http://www.senske.com/tomsblog/Tom Perkes is Senske's corporate and marketing communications manager. He earned his Bachelor's Degree in business and Spanish while playing NCAA-level basketball at Albertson's College in Caldwell, Idaho and received his MBA from the University of Worcester in England. Tom has worked in the green industry since 1998. He is married with two small children.60http://www.senske.com/tomsblog/default.aspx?blogid=86http://www.senske.com/tomsblog/default.aspx?blogid=86It's not what you think it is; its mold! Don’t let your little ones get bit, it’s too easy to preventRecently there has been a crazy amount of phone calls into our call center in regards to spiders, specifically about the hobo spider. The hobo spider was able to survive our mostly mild winter that we had here. The winter never got extremely cold. It stayed until July first, but it never was super cold. Because of this many of the spiders2010-08-27http://www.senske.com/tomsblog/default.aspx?blogid=85http://www.senske.com/tomsblog/default.aspx?blogid=85So I was hanging out with a couple friends of mine, and yes I have a couple, not much more than that, but I do have friends. As I was talking to my friend John H, he asked me why he was getting light green spots in his yard.The spots are chartreuse yellow-green, and they are only in some spots in the yard. Many of you might see these spots show up in your yard as well, and I will hopefully help you understand what causes them.For2010-08-10http://www.senske.com/tomsblog/default.aspx?blogid=84http://www.senske.com/tomsblog/default.aspx?blogid=84Let’s check out the mailbag, “I live in West Richland, and I drive past (name removed) nursery, and they have a big sign that says they can kill my Bermuda and my Crabgrass, can they really do this?” Jake H, West Richland." Like cockroaches and mother-in-laws it’s tough to get rid of Bermuda grassI also have seen this sign, and I have thought the same thing. Can they really do that? At first I thought that maybe they2010-07-30http://www.senske.com/tomsblog/default.aspx?blogid=83http://www.senske.com/tomsblog/default.aspx?blogid=83It’s not what you think it is; its mold!So last week was the 4th of July, and on the 5th my brother-in-law woke up and found a mess in his yard (by mess I mean he found a pile similar to the attached picture) He figured that one of his neighbors had had a really good time at a 4th of July BBQ, and didn’t make it all the way home. He cleaned it up, and to his surprise when he woke up on the 6th there was another pile. He knew for sure that2010-07-22http://www.senske.com/tomsblog/default.aspx?blogid=82http://www.senske.com/tomsblog/default.aspx?blogid=82Hot weather can leave your lawn looking brown and deadSomething happened over the last week, and I think its summer. What was an extremely mild and wet spring in Washington, Idaho, and Utah has started to become the traditional hot summer. Large temperature swings like this can be very dangerous for you, and for your landscape.Because of the extra precipitation that we have had in this region, inefficiencies in your irrigation system haven’t2010-07-09http://www.senske.com/tomsblog/default.aspx?blogid=81http://www.senske.com/tomsblog/default.aspx?blogid=81He's cold, not lazy I don’t know about you, but I have grown weary of the long cold spring. In Kennewick it’s been cold and rainy. For those of you that aren’t aware, Kennewick sits in a desert. By this time of year it’s usually hot and really hot. It isn’t just here: Spokane and Coeur d’Alene have turned into Seattle East and started to rain every other day, and Salt Lake/Ogden get warm and then snow. It’s truly been the craziest spring that2010-06-28http://www.senske.com/tomsblog/default.aspx?blogid=80http://www.senske.com/tomsblog/default.aspx?blogid=80I recently did a camp out with a buddy of mine and our kids. By campout, what I really mean is we set up tents in his pasture, and told the kids we were camping. During this camping trip my 4 year old son got eaten by mosquitoes. I lucky enough didn’t get a single bite. I’m not sure if I’m just lucky or if there was something to it, but he hasn’t wanted to go camping since. That got me into reasearching the mosquito and what I can do to keep2010-06-17http://www.senske.com/tomsblog/default.aspx?blogid=79http://www.senske.com/tomsblog/default.aspx?blogid=79I’m currently working on making a new pest control piece that our commercial pest control salesman can leave behind with proposals. While making this piece, I was doing some research for some extra useful information on the pests that are talked about. One of the pests is the cockroach, and it’s gotten a bad rap through the years. It’s actually a pretty amazing bug. What peaked my interest in the bug is that some species of cockroach can produce2010-06-07http://www.senske.com/tomsblog/default.aspx?blogid=78http://www.senske.com/tomsblog/default.aspx?blogid=78Borer damage in the cambium layer of an Ash TreeI’ve had the pleasure of visiting our Utah branches the last month, and there were some cool things that I was able to see and learn while I was there. Recently we were able to secure a few large contracts in that area, and one of my responsibilities is to care for these contracts. At one of the sites that we secured, I was doing a site walk through and inspection with our Maintenance General2010-05-18http://www.senske.com/tomsblog/default.aspx?blogid=77http://www.senske.com/tomsblog/default.aspx?blogid=77I once wrote a blog about some lady birds or lady bugs, it just depends on what you like to call them. I personally like lady birds, because it makes them sound so much more appealing. Who really likes bugs? Entomologists, that’s it, oh and my 3 year old. So it’s a small group of people, not stature but total number. In that blog, I was asked about bugs that are good for your garden and yard, and how you can use them effectively to help sustain2010-04-15http://www.senske.com/tomsblog/default.aspx?blogid=76http://www.senske.com/tomsblog/default.aspx?blogid=76Lawn striping.I once did a blog on lawn striping, but it was the cool lawn striping that they do at Major League Baseball stadiums. You know the ones, the cool ones where they have the logos rolled into the lawn, and things like that. Today, I am going to talk about another kind of lawn striping; this is the not cool kind. This is something that happens when fertilizer gets applied incorrectly, and leaves your lawn looking like a bunch of2010-04-05http://www.senske.com/tomsblog/default.aspx?blogid=75http://www.senske.com/tomsblog/default.aspx?blogid=75This is what it felt like, the guy I sat next to, wasn’t obese,he was just really big. He had to have been anO-Lineman back in the day.I went to Orlando, FL this week to learn about a proposal making software that our company uses. That’s really boring, so we’ll not talk about it, what was kind of funny, and worth at least a joke was my flights going east. I took off from Seattle at 6 am Sunday morning, and when you include the2010-03-05