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Author: Landscape Management

Shining a light on customer service

Just had a really nice meeting with Maria Burke from Kichler Lighting. We were ushered into the company’s conference room to give our presentation and to talk about our ongoing relationship, but before we got started, there something that caught my eye. Like many companies, their conference contains the ubiquitous large table and matching chairs. […]

Intelligent Use of Water Awards

Sitting less than a mile from one of the Great Lakes (Erie) it’s sometimes hard to remember there are places in the world — places in this country — where water is much more scarce. Professional landscapers are stewards of the environment. There’s no question our industry plays a huge role in the protecting this […]

Going that extra mile?

Diane, a former boss of mine, posted the following question on her Facebook page (comments follow and the names have been truncated to protect the innocent): Do you think it would be too brazen of me to call the piano tuner and ask him to stop at Winn Dixie and bring me a small carton […]

Whee for the Wii

Joe Auteri, owner of Joseph Auteri Hardscape Consultingtook home a new iPad 2 courtesy of LM by posting thelow score in a 3-way, five-hole shoot out.    As much as I’d like to think it was folks stopping by to pick up a copy of the October issue, I suspect the increased traffic at Landscape […]

A few thoughts from the show

The calm before the storm. A shot down an empty aisle shortly before the show opens.    GIE+EXPO is wrapped up for another year. The final numbers on attendance have yet to be released, but my suspicion is they’ll be up some from last year. I generally spend a lot of time walking the floor,  […]

Another opening, another show

GIE+EXPO begins next week. There’s always a mix of excitement and dread before the big Green Industry show. Excitement because it’s an opportunity to see some old friends and touch base with new ones (and perhaps raise a glass or two in their honor). It’s an opportunity to see the latest products that make our […]

How would you handle this?

Got an interesting question from a reader earlier today, and we thought you might be able to provide some feedback. First a little background. The company has been using Sprint/Nextel for about 10 years. Most of the units are direct connect and a small number of them have phone service. The company also uses the […]

An icon passes

Burton Sperber, FASLA, founder and chairman of the board of directors of The ValleyCrest Landscape Cos., passed away a few days ago, just a few days before another business icon, Apple’s Steve Jobs. While more people around the world will remember Jobs for his technology innovations, you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who had […]

Bugging out

Most of Landscape Management’s forays into pest management are related to grubs, armyworms and billbugs. It’s not often we get to venture into the world of larger insects. Of course when one shows up right outside our window (an 11th floor mind you), we tend to take notice. We had a little trouble identifying this […]

Rock on

One Portland, OR landscaper got a surprise recently when he spotted a semi truck that had dragged an enormous boulder down the highway. According to a report in the Oregon Salem-News, the landscaper noticed that a boulder was missing from a turnaround near a local IKEA store. The man then followed scrape marks the boulder […]

Every tree tells a story

There’s something special about those hulking old trees with their gnarled limbs snaking outward and upward. They just begged to be climbed. And few of us (at least when we were younger) could resist the appeal of wending our way through branches, a thick canopy of leaves protecting us from the harsh summer sun. Mothers […]

Vote for your favorite movie

A film wins, the environment wins and you win. The Intelligent Use of Water™ Film Competition invites filmmakers from around the world to promote the urgent need for water conservation. Now that we’ve narrowed our almost 150 entries down to the final six, we need help from Green Industry professionals like you. Vote now for […]

Intelligent Use of Water film competition

It would be hard to overstate the importance of water to our industry. And in many parts of the country that valuable resource is a scarce commodity. In an effort to promote the value of conserving water, Rain Bird is once again hosting its “Intelligent Use of Water” film competition. There are six films vying […]

When water’s a problem

Here in Northeast Ohio, on the shores of Lake Erie, drought isn’t a problem and even when there are brief dry periods there are no calls for watering bans. But an abundance of water is no excuse for wasting it. On a quick walk around downtown during lunch, I ran across this scene: There’s really […]

Youth in landscaping

You’ve got to like headlines that have the words “landscaping” and “win-win” together. An article in the Seaway (Cornwall, Ontario Canada) News newsletter highlighted a program designed to put youth (here defined as between the ages of 15 and 30) into the landscaping trade. It’s a program called “Youth in Landscaping,” which is part of […]

Landscaping the nation’s most extraordinary landmark

Even as hundreds of landscapers from around the country descended upon Arlington National Cemetery, the place seemed quiet and still. Even as they dug, hammered, limed, aerated and cabled, the cemetery resounded with an uncanny peaceful hush, as if the cemetery itself is as resilient as those it holds once were. Perhaps it was the […]

Hack job

Chopping down a tree, even the spindliest of them all, is no easy task for yours truly. Persistence paid off, though! I enjoyed trying my hand at arboriculture ever so briefly (with a little guidance), but I’m sticking with my day job.

Notes from NASCAR

The zoom. The deafening drone of the cars’ engines. One bright blur after the other. The overwhelming aroma of burning rubber. NASCAR inundates your senses from every direction. The best way to describe it is to show it through pictures and video. Thanks very much to Warren and Polly and the rest of the folks […]

Surviving the Death Race

Running a business is hard, but it’s generally not a life and death experience. Bruce Allentuck of Allentuck Landscaping recently participated in the Death Race, something that can only be described as one of the most physically and mentally challenging, events ever devised. And Bruce participated not only voluntarily, but eagerly. Bruce details the experience […]

It’s things like this that make us all look bad

The city might get the blame, but it’s the landscaping industry that looks bad. A news story on KRGV.com which serves Rio Grande Valley, Texas explained how McAllen City contracted landscapers are dumping grass clippings, which get washed down city drains, clogging them, which results in flooding. The city had been blaming residents for the […]

A pig in a park

Turns out sheep aren’t the only eco-friendly animals to work in the landscaping market. It seems a trio of pigs have joined a Loughborough, England landscaping team to help clean up a local park. Yeah, that’s right: pigs. Turns out a trio of porcine laborers borrowed from Brooksby Melton College to clear an acre or […]

New EU pesticide regs will mean loss of popular A.I’s there

In Jan. 2009 the European Parliament approved new European Union pesticide regulations. They went into force recently. The UK publication HorticultureWeek reports that the regulations could result in the loss of 19 active ingredients in crop protection products used by the horticulture industry there. “The new EU legislation is going to have an impact. The […]

One cheeky landscaper

It really makes us wonder who was doing the voting. A 28-year-old British landscaper won the title of Britain’s “Best Builder’s Bum.” You can read the story and see the now famous backside here. Apparently, Billy Clark, of the magnificent tush, from Writtle in Essex (love British city names) beat out a “shapely” female contestant, […]

Social media is cool, but direct mail still works for Spring-Green

Spring-Green Lawn Care, the 34-year-old multi-regional lawn care service provider based in Plainfield, IL, still uses and gets acceptable sales results with direct mail. Even in this age of Twitter, Facebook and Groupon. Not that Spring-Green President James Young is old-fashioned or anything, but he tells nbcchicago.com/blog that social media doesn’t work for everything. He […]

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