<p>ORINDA — Irrigation is crucial for established trees, but in order to be effective, it’s important to follow proper procedure. For example, a common mistake people make with tree irrigation is watering the trunk. Since a tree absorbs water through its roots, watering its trunk doesn’t make much sense. Instead, water should be applied at the outside edge of the tree’s drip line, where the shadow of its canopy is cast upon the ground. It’s also important to provide an adequate amount of water—ideally, the water should soak down about a foot into the soil.</p>
<p>In addition to proper procedure, a great way to maximize the effectiveness of irrigation is to apply a 4- to 6-inch layer of mulch beneath the tree’s drip line. Besides reducing sun and wind evaporation, mulch adds beneficial fungi and bacteria to the soil as it decomposes, which improve tree roots’ ability to absorb water and nutrients. Since mulch decomposes over time, it should be reapplied annually.</p>


Proper Tree Irrigation

Learn the essential tips and best practices for effective tree irrigation to ensure the health and longevity of your trees. Avoid common watering mistakes.

Proper Tree Irrigation by Chris Chapman

by Chris Chapman, a Diamond Certified Expert Contributor

2 Employer Misconceptions about Employee Health Benefits

Communicating Employee Benefits

Pre-Tax Premiums for Small Employer Health Groups

Tax Credit for Small Business Owners

Video: Benefits of Premium Only Plans



Are you a small employer? Do you offer benefits to your employees? Do your employees contribute to their benefits? Well, if they do, maybe section 125 of the Internal Revenue Code, known as a premium only plan or a pop, would be a win-win situation for both you and your employees. Basically, what it does, it allows the employees to make their contributions with pre-tax dollars instead of after-tax dollars, so it lowers gross payroll, lowering the employer's liability and payroll taxes by seven to ten percent. For the employee, because the money they're putting in pre-tax, it's going to lower their income tax. Again, it increases take-home pay for them, so this is a great win-win situation for all small groups who contribute. Easy to administer, easy to set up. You should give it a try, give your employees an extra benefit.

Video: Communicating Employee Benefits

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If you're an employer, make sure your employees understand what your benefits are and how to use them. Today we're in Menlo Park with diamond certified expert contributor Bob Finn y'all of Bay Area health insurance marketing to learn more. Hi, today let's talk about employee benefits. Employee benefits is one of our largest costs as a small employer. We're spending thousands of dollars each month in each year providing our employees with a valuable benefit. But do they appreciate the benefit? Do they know that the ID card that you gave them is an unlimited credit card? It's a card that when they go to the hospital and something major happens, they're covered. And no matter what the bill is, they're covered for it. 

The other thing they really don't understand is their benefits. So they don't understand how valuable this benefit is. For you, you need to communicate that to them. You need to give them their summary benefit of coverage. This is given every year to the employees so they understand what benefits they have. Answer some simple questions for them. They need to know when to use a plan and how to use the plan. Seventy percent of your employees probably will never use a plan for anything but an incidental treatment, maybe a prescription. But when they do, they want that ID card to take care of business for them. 

You have to let them know how to use it. If you got a dental plan, great. Tell them to use a dental plan. Again, geordie your employees that you're paying this great amount of dollars for don't use a plan. Have them use it. Make them understand it. Money that you're spending on them to keep them away from other employers. Make them understand their benefits so they appreciate what you're giving them. Small tip but the communication that you or your broker can give them so it's a long way in happy employees, healthy employees, and a great business really. 

To learn more from local top-rated companies, visit our diamond certified expert reports at experts diamond certified org. .

Video: Proper Tree Irrigation

While it's important to regularly water the trees on your property, it's equally crucial to use the proper techniques. Today, we're in Orinda with Diamond Certified expert contributor Chris Chapman of Horticultural Services LTD to learn more.

Irrigation of trees is the most important thing you can do for established trees this time of year. The best place to water is at the outside edge of the drip line. That's where the canopy, the shadow of the canopy comes onto the ground. The drip line, outside edge of the drip line. You have to make sure that the water soaks down about a foot, so you're going to want to soak. You turn the hose on so it soaks in real deep. You want to get about a foot of water penetration all the way underneath the drip line of the canopy. If you water real close to the trunk, that won't do any good.

You want to get, like I said, about a foot of penetration all the way around the drip line of the tree. After that has been accomplished, another thing that you could do that would be really helpful, also really cheap, would be to put a layer of mulch about four to six inches of mulch underneath the drip line of the tree. Getting chips from a chipper is probably the best stuff that you can get, and usually you can get it for free. That should be good for about a year.

The reason why you put the chips down is it keeps the water from evaporating with the sun and the wind. Also, as the chips decompose over time, they add beneficial fungi and bacteria back into the soil. If you have any concerns about your particular site, you might want to contact an arborist. And if you do use Diamond Certified, they're a good bunch to learn more from.

Local top-rated companies visit our Diamond Certified expert reports at experts.diamondcertified.org.

Video: Tax Credit for Small Business Owners

If you're a small business owner, you'll want to know whether or not you're qualified to earn a 2015 tax credit. Today we're in Menlo Park with Diamond Certified expert contributor Bob Finn, y'all a Bay Area health insurance marketing. To learn more, I'd like to share a tip with how you can save your company thousands of dollars. 

The Affordable Care Act allocated funds for small employers to encourage them to offer their employees health insurance benefits. They want to do a dollar-for-dollar match to up to fifty percent of the premiums that you've paid. Okay, this can be a valuable benefit for qualified employers. 

To qualify, you must have 25 or fewer employees or their equivalents. You must pay fifty percent of the employees' medical premium. The salaries of the employees must be less than fifty thousand dollars, but that doesn't include the owners or the owners' family, just the employees. Finally, you must purchase your plan through Covered California small group health options program, otherwise known as SHOP. 

Now let me give you an example of how this can work. Okay, you pay twenty thousand dollars a year towards your employees' medical premiums. If you qualify, you can get up to a fifty percent tax credit, that's $10,000, something that you don't have to use in the first year. It can roll over any unused tax credit for the next twenty years. 

Now the SHOP offers Kaiser, Health Net, Blue Shield, and a few other carriers. These might be the same plans you already have, the same benefits you already have, the same doctors, the same hospitals, the same premiums. The only difference is a tax credit. Consult your tax professional today to see if this will work for you. To learn more from local top-rated companies, visit our Diamond Certified expert reports at DiamondCertified.org.

Chris Chapman: Cultivating a Livelihood

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