Jack recently went to Connemara, Ireland... at least in spirit. Actually the background is a wall mural recently installed at the offices of Celtic Outdoor, LLC of the Ma'am Valley near Connemara, Ireland. Jack thought it looks pretty neat and the company it came from was worth letting you know about. Called "Limitless Walls", they are based in North Carolina and have an image library numbering in the thousands. If you can think of a place, chances are they have an image of it that you can turn into wallpaper. Just let them know the dimensions(in this case 9 foot high by 12 foot long) and give them a week or so and your mural will arrive. Baseball stadiums. National Parks. Paris Bistros. African Plains. Great website. Jack just thought he'd let you know about this unique company, based here in North Carolina.

Jack says you don’t need to turn on your irrigation systems just yet. He says you can do your “Spring Start Up”, test that everything works, see if you incurred any damage over the Winter, even leave the system pressurized… but you don’t need to run it. Not yet.

Here, at Celtic Outdoor, LLC, we receive a high volume of requests at this time of the year, every year, requesting us to start up irrigation systems. The first 65 degree day gets people thinking about Spring and golf and… running their irrigation systems.

Here in the Piedmont Region of the Carolinas we don’t typically need to regularly run our irrigation systems on fescue turf until mid to late April. If the turf is Bermuda, that can be pushed back into late May.

While annual flowers might need a drink when they are newly planted, in April, established plants and grass really won’t need watering until much later. Turf benefits significantly from watering less than we typically see. It drives the roots deeper, in search of water. This makes for a healthier blade, improved drought tolerance, higher disease resistance and a lower water bill.

Jack says he sees 20 and 30 year old lawns that can’t make it 72 hours without water, because the clients have turned them into water addicts. Try weaning the water back to twice a week until the temperatures get above the 80 degree mark. We bet you’ll end up with some greener grass down the road… and save some of a precious resource.

Thanks, Jack! We know you are just looking out for us!