Sioux Falls residents may notice tannish-pink spots on their lawn after record breaking rain fall.
On July 2, 2024, Keloland News in Sioux Falls, SD, caught up with Weller Brothers Lawn and Tree Health Expert Ryan Myott to learn more about a quickly spreading lawn disease known as Red Thread.
Weller Brothers’s “Tree Talk With Sam” series is produced in partnership with Sam Kezar, Board Certified Master Arborist with Aspen Arboriculture Solutions in Sioux Falls, SD.
There are hundreds of different types of trees that you can select from when planting, however, first, you should consider your soil type.
Sam is here to tell you how to determine your soil type to select a tree that will thrive for years to come!
Between our team of certified arborists at Weller Brothers and the expertise of our consultant Sam at Aspen Arboriculture Solutions, your trees are in good hands in Sioux Falls, SD!
Weller Brothers’s “Tree Talk With Sam” series is produced in partnership with Sam Kezar, Board Certified Master Arborist with Aspen Arboriculture Solutions in Sioux Falls, SD.
Trees offer many benefits to a homeowner including curb appeal and shade. To avoid disease and pest infestation, you should diversify the species of trees you plant in your yard.
Sam is here to tell you why you should select a variety of tree species to avoid infestations in the future!
Between our team of certified arborists at Weller Brothers and the expertise of our consultant Sam at Aspen Arboriculture Solutions, your trees are in good hands in Sioux Falls, SD!
Pests bring a significant threat to the health and curb appeal of your home. Insects and rodents are capable of causing extensive damage to your property, so high-quality pest control and prevention is vital to maintain the health of your trees, plants, and lawn.
Ryan Myott at Weller Brothers says that there are a handful of common pests that South Dakota homeowners should watch out for in the spring.
“At Weller Brothers, we know that it’s easiest to prevent pest problems rather than treating them reactively,” Ryan says.
The Weller Brothers Way is to approach pest prevention with effective applications that are safe for both our team and your home.
1. Grubs and billbugs: These insects feed on the roots of turf grasses, causing discolored patches in your lawn. In addition to destroying the look of your lawn, they attract animals like skunks and raccoons that can carry rabies.
2. Rodents: A rodent problem of any severity is more than a minor inconvenience, and can become a large problem if not effectively controlled. Once rodents find a home in your existing landscaping, they may try to go inside your home to escape the midwestern outdoor elements.
Voles are one of the most common rodents that we remove in Sioux Falls, SD. You can spot a vole infestation by identifying runways and borrows throughout your lawn.
3. Japanese beetles: This beetle emerges in late June or early July and damages the leaves and flowers of woody or ornamental plants. The Japanese beetle eats at the tissue between leaf veins and reduces the amount of food a plant can produce, which over time kills the plant, leaving them “skeletonized.” It’s important to prevent Japanese beetle infestation early on as they will also attract other forms of beetles to feed on any food sources that they find.
4. Spiders, flees, ticks, and chiggers: Insects of any kind not only cause a major disturbance in enjoying your outdoor area, but they also can be carried into your home. To ensure the safety of your family, including furry friends, it’s best to prevent insects, rather than having to treat and remove them after they have already taken over your outdoor space.
5. Emerald Ash Borer: This destructive insect is prominent in Sioux Falls and continues spread to surrounding communities. It causes canopy thinning and cracks in the bark of Ash trees, causing them to become weakened and a safety hazard to surrounding homes.
The city of Sioux Falls, SD requires that you treat all Ash trees every two years or removed from the property. If you live within the quarantine area, ash trees, ash brush, or logs are permitted to be removed from the area to avoid further spread. Trees with EAB can’t be saved without extremely early detection. To save yourself from losing your ash trees and property value, the best option here is to prevent it.
If you notice signs of pests or insects, you need to seek a professional pest control service. The Weller Brothers team in Sioux Falls, SD, is ready to promptly complete an inspection to accurately identify the specific pest and develop an expert plan for treatment and future prevention.
Many Sioux Falls residents have noticed lawn, tree, or landscaping service delays due to increased rain and standing water.
On June 21, 2024, Keloland News in Sioux Falls, SD, caught up with Weller Brothers Lead Arborist Phil Nystrom to talk about what clients can expect with the rain we have received and how we can combat standing water in the lawn.
After a long day of being in the summer heat, a cold glass of water in the air conditioning is just what you need.
But what about your shrubs and trees? No, you do not need to build a custom air conditioner – you just need to fertilize them!
Much like humans, trees and shrubs need essential nutrients to continue thriving. This is as easy as one annual application to ensure they stay happy, healthy, and boosting your curb appeal.
Learn why you need to schedule your shrub and tree fertilizer today from the professionals at Weller Brothers in Sioux Falls, SD, and Rochester, MN.
Trees and shrubs are living investments that grow in value each year. The foundation of their life span starts with properly maintaining them. Established trees and shrubs require appropriate and timely maintenance, such as pruning, watering, fertilizing, and mulching to enhance their health and growth.
If you have evergreen shrubs (junipers, arborvitaes, or boxwoods) that are common in the Midwestern area, you have likely enjoyed the aesthetic flowering season.
Soil does not commonly contain the needed amount of nutrients needed to promote flourishing flowers on your trees, so fertilizer will prompt and support flowering.
Fertilizers contain nutrients that trees need to continue growing lusciously. Nitrogen, which is commonly found in fertilizers, helps tree foliage maintain a vibrant and thick foliage.
If your tree or shrub has a nitrogen deficiency, you may notice that the leaves are a pale yellow-green color. To properly diagnose and treat your tree, you should consult a certified arborist to ensure that pests and diseases are not playing a factor in the diminishing look of your trees.
A healthy plant is a strong plant. When plants can grow at their full potential, they become stronger and able to thrive in harsh conditions. In the Midwest, we experience extreme heat in the summer, frigid temperatures in the winter, and inconsistent rainfall in the spring. Due to varying weather conditions, your trees and shrubs will need fertilizer to become more resilient to these types of conditions.
You might not have guessed that trees and shrubs have so much in common with humans — they actually do! Consider a strong plant to be like a human with a strong immune system that can fight off sickness.
Fertilizing your plants will boost their immune system to help combat pests and diseases that can be harmful to their growth. Nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium are common types of nutrients that are in fertilizer, and are essential to promote healthy plants.
The certified tree care professionals at Weller Brothers are ready to work with you to establish a fertilizer program for your trees and shrubs in Sioux Falls, SD, and Rochester, MN.
The primary responsibility of the Arborist is to maintain trees and woody plants to ensure their healthy, safe, and attractive condition including chemical applications, repairing, cabling, fertilizing, watering, pruning, and removal of any dead, diseased or declining trees. All Weller Brothers team members are expected to provide excellent client service by assisting clients promptly and courteously, answer questions and provide information as needed. An arborist will perform and ensure all team members are executing all job responsibilities in a safe, timely and efficient manner.
To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty and competency satisfactorily. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required to perform this job.
The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by a team member to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Team members must be able to perform the following tasks during a typical 8+ hour day.
LIGHT HEAVY WORK: Lifting up to 80 pounds; frequently lifting or carrying objects weighing up to 50 pounds.
This is a full-time non-exempt position. Specific schedules will be determined based on weather and general needs of the business.
Disclaimer: The specific statements shown in each section of this job description are not intended to be all-inclusive. They represent typical elements and criteria considered necessary to perform the job successfully. The company recognized that an individual with a disability may require an accommodation to enable him/her to successfully perform a job function. Consideration will be given to reasonable accommodations. This document does not create an employment contract, implied or otherwise, other than an “at will” relationship.
Our Mission and Roots guide us in our decision and actions every day. They are not just written words; they are our culture.
You can work anywhere. So why work at Weller Brothers?
You can be somebody here, and we believe that we are the best employer in the Midwest.
Many Sioux Falls residents have questions and concerns about the city’s tree-planting ordinances.
Dakota News Now in Sioux Falls, SD, caught up with Weller Brothers Business Development Manager Luke Wixo to talk about why the city ordinances are in place and how they support tree health and diversity.
Weller Brothers’s “Tree Talk With Sam” series is produced in partnership with Sam Kezar, Board Certified Master Arborist with Aspen Arboriculture Solutions in Sioux Falls, SD.
We all want to have large, beautiful trees on our properties. To accomplish this, you should consider the size of your tree before planting to avoid transplant shock.
Sam is here to tell you how to select the right tree size so that it will thrive for years to come!
Between our team of certified arborists at Weller Brothers and the expertise of our consultant Sam at Aspen Arboriculture Solutions, your trees are in good hands in Sioux Falls, SD!
Homeowners contact our team daily with their dreams for improved landscaping or outdoor living features. But, often, they have no concept of their budget simply because they don’t know a reasonable cost expectation.
Part of doing our job the Weller Brothers Way includes making an extra effort to educate our clients and being transparent about how we price our products and services. We value the time of both our clients and our designers and for that reason, we strive to be upfront about landscaping costs.
We frequently meet with two types of homeowners with misunderstandings regarding the cost of landscaping:
This homeowner comes to Weller Brothers with landscaping dreams – perhaps a new patio with an outdoor kitchen and surrounding softscapes – but with unrealistic investment expectations.
“We’d love to have a backyard pool with surrounding pavers and softscapes, and maybe even a firepit. Our budget for this is $50,000.”
While this budget is nothing to scoff at, we’ll need to nix the pool to make it happen and encourage the client to prioritize their desired features to accommodate the budget.
These conversations are always a bummer for both the client and our team. For this reason, we do our best to share our landscape budget guide online and in our initial client onboarding process to manage expectations and goals early in the relationship.
“We don’t really have a budget in mind” or “We have no clue what’s reasonable,” is something we commonly hear from homeowners. “But here is what we want.”
Without a baseline budget to guide the way, we might spend time drafting a landscape design with the client’s desired features, often to be met with “Well, that’s more than we thought it would be. That isn’t within our budget.”
Back to the drawing board.
If you know that you would spend, for example, $25,000 to $75,000, but you know that you won’t spend $80,000, let us know! While that wide range of available budget may not seem to provide our designers much direction, it gives us something to work with and could eliminate the potential for multiple revisions (which saves you money).
So, if you meet with a Weller Brothers landscape designer who asks, “Would you spend $50,000? Would you spend $80,000? Would you spend $150,000?” know that they aren’t trying to manipulate you into spending more.
They are identifying what your landscaping budget isn’t.
While some landscaping features may simply be out of the question for some price points (for example, a custom masonry outdoor kitchen on a $15,000 budget), our design team will work with you to manage costs as much as possible.
Here are some examples of features we can adjust to help manage your budget:
We have many options across various price points for wall materials – between field boulders, manufactured block, or decorative block.
We source our pavers from a few different manufacturers, including Belgard, Unilock, and Techo-Bloc. Within these brands, there are many options for paver style, size, and materials. We can consider all of these options to help offset costs as needed.
Your backyard pool design provides many opportunities for cost efficiency. To give you an idea, a pool could range anywhere from $180,000 (no features or landscaping around the pool) to upwards of half a million dollars (including custom designs, lights, jets, slides or diving boards, and more.)
There are also price ranges between fiberglass (lower cost) and concrete pools (higher cost).
Similar to your pool, we have a lot of room for adjustment with outdoor kitchens. A baseline outdoor kitchen is a simple kit kitchen that may include a countertop and a grill.
Conversely, your fully customized stone veneer kitchen with accessories like a kegerator, pizza oven, or sink will require greater investment.
Here are some ideas to consider for your outdoor kitchen.
Going from a gas firepit to a wood-burning firepit is an easy cost-saving swap.
We can also discuss the materials for your firepit; for example, we can custom-build it from cinder blocks and stone veneer or purchase a firepit kit for a more cost-effective option.
We can manage the costs of your general landscaping, shrubs, trees, and plants by selecting smaller or different plants.
A common example is Boxwoods. They are popular in the Midwest but cost more as they take several years to grow. Instead, opt for Dogwoods, which have a quicker growth rate and are more cost-efficient.
Your Weller Brothers landscape designer will help you make cost-related material decisions that align with your priorities for your outdoor living space.
Also, you can trust that even if you go with the “cheapest” option for a feature, Weller Brothers still only sources high-quality materials for our clients and our landscaping projects in Sioux Falls, SD, Rochester, MN, and Des Moines, IA.
We understand that if you don’t live and breathe landscaping like we do, it’s unlikely that you would have a realistic idea of the cost of landscaping features.
That’s exactly why we have created our landscape budget guide. We encourage you to consult this before you contact us. That way, you will be confident of your next steps in investing in your outdoor living space and we can create a high-quality, long-lasting landscape design within your budget — whatever it may be.
