Skip to content

Author: Landscape Management

As the snow flies …

I already have my pet peeve figured out for the winter. Does that make me sound like a Grinch? Anyway, we recently had our first significant snow events here in Cleveland and I noticed this. In fact, I’ve noticed it every year but this is the first time I’m saying anything. People, if you’re going […]

Look who’s teaching science these days

The controversy over the teaching of “intelligent design” is growing. A segment of the U.S. population feels it should be taught in our school science classes, along with the theory of evolution. This is not a good idea. In the home, fine. In the public schools, no way. Let’s leave the teaching of science people […]

Another proposed ban bites the dust

The city of London, in Ontario Province, Canada, voted down a ban on lawn care pesticides this week. Well, actually, it said “no” to a compromise bylaw that, from what reporter Joe Belander wrote in the London Free Press newspaper, nobody was real happy about. The anti-pesticide lobby saw the compromise as a cop-out. The […]

Sometimes you’re a winner…

Did you hear about the landscaper out in Oregon who won a giant lottery last week? We’re talking a national, multi-million dollar win here, and the man and his family appeared on “Good Morning America” last week to talk about it. They all had that glazed, “can’t believe it’s us!” look that all lottery winners […]

Thieves target landscapers

Thieves struck the landscape businesses of two friends this past week. They stole two trucks from one and one truck from the other. Both run operations just southwest of Cleveland. I found out about it at the Ohio Landscape Association annual dinner dance Saturday night. One of the owners told us the incident taught him […]

Moving day is upon us!

LM’s parent company, Questex Media Group, is moving out of our ancestral home at the Middleburg Heights headquarters of Advanstar Communications. On Monday, we’re moving to newly refurbished offices smack in the middle of downtown Cleveland. I walked in the door of Advanstar Communications in September 1993. Ever since, I’ve worked in one editorial capacity […]

Do Not Call list is bunk

If the telephone rings anytime between 6 p.m. – 10 p.m. at our home during the week or anytime between 9 a.m.-5 p.m. on Saturdays, we don’t answer it. We let the answering machine do its work. You won’t believe how many different organizations call us seeking donations — about half of them organizations that […]

Ottawa shoots down ban

Ottawa is the capital city of Canada. Wednesday, Nov. 9, lawmakers there defeated a bylaw aimed at banning the “cosmetic use” of pesticides on properties there. The vote was 12-9. This was the second time in less than a month that they voted on the measure. Several weeks ago they deadlocked on the issue in […]

The color of money is green; of labor brown

Brown is the color of the face of labor in southwest Florida. Behind the McDonald’s register, stocking supermarket shelves, yanking soggy pink insulation from the ceilings of hurricane-damaged condos, blowing brittle dessicated leaves from parking lots, mowing properties, trimming shrubs — brown. Almost two weeks ago the eye of Hurricane Wilma passed about 20 miles […]

Scattered to the winds

Looking back at the Green Industry Expo (GIE) that finished up Saturday evening it’s difficult for me to describe its success. Even after 21 years in the business it’s tough for me to give these types of events a final grade; everybody shows up with different expectations and leaves with different experiences. Judging by the […]

Laughing through GIE

There was something funny going on in Orlando at the Green Industry Expo. It started with the opening speaker, corporate comedian Greg Schwem, who poked fun at the industry, in a nice way of course, and reminded everyone to take a step back and laugh at yourselves and your jobs every once in a while. […]

GIE … DO try this at home

As Ron mentioned yesterday, the Landscape Management team is busy here in Orlando at Green Industry Expo. We’re testing equipment, meeting readers and looking out for new products and business ideas. First on my list yesterday was a popular event called the Breakfast of Champions. No Wheaties, but lots of ideas. The way this event […]

GIE . . . It feels well, kinda different

Nothing stays the same and industries, like people, change. The same goes for trade shows. The Green Industry Expo is underway in Orlando this week. The first GIE took place 15 years ago when three Green Industry associations partnered to hold a single “national” trade show each fall. Each of the three association partners — […]

A dangerous seasonal hazard

If you’re expecting to read about some issue related to landscape or grounds care in this blog, you can stop. If you want to read something that might save you from serious injury or even death read on. About 9 p.m. last night, driving north on Ohio-4 after helping my daughter, Amy, and her husband, […]

Canada lawn care — a world of hurt

Lawmakers in Ottawa, the capital city of Canada, were supposed to vote on a bylaw to ban the use of lawn care chemicals. There are more than 1 million people in metro Ottawa. I couldn’t find the results of the vote online tonight but the lawn care folks that do business in and around the […]

So what’s not to envy?

We got a news release the other day about a guy by the name of Steve Sandalis. Not only has his face and/or chiseled body appeared on more than 700 romance novels (and everyone thought Fabio was a big deal), but he also happens to be the lead designer and CEO of Mystic Water Gardens, […]

Tango dancing, why not?

Can an aging editor, one with a scarcity of hair but still somewhat lively of step, learn the tango? That’s the question. When David Zerfoss of Husqvarna told a group of editors at an OPEI EXPO event that they could get what they wanted if they wrote it down and posted it in a location […]

I’ve become a cell phone pariah

The job requires that I stay close to my computer and the Web, which means I spend a fair amount of time in libraries and coffee shops that have wireless connections. And, like just everybody else, I have a cell phone that’s also a part of my work-a-day life. What I find amusing is cell […]

EXPO — wow!

Those of you who have been to big trade shows like EXPO and GIE know what it’s all about: The maze of booths inside, mowers and power equipment cranking up dirt and dust outside. This year was my first EXPO and yes, it was cool. It’s a well-organized show. Informational sessions for us press people […]

Do this to delight special residential clients

Thanks Mr. Fred Haskett, who along with his lovely wife Kelly, operate a U.S. Lawns franchise in St. Louis. He was the speaker we (Landscape Management magazine) sponsored at this year’s OPEI Expo in Louisville, He told about 90 landscape owners why it’s important to build an annual budget and what it can do for […]

One giganto fall trade show?

The buzz at this year’s OPEI EXPO in Louisville centers around the possibility of combining it with the Green Industry Expo (GIE), the trade show put on by the Professional Landcare Network (PLANET) and the Professional Grounds Management Society (PGMS). In other words, there would be one fall trade show for the landscape/grounds industry instead […]

The real killers

There’s a new “smoke shop” on the main street of of our town. I walk or drive by it every day. It’s a busy place. People are popping in and out of it at all hours of the day and night. As a former smoker I know the addictive power of cigarettes; I know it […]

The news? Hey, I’m still numb from before

The headlines today trumpet the catastrophic and potentially catastrophic, the effect of it is to: a) remind of us of that terrible things happen and often happen in a hurry (“Earthquake rocks Pakistan, 30,000 feared dead”) and/or b) terrify us into a semi-perpetual catatonic state (“Experts fear bird flu pandemic”)? Most of us are still […]

So many illegals, so few options

How many people are living and working in the United States without authorization, so-called illegals? I’ve heard somewhere in the neighborhood of 10-12 million. How’d this ever happen? Simple, explains, Bob Dolibois of the American Nursery & Landscape Association. In effect, they’ve become trapped here, he says. For decades there has been a huge flow […]

To top