We are now finished are regular property maintenance for the season. Thank you to all of our maintenance staff for a great season. Have a wonderful off-season, we look forward to your return next year.

As the lawn and gardening season comes to an end we would like to take this opportunity to thank our maintenance clients for their business. Also, as a reminder, we would like to note that as of Thanksgiving weekend our weekly visits will cease. During our fall schedule we move to visits to no more than every 10-14 days. Thank you for a great season.

As an example of our property maintenance work, we have posted a slideshow of the transformation that a recent estate lot underwent after hiring our services. It can be found in the documents section or by clicking here.

Thank you this season's summer staff for all of your hard work. Good luck Ethan Edwards, Scott Godfrey-Wilson, Ashley Grieve, Abigail Mackey, Brent Munro and Morgan Gentile with school for the coming season.

We would like to welcome Jessica Kane to our Maintenance team, Ben Tanyi to our renovation team and Norm Jones as our sale representative, for the coming season.

Welcome new staff Ken Dudik, Devin Wright, Joe Wall and Kristen Rapson

Thank you summer staff for all your hard work. Good luck Lesley, Morgan, Scott, Ashley and Geoff.

We would like to welcome Nigel Tivey to our Landscape Construction team!

This beautiful weather has caused everything to begin three weeks early this year and we have been busy. Now, beginning May 3, we will begin our regularly weekly full maintenance visits. Thank you for your patience.

There are some new organic products coming available in Lawn Care that will allow us to add more options to your lawn care services. Ask us about those available now including: salt-stopper, pelletized compost, soil tests and our organic fertilizer programme. Keep watching for the expected release of some weed control products.

Whether it is fixing a leaking ceiling, making the home more energy efficient or simply making a change, everyone has a different reason for wanting to renovate. But whatever the reason retailers are well advised to tell their customers that renovations can be a great way to enhance the quality of life of the family, improve their home and increase its resale value.

Once a homeowner factors in the money they can save on heat, electricity and water, many renovations also offer a great return on investment - up to and including paying for themselves!

To help homeowners decide which renovations are right for their home, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) and the Appraisal Institute of Canada offer the potential "payback range" that some of the most common home improvement projects will typically have on the resale value of a home.

The best returns on renovation investments are projects that target your kitchen and bathroom. They recover between 75-100 percent of investment when overhauled. your next best investment is interior/exterior painting which has a return of between 50-100 percent.

The lowest payback range involves renovation projects like swimming pools or skylights. The recovery for a pool is about 10-40 percent and up to 25 percent for a skylight. Other payback ranges include:

Roof shingle replacement: 50-80%
Furnace & heating systems: 50-80%
Basement: 50-75%
Adding a recreation room: 50-75%
Installing a fireplace: 50-75%
Flooring: 50-75%
Constructing a garage: 50-75%
Window & door replacement: 50-75%
Building a deck: 50-75%
Central air conditioning: 25-75%
Landscaping: 25-50%
Interlocking paving: 25-50%
Building a fence: 25-50%
Asphalt paving: 20-50%

Reference: "Hardware & Home Centre Magazine"