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Author: Landscape Management

Revenge of the mole

Moles can be a serious and frustrating problem, but some things are just better left to the professionals. In a scenario reminiscent of Bill Murray in Caddyshack, man in Germany annoyed with his lack of success in getting rid of the invaders, escalated his attack. It cost him his life. For more on the story, […]

Stuck between a rock and a hard place

Sometimes, and I only mean sometimes – when I’m feeling particularly generous – I feel sorry for the EPA. At least, as sorry as you can feel for a massive government bureaucracy. The EPA is constantly being attacked on all sides — by environmentalists who don’t think the agency is doing enough, and by chemical […]

EPA in the news

Sometimes, and I only mean sometimes – when I’m feeling particularly generous – I feel sorry for the EPA. At least, as sorry as you can feel for a massive government bureaucracy. The EPA is constantly being attacked on all sides — by environmentalists who don’t think the agency is doing enough, and by chemical […]

School of hard knocks a great teacher

Check out this “school” if you’re short of help and looking for an employee with some Green Industry knowledge – the school of hard knocks.The Associated Press, reporting in the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper, reported on a program at the Southeastern Correctional Institute in Lancaster, OH, that trains inmates for careers in the Green Industry. […]

Festivus Celebration

Kevin Campanella, a landscaper from Rhode Island, was featured in an article celebrating the holiday of Festivus, an anti-Christmas holiday created on Seinfeld. If you want to read about Kevin’s Festivus celebration, click here. I loved this episode, and may have to buy one of these Festivus poles. And just in case you really want […]

Free isn’t always good

Countrywide Lawn Doctor, a UK-based landscaper is offering free franchises. It’s a brilliant marketing scheme, but will it hurt the industry? The company is getting interest from numerous people, many of whom have never been in the industry. Sure it’s only in the UK right now, but you be be sure if the concept takes […]

Another great snow job

Give Snow King John Allin credit. The former Erie, PA-landscape company owner and one of the forces in the formative years of the Snow & Ice Management Association doesn’t let any slush form under his feet. After founding, running (and piling up a lot of debt in the process) and unloading the national Snow Management […]

Light up your customers like Lampoon’s Griswolds

Jim and Lea Sharp, Sharp Lawns, Mooresville, IN, say the holiday decorating season keeps getting longer and longer, with some customers wanting their home decorations in place soon after Halloween.Challenges to home decorating include high winds and homeowners that want their homes to look like the Griswolds in the movie, “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.”You can […]

Don’t take shortcuts

Nothing could be more tragic than the loss of the child. Being responsible for that death and having to live with that knowledge for the rest of your life has got to a nearly unbearable experience. The driver of a landscaping truck ran down a 10-year-old girl was an off-duty police officer working for his […]

Some good news

It’s sometimes amazing the stories you’ll see come across when you “Google” the word “landscaper.” A lot of the time, the news involves the police blotter. (Like the landscaper who nearly drowned in a client’s pool with his backpack blower on.) But for once, the news was good. Congratulations to Feliciano Aragon, a Melbourne, FL, landscaper […]

GreenCare for Troops a huge success

Reporter Tarron Lively wrote an excellent piece about Project Evergreen’s GreenCare for Troops program. The article appeared on Thanksgiving day in the Washington Times newspaper. The GreenCare for Troops program solicits landscape and lawn care companies to provide basic lawn care services to families that have loved ones in the military serving in the Middle […]

Mowers on highways — a very bad idea

The Tampa Tribune newspaper on Friday, Nov. 17, reported that a man operating a tractor mowing unit on I-75 about 9 p.m. was the cause of a horrific accident. The paper resports he was driving the unit in the left lane of the 4-lane highway at about 25 mph (the minimum speed limit is 50 […]

Equity hawks circling ServiceMaster?

Interesting piece in “Heard on the Street” column in the Wall Street Journal. There’s speculation that investor groups are looking at the parent company of the TruGreen Companies and Terminix as a plum just ready for picking. If you haven’t heard, ServiceMaster said a couple of weeks ago that it’s moving its corporate headquarters from […]

The more you stir the xxx, the worse it stinks

I can’t recall my dad, Cliff, ever saying a bad word about anybody — ever. He wasn’t the most ambitious guy, that’s for sure. He was content to go to work everyday and work on his little farm when he could. He passed in 1997 but he’s still alive in my mind, and one of […]

Organics win by a hair — recount certain

A vote can’t get much closer than the one in Brunswick, ME, mandating the use of organic practices on all city-owned properties. The initial tally after Tuesday’s election had the measure failing by two votes, The count was later amended with the ordinance passing by five votes – 3,906 to 3,901.Opponents of the measure say […]

Sod for the lawnless

A big attaboy to Kurt Steinke, a professor of turfgrass ecology at Texas A&M University. When it came time to dispose of a large section of Bermudagrass sod he got an “ah-haa” moment — why not donate it to Habitat for Humanity to use at some of the homes that volunteers were helping to build […]

Vicious kangeroo or cuddly wallaby, who’s right?

OK, what’s the real story here? A landscaper in Davie, FL, says while he was working in a client’s back yard a big, nasty kangeroo grabbed him in a bear hug, clawed him and gave him a bite for good measure. The “pet owner” says, hogwash! That wasn’t a kangeroo at all; it was a […]

A fire storm in the gay community

Death threats. Hundreds of emails. A flood of nasty calls. An email to a man seeking a quote for a landscape project has caused an enormous backlash against a Texas landscape company. Todd and Sabrina Farber, owners of the Houston landscape company, The Garden Guy, Inc., touched off the avalanche of vituperation when Sabrina emailed […]

H2B for athletes too?

The poor, poor Mudbugs. They lost their first hockey game of the year because their 11 H2B players hadn’t gotten their visas yet. Did I read that right? Mudbugs? Hockey player?. H2B visas? You bet, it says so right on the sports page of Oct. 21 issue of The Oklahoman newspaper. It says that the […]

A better way to say "no"

KPRC Channel 2 on its website reported Friday that the Garden Guy, Inc., a Houston-area landscape company emailed a Mr. Lord and told him they couldn’t do work for him because he is gay. The owners of the company have some really strong feelings on the subject. In light of the resulting controversy you can […]

Alas, poor Yorick!

Maybe it’s because Halloween is coming. In the past week, a couple of different landscapers have found themselves in the news for grisly discoveries. In Bethlaham, Pa., a landscaper dug up a skull while working in a garden area. According to the local Morning Call newspaper, “Police said an employee of Tall Timbers Nursery in […]

Right number, wrong street

I’ll bet this happens more often than anybody cares to admit — a lawn technician servicing the wrong property. It can be an expensive mistake, but in the following case the homeowner got a kick out of it. Dolly Curtis, who lives in Easton, CT, got $538 worth of free lawn service this past week […]

The Noodle Incident

Sometimes, things are funnier or more interesting when left to the imagination. Bill Watterson used this idea frequently in my all time favorite comic strip Calvin and Hobbes. Every once in a while, one of the characters, most likely Hobbes, would refer to “The Noodle Incident,” involving Calvin. Watterson never explained what the incident was, […]

Outsourcing is for big fat sissies

Rave ***** (f5-stars) Unless you live and love the Great Lakes region of the the United States like I do you can’t appreciate what I learned this past week. I learned that the Ariens Company, rather than outsourcing to China for a lot of the hard goods it uses to build its lawn and garden […]

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