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Author: Landscape Management

Having fun at Snow and Ice Symposium

Checking out the equipment at the 14th Annual Snow and Ice Symposium. More than 1,300 people are expected. Lots to see this year, including the SnowDozer B.A.T. and other new plows. Pretty cool so far!

Don’t miss your turfgrass field day!

Attend a turfgrass field day this summer. Many public land-grant universities with turf programs put one on each summer or early fall. These are great educational and networking events. A recent visit to the East Tennessee Research & Education Center just outside of Knoxville, TN, reminded us what you can miss by letting yourself get […]

Brown grass is "cool" in drought-stressed UK

Turfgrass Growers Association in the United Kingdom this week provided water companies with new information to help educate homeowners that there’s no need to water established turf. Four new factsheets, available from its website at www.turfgrass.co.uk, focus on looking after newly laid and established lawns in warm, dry weather. They advise homeowners to avoid watering […]

The hearings and the ban — a tale of two 20-year anniversaries

Summer 2011 marks the 20th anniversary of the second of two U.S. Senate sub-committee hearings on pesticide use by the lawn care industry. The first hearing on Capitol Hill took place the previous summer. Senators John Warner (R-VA), Harry Reid (D-NV) and Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) conducted the hearings. Representatives from the lawn care industry and […]

The hearings and the ban — a tale of two 20-year anniversaries

Summer 2011 marks the 20th anniversary of the second of two U.S. Senate sub-committee hearings on pesticide use by the lawn care industry. The first hearing on Capitol Hill took place the previous summer. Senators John Warner (R-VA), Harry Reid (D-NV) and Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) conducted the hearings. Representatives from the lawn care industry and […]

2011 Intelligent Use of Water Film Competition Accepting Entries

Feel strongly about water conservation issues? Now’s your chance to put your passion –and creativity — to good use. Create a short film about responsible water conservation for a shot at $6,000 and a trip to the awards ceremony in Beverly Hills, CA (Sept. 20). Films should range from 1 to 10 minutes in length. […]

Counting on compost tea to get the job done at CU-Boulder

Boulder, CO, with the Rocky Mountains as a backdrop, is a beautiful city and home to the University of Colorado. Those leaning to the right on the political scale sometimes refer to Boulder as “The Republic of Boulder” for its progressive attitude on environmental and social issues. (Image courtesy UC-Boulder) Therefore, we weren’t surprised to […]

10 sure-fire landscape sales boosters

Tom Oyler loves to sell. He founded and sold U.S. Lawns, and has sold millions of dollars of products, services and companies over the past three decades. He owns and still actively runs several Florida-based companies in addition to partnering with Bruce Wilson in their successful consulting business, Wilson-Oyler Group. Oyler’s an entertaining speaker, too. […]

Now that’s loyalty

We all know it’s a lot cheaper to keep customers than it is to go out and find new ones. Customer loyalty is a tenuous thing these days, with so many looking for the best deal. It was quite refreshing to read a story about a customer loyalty that we imagine will be pretty hard […]

Ok, what’s so "environmental" about this grass seed?

“Green” or “sustainability” or whatever term you want to give to this new era of resource preservation and ecological regeneration is resulting in some far-fetched environmental claims. A recent one coming to my attention involves a grass seed marketer — not a name most of you would recognize — that’s aggressively marketing the environmental benefits […]

Canadians sneaking weed killers back across their border?

Word comes that some Canadians are buying pesticides online or crossing into the United States to get weed killers and insecticides. The authorities have been informed. This is a no-no. Several provinces in Canada, including Ontario, have banned the sale and use of almost all traditional lawn care pest control products. Could it be that […]

Is someone stealing your fuel? Read this

Rarely do we feature products on this blog. The LM staff’s postings are not for sale. Our criteria for posting is simple — helping readers offer better service, save time and money, be more environmentally responsible. Michigan contractor Mark Bruinius came up with a product, TankShield, that helps contractors save money by stopping fuel theft […]

Keep your guard up; thieves see landscape equipment as easy pickens’

John Levonsky, JK Landscaping, speaking to WINK News in southwest Florida, referred to the thieves that hit his company as “being like ghosts.” They cut a hole in the chain link fence at his company’s holding yard in Bonita Springs, FL, and selectively picked out and made off with thousands of dollars worth of his […]

Download the new "The Benefits of Turf" pub

The Ohio State University turf team has put together a very nice digital publication, “The Benefits of Turf.” This is something you may want to share with customers, prospects or local regulatory officials. Click on “The Benefits of Turf,” and I think you will agree that this is nicely done.

The Green Industry bigger than most people realize

$175.3 billion. That’s serious cash money. That was the estimated total economic contribution (revenue) for the U.S. Green Industry in 2007. Landscaping services contributed $86.6 billion. That was the largest of the 17 industry categories in the report. The Southern Cooperative Series shared these number, along with other eye-opening statistics, in its digital publication, “Economic […]

Clever, very clever — The Lawn Institute calls upon its "Turfgrass Team" to tell its story

A tip of the hat and hearty “well done” to the staff at The Lawn Institute for a very creative series of video vignettes to highlight the many benefits of natural turfgrass to the public. Thanks to Jim Novak of Turfgrass Producers International for sharing the following information and images with us so we can […]

The branding lesson of a breakfast sandwich

Given the choice, would you willingly spend 100% or more for one product over another essentially identical product, all other things being equal —quality, service and ease of purchase? A no-brainer, you might think. Think again. What I’m about to share with you — as obvious as it might seem once I reveal it — […]

PLANET Day of Service — get crackin’, it’s almost here

Thinking about participating in PLANET Day of Service April 22 but haven’t made up your mind yet? My late father, bless his heart, had a saying when he saw me dithering over whether I should do something or not. “Poop or get off the pot,” he would say. Fathers tend to say those kinds of […]

Spring Green guy writes SMART check

CHILLICOTHE, IL — Remember that jaw-tightening screech that chalk made when your 8th-grade English teacher diagrammed a sentence on the blackboard. Stop! Pleeeseeee Stop! Well, that screech may become history thanks to technology like the SMART Board. What’s a SMART Board you might be wondering (as we did)? Replace that vision of the blackboard at […]

Social media — get with it!

The days of the uneducated customer are over. Kaput. Done. Finished. Extinct. History. Evaporated. That’s what Tim Miles, partner in Wizard of Ads, told an audience at the Water Quality Association in San Antonio recently. He said that social media is revolutionizing how people research and share information. Given the choice to participate or not […]

Here are the most valuable two minutes you’ll spend on your business today

Can you spare two minutes to find out what really motivates your front-line employees? Money? Nope, says Mel Kleiman, the one-time owner of three different businesses, including the largest group of Hertz Rent-A-Car franchise locations in the United States. Below is the URL for the 2-minute video from Mel sharing the 5 things your best […]

Oyler’s presentation on sales got the troops stirred up

Tom Oyler, hobbled with an injured leg, nevertheless was at his animated best in sharing some of his sales and marketing thunder at the Next Level Network (NLN) University in Dallas recently. From time to time, in fact, he grabbed the wooden cane he kept at his side, and waved it around when making what […]

This book could be your game changer

DALLAS — More than 20 years ago Carl Sewell, the owner of a local motor vehicle dealership here, wrote a book. The name of the book is “Customers for Life.” Because its message is timeless the book was recently re-released by Doubleday. After the book’s initial publication, Sewell was in big demand as a speaker […]

Good karma is what it’s all about in the end

The Fisher House in Miami DALLAS – Times are tough and budgets are tight in the landscape industry as they are in just about every sector be it private or public. There is more need in our communities and among our charitable organizations than there’s been, probably since the Great Depression. So, how do we […]

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