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Author: Landscape Management

Not your father’s science project

Forget those styrofoam balls on straightened coat hangers rotating around a yellow beach ball. The solar system doesn’t cut it as a science project any more? And those baking soda eruptions from paper mache volcanos? They’re oh-so-yesterday. Note to school age science geeks — Check out the school project that two 17-year-old students at a […]

Scotts says healthy workers, healthier bottom line

If you’ve followed this blog you know that Scotts fired one of its lawn care techs this past year because he tested positive for smoking cigarettes. Scotts has a no-smoking policy. And that’s no smoking anywhere, not even at your home. But when it comes to employee health at Scotts, that isn’t the half of […]

Squirrels put on birth control

This has nothing to do with landscaping really, unless you’ve been having problems with squirrels destroying your clients’ property. But an article from the Los Angeles Times recently reported that city officials from Santa Monica are proposing birth control shots to control the squirrel population at city parks. According to the article, “Plans call for […]

780 extra H-2B visas available this year?

I just came across this article from a few weeks ago. It talks about Major League Baseball reaching out to different parts of the world to build its fanbase and to recruit players. It also laments the lack of more African American players and managers. Anyway, what I found interesting is that, until this year, […]

Fishing for Moby Dick? Bring tarter sauce

A year ago today, March 12, 2006, a tornado did its killer dance through the Midwest. In its path was Sprinfield, IL, including the headquarters of Jack Robertson Lawn Care, which was destroyed. Incredibly, within days, the company, working from offices in an industrial park provided by a friend. was back in business. By August […]

Bloomberg reports two buyout groups eyeing ServiceMaster

ServiceMaster Co. (NYSE:SVM), the owner of TruGreen ChemLawn and Terminix pest control services which put itself up for sale last year, may get buyout bids as high as $4 billion from two private equity groups lead by Clayton, Dubilier & Rice and Bain Capital LLC, according to a report by Bloomberg News. According to Bloomberg […]

Hispanic workers make job gains in spite of slump

Hispanic workers landed two out of every three new construction jobs in 2006, according to a March 7 report by the Pew Hispanic Center. They benefited from strong employment growth in the industry even as the housing market endured a year-long slump. Indeed, the construction industry continues to be a key source of jobs for […]

For heaven’s sake — sell me the hot dog

For you visual learners, let me draw this picture: Setting — Cold, rainy, nasty winter’s day in downtown Cleveland, OhioTime — Noon, lunchtimeLocation — Office cafeteria short walk across the street from hungry editor’s officeEditor’s expectation — Plump hot dog on bun and a handful of crispy chips in plastic take-out containerEditor’s action to acquire […]

Health care costs — Scotts means business

I went in for a routine annual physical exam in December and it ended up costing me hundreds of dollars out of pocket, not to mention costing my insurance carrier more than $6,000. Did I use the word “routine”?I guess to my doctor routine means a stress test, two run-throughs of a shiny new imaging […]

Get ready to hear about H-2B

Spring is almost here, which means landscape professionals are looking to fill out their staffs with hard-working, enterprising and motivated employees. And then they won’t be able to find any. So get ready for a crop of new stories about H-2B, the guest worker program that so many in the Green Industry rely on for […]

Landscaper saves home from fire

In his previous post, Ron was complaining about the landscaping news coming in all being negative. Well, here’s one landscaper who made the news in a way that he should be proud of: Shelton, CT – A Connecticut firefighter acted well in time and managed to put out most of the flames before a firefighting […]

It’s good to be the King

For the past year or so, I’ve been joking to our friends at Cub Cadet that I’m waiting to see pictures of LeBron James riding in one of their lawnmowers. The reason is that Cub Cadet is the main sponsor of the Cleveland Cavaliers, who, in case you don’t know, play professional basketball basically next […]

Landscaper saves home from fire

In his previous post, Ron was complaining about the landscaping news coming in all being negative. Well, here’s one landscaper who made the news in a way that he should be proud of: Shelton, CT – A Connecticut firefighter acted well in time and managed to put out most of the flames before a firefighting […]

Not all news is bad news. . .however

I spent a few days fishing with my son, Jason, cruising the mangroves in a flat-bottom boat in southwest Florida this past week. The fishing was so-so (barely enough keeper sheepsheads to make a good meal) but the company and the scenery were incredible.Glad to report that the world kept on spinning in my absence. […]

Coming to a company near you — workers bearing microchips?

Coming soon to a company near you — an immigrant worker implanted with 16-digit RFID chip. Maybe not tomorrow. Maybe not this year. But. . .I’ll put a few bob on it, not that I’m happy with idea of having a tiny chip, with all kinds of my personal information, injected under my armpit. It’s […]

Taking jobs away from the Gringos

“When I was mowing lawns, I saw myself in a truck checking on the men. When I was in the truck, I saw myself in the office. Now that I’m in the office, I see the company running itself.”So said Nikita Floyd to a reporter for the Washington Post, in a perceptive article focusing on […]

ANLA’s Management Clinic great mid-winter event

Louisville, KY, in mid winter is not one of America’s party cities. But it is a darn good location to hold a big educational/networking event. Most of us couldn’t find much mischief to distract us from the business at hand — attending the sessions and networking. What I’m referring to is the Management Clinic sponsored […]

A provocateur draws some heat

I looked up the word “provocateur” to write this blog. A provocateur is a person assigned to provoke unrest, volence, debate or argument. The reason? Rick Anderson, a great big guy from who runs a service called the Whispering Crane Institute gave a “provocateur’s perspective” of the landscape world at the ANLA Clinic in Louisville. […]

We don’t recommend you try this

Granted the Internal Revenue Service tax code is long, complicated and best left to those green-shaded, pasty accountant types. But that’s not to say we don’t apreciate the, shall we say, “creative” deductions some business owners attempt. Jay MacDonald of Bankrate.com reported this among his list of the nine oddest write-offs: “A landscaper who was […]

ServiceMaster’s pricey new digs

Fox News in Memphis is reporting that ServiceMaster, parent company of TruGreen ChemLawn, Terminix and Merry Maids is building a new $122 million headquarters two miles from the FedEx World Headquarters in Memphis. The company announced this past fall that it was moving its headquarters from Downers Grove, IL, (Chicago), to Memphis, which has been […]

Big government strikes again

In it’s never ending struggle to make the world a safer place it seems the Environmental Protection Agency delivered a dumbfounding ruling, one which might have saved billions of dollars of damage to citrus plants following the recent freeze in California. It seems, at least according to the former head of the Food and Drug […]

An easy target?

Sometimes, when we’ve come across a news story about a landscaper being robbed or worse, most of the time it’s a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Now, it looks like landscape companies may have to be wary of even the people who hire them. According to this article from […]

Lock it and secure it or lose it

Contractors are so busy thinking about the next sale or the next day’s operations they too often neglect to protect what they’ve got. If you haven’t been hit by a professional thief, consider yourself very lucky — to this point, at least. Equipment and tools taken from shop areas and construction sites is a multi-billion […]

An "add-on" service opportunity to avoid

“The best thing that could be for this man is that he gets locked up because if I ever run into him he’s going to wish he was locked up.” So said a burglary victim at the sentencing of the thief who broke into his home. A landscaper on Oahu (Hawaii), who cased out homes […]

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