid. The scientists conclude that record warm temperatures (in 2010 and 2012) have resulted in record flowering times. As the NYT writes: “For now, plants seem to be exhibiting a steady, linear response to warming temperatures. For every degree of Fahrenheit the temperature increases, many flowers come out 2.3 days earlier. ”

In another study published in Geophysical Research Letters, Princeton scientists found that trees in the continental United States could send out spring leaves many days earlier in the future than they did. According to this UPI article, by the year 2100 some trees could be putting out spring leaves from 8 to 40 days earlier depending on the part of the country, compared to the late 20th century.

Are flowers blooming earlier than usual in your yard?

Here was the dilemma: one of our clients had a gorgeous Lions Head Japanese maple that had grown too big for its location. It was already 7 feet tall when the homeowner planted it on his property 12 years ago, so you can imagine how much it had grown since.

Our client was looking to move the maple because it was planted too close to the house; its roots were likely to get tangled in underground gas lines and the top branches would soon interfere with overhead cable lines. He also had a personal attachment to the tree, so wanted to find a way to preserve it if possible. And what’s not to love about it: this deciduous tree has beautiful green foliage that turns red in spring and a spectacular gold in the fall. It can grow to about 20 feet tall at maturity with a spread of about 15 feet.

Air vaccum and air knife. All photos by Ecoyards

The problem: the roots of the Lions Head Japanese Maple were so close to gas lines that we couldn’t dig it out without striking those lines and causing all kinds of mayhem.

The solution: we hired an arborist who used “an air knife” to safely excavate soil from the maple’s tree roots without having to hack away with a pick or shovel and otherwise damaging the roots.

Opening up root-ball with air knife.

The air knife uses compressed air (not unlike air tire pumps you find at gas stations) at about 185 psi rating. The pressure from the air knife removes soil away by focusing a stream of air around the roots. Apparently, this technology has been used by the military to excavate land mines.

Crane places tree in truck for move.

The process of air-excavating the tree from its original location was tedious. It took hours to gently remove the soil away from the root ball. Once we had freed the soil from the root ball, we brought in a crane to raise the plant and moved it into a truck where we then transplanted it into its new location.

Crew places Lions Head Japanese Maple in its new location.

Happy tree in its new location. This maple, Acer palmatum “Shishigashira”, loves full sun to partial shade, and is relatively low maintenance. It can live to be about 80 years old!

Contact Ecoyards if you ever need help solving a tricky landscaping situation.