Late snow, rain storms leave landscapers scrambling to catch up

BARRINGTON, N.H. --Landscapers are scrambling to make up time lost to late spring snow and rain.

Many landscapers say they're being forced to work on clean up before they can begin their planting seasons thanks to the storms that felled countless trees last month.

"It's unbelievable," said Russ Warwick of Warwick Landscaping and Pressure Washing of Dover, as he worked to move mounds of branches and debris from a home in Barrington.

"The late heavy snow after the thaw is what killed them," he said. "It's been non-stop trees, non-stop."

Warwick said he usually spends May planting but instead has been inundated with tree removal jobs, more than 30 so far.

"I'm really, really busy and I've got a lot of jobs backed up on me," he said.

Meanwhile, landscapers that don't offer tree removal service have been hurt by a lack of work in April, said Diane Perkins, president of the New Hampshire Landscape Association and owner of Fertile Ground in Exeter. The weather meant three weeks of prime planting time was shut down.

Normally, landscaping can begin as early as March, though it typically starts in April, Perkins said. But April's weather, first with the snow and then the rain, made planting impossible and wreaked havoc on many trees and yards, she said.

The unusual weather also led to a drastically shortened blooming time for flowers, Perkins said. April's cold weather pushed many early bloomers back while other later bloomers kept on schedule.

The changing schedules, both in work and blooming, can make customers think twice about getting landscape work done, Perkins said.

"I think patience is a really big word," she said. "You do have to be patient."

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Information from: New Hampshire Union Leader, http://www.unionleader.com