Mike Hunter Sudbury

I've been keeping this kind of useless statistic since 2011. Taking all the sold houses in Sudbury from 1/1/2018 to 12/16/2018 I sort them by color and then create a pie chart to show what color represents how much of the market. Here it is. Commentary below. For 2018, much like last year, the dominant colors are gray and tan, the earth colors. Then the brights, white and yellow. And last, the RGB colors. It's interesting this year the mix of RGB has really expanded in the blue and green tones. White seems to be shrinking in popularity. And my annual dig at lazy agents, 30% of the listing agents didn't even bother to put in the color of the house in their listings. Really people? Did you ever even walk into the house? Yellow, this year in particular, seems to be popular on capes. They do look really nice when the lawns are lush and green and then nice against the white snow in winter. Looking to buy or sell or just talk about real estate, get in touch.

So you’ve read through all the seed catalogs, sharpened and oiled all your gardening tools, and are looking longingly at the garden wishing there was something growing. Whatever you do, don’t go into the garden and start digging or tilling. The soil will become compacted and you can actually ruin it for the upcoming year’s crops. Instead, here’s what I do. Get a large vase, at least 10” tall and fill it with cool water. Then go out to your forsythia patch and cut a few stalks about 2’ long. You’ll get the best blooms if you take the younger stalks, nothing over ½” in diameter. Then arrange them in pleasing array, fastening the bundle with some twine or florist’s wire, and place into the vase. In about two weeks, depending on the warmth of the room they’re in, you’ll have beautiful yellow blossoms, just in time for the spring holidays. To further decorate the stalks, you can hang colored Easter eggs with ribbon and make it into an Easter egg tree. You can start a wonderful famil

A home without foundation plants looks like a doll house plunked down in the middle of a pool table My first house was a 1920’s colonial with a tiny lot with the worst set of foundation plantings I’ve ever seen on a house. In addition to planting inappropriate species, they were planted too close to each other and the house and were allowed to overgrow about twenty years too long. Especially troublesome were a couple of evergreen yews that were covering the windows and trimmed to an ugly shape that was not flattering to the cute house. They also severely restricted access to the front door. So what’s a new homeowner to do? You guessed it, you get a couple of friends together on the hottest weekend of the year and decide to rip the suckers out. We started with what seemed like the least amount of work, putting a chain around the base of the plant and hooking it to my 1974 Volkswagen beetle. Then I got a running start and when the chain tightened the car leaped off the ground abou

If you really don’t like someone give them a wild running bamboo plant, that’s my advice.If a friend asks for some and you gave them some they will hate you for it in a year or two. Some folks call them “thugs of the plant world”, some call them “spite plants”, I like to think of them as plants that are by their nature invasive or die easily or somehow bring pain to the recipient. And before you ask, no I’ve never given nor gotten them as presents. Have you ever heard of a plant called a Jerusalem Artichoke or a Stachy or a Prairie Radish? These are some of the common names for the tallish green perennial with a white, edible root that is really quite tasty … in moderation. I brought one plant from my Mom’s farm, planted it in an open area and have been fighting them ever since. Nothing can kill these things … If the stem breaks when the plant is yanked out, the root simply sends up another plant. This plant also flowers, and reseeds itself and neither drought, raging lawnmower

One of my guilty pleasures is feeding the birds in back yard so usually looks like Logan Airport at rush hour with everything from juncos and titmice to blue jays and yellow finches. We also get lots of morning doves and red tailed hawks have been known to visit. The first of the hummingbirds came on schedule around May 1 this year and we had to rush the feeder out of its winter hibernation and into action. This is always the time to get your hummingbird feeder and put it out. Hummingbirds are very territorial and will come back to the same area and feeder, so you want to put your feeder in the exact same spot for at least a couple of years, then you could move it within a reasonable distance if you need to in the future. The ratio of sugar to water for their food is 1:4, or ½ cup sugar to two cups water. Change the sugar water every few days in hot weather so it doesn’t ferment. Our hummers have been visiting a lot and it looks like the new family is about ready to head south for

Fall is one of the best times of year for gardeners to enjoy the splendid displays of nature’s beauty while thinking of how they can improve the colors of their own gardens. Autumn is my favorite time of year for planting trees and shrubs. If you can bear the mosquitoes you will find that most anything you stick in the ground will grow this time of year. Of course some of us can stick a fence post into the ground and it will sprout leaves.  But for those of you who have two black thumbs there is hope if you plant in the fall. Visitors from other parts of the country are drawn away from the yellows of their own forests to New England for the vivid reds, scarlets, oranges, yellow-oranges, and copper colors. While much of the display comes from the native trees a lot of the texture comes from shrubs and vines, many of them put in place by you and me. My list of the top flowering trees, shrubs and vines for the Sudbury gardener would fill a couple of legal pads, but here are some o

After looking for months you've found the house that you could love and decide to make an offer. You call your agent and he/she says they have multiple offers. Here's what you should ask: 1. Is selling agent a "Realtor"? That is ... a member of a national organization with a code of ethics. 2. Does selling agent have one or more of the offers? This puts you at a disadvantage if they cut their commission to secure both sides of the deal. 3. Does selling agent's office/brokerage have one or more of the offers? Some brokerages increase the agent's splits if they keep the deals "in house". 4. How many offers do you have? Knowing the number of offers is vital to your strategy. The seller is perfectly within their rights to restrict what or anything their agent is allowed to share. Don't fret if you're told they can't share, knowing that is also vital to your strategy. You do have a right to ask for a copy of this instruction in wr

One thing that has done very well this year is the weeds. Crab grass, native skunk cabbage, and goldenrod are on my top enemies list. What is a weed? By definition, weeds are anything growing somewhere you don’t want them to grow. They can be prize roses or prize vegetables, but if you don’t want them there, they’re weeds. I used to choose my weeding tools based upon the task at hand. Now I find myself choosing tools by the “what part of my body will ache the least tomorrow morning” school of thought. One can also use a variety of tools to exercise many muscles and make sure that the entire body aches the next morning. My favorite weeding tool is called a Mattock. It’s a medium-sized digging tool with a flat blade set at right angles to the handle. One side of the blade is flat and sharpened like a hoe. The other side is a set of two or three prongs that can get below any clump of weeds. My current model is a very lightweight one I purchased at an army/navy store and has served

I once had some loam delivered and spread on a section of the lawn and it only grew more crabgrass than I had ever seen. There was plenty of sun, I watered it regularly, I used quality grass seed and seemed to do everything right so why the lack of success. It was the dirt. Soil is the "physical earth" or "dirt" in our yards and gardens. It is made up of particles of all shapes and sizes and can be heavy on one count and not another. It could be typically heavy in clay, or maybe very sandy. Loam is soil that has been measured and mixed so one knows the percentage of particles. Ideally the mixture is 40% sand, 40% silt and 20% clay by volume. This mixture is a good growing medium for most plants as the roots are able to penetrate the loam and establish themselves in the growing medium and allowing for better drainage. Using my home-made soil sample test to find out what was wrong with the loam told me there was too much clay, couldn't tell by looking at i