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Author: Sarah Pfledderer

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Sarah Pfledderer

Former Associate Editor Sarah Pfledderer is a West Coast-based contributing editor for Landscape Management.

Throwback Thursday: February 1994

Spring has sprung. At least that’s what our calendars tell us. Even as it’s yet to be in the air, the masses are preparing for the warm weather to come. For me, this means looking up the best deals for a pedicure to show off my new sandals. For landscape professionals, this might mean giving […]

2014 PLANET SCD creates friendly competition in Fort Collins

Their wardrobes wavered from business casual to school spirit fanatical, which perhaps was a reflection of the students’ differing outlooks on the event—one being that they were there to nab employment, and the other that they were attending with hopes to crush the competition. Garb aside, the more than 800 students who attended the 38th […]

CAO Design Challenge crafts outdoor spaces for children

Some clients told them to design a landscape that incorporated trees made of cotton candy. Others customers insisted on having an area where they could dig up treasure. To deliver on these requests would be a challenge for any landscape designer. But for the teams of college students that received them as part of the […]

Throwback Thursday: April 2006

“In the pre-dawn glow of the security lights on Monterrey’s Ocampo Street, the hopefuls arrive, lugging duffel bags and pulling small suitcases behind them. Many spent the previous night in a nearby hotel. For $12 each they get a clean place to sleep four to a room and a couple of simple but filling meals. […]

March 2014 Web Extra: Photographing for the web

Glance at Darwin Webb’s Porch profile and the number 371 might pop out to you. That’s how many project photos he has uploaded to the site. “Having pictures of projects is more valuable than descriptions,” says the president of Darwin Webb Landscape Architects in Isaaquah, Wash. He was featured in “Word-of-web referrals” story in the March […]

Throwback Thursday: November 2005

My brain has been wrapped around exit strategies this week, specifically the aspect of leaving a legacy and choosing your successors, thanks to some reporting I’ve been doing for the April issue of Landscape Management. I side with the notion that the most reliable successor is family. Then again I’m a little biased. My stepdad […]

Word-of-web referrals

How landscape professionals are using Porch, a new online home improvement platform. Like many small business owners, most of Mike Champagne’s leads come from word-of-mouth referrals—75 percent, he says. It’s not that the owner of American Blade Runners Lawncare in Charlotte, N.C., hasn’t tried other means of marketing. There was the time he distributed 5,000 […]

Service relief

Jerry McKay sheds light on how hiring a lighting service tech freed his team from the burden of service calls. When eight landscape lighting professionals gathered for The Lighting Summit 2014, hosted by McKay Landscape Lighting Jan. 22-23 in Omaha, Neb., their conversations went beyond manufacturer preferences and installation methods.   In fact, the conference […]

1-Minute Mentor: Gary LaScalea

President of GroGreen, Plano, Texas Who’s your mentor? I’ve been in the industry for 40-some years, so I’ve had several. Bob Maddux, he’s one of the guys that inspired me back in my early days when I worked at a garden center (Delhi Flower & Garden Centers) in Cincinnati, Ohio. He was the guy that […]

Throwback Thursday: April 1990

When you see a pile of cash, you don’t shrug your shoulders and walk on. You grab as much as you can and run. This somewhat was my frame of mind when I came across the cover image of the April 1990 issue of Landscape Management, although the payoff for grabbing it was gaining insights […]

John Deere debuts 4 Family compact utility tractors

John Deere introduced its 4 Family of compact utility tractors (CUT) Feb. 25 at its 2014 Ride & Drive in Orlando, Fla., the company’s annual dealer training event. Comprised of six models—the 4044M, 4052M, 4066M, 4044R, 4052R and 4066R—the new CUTs are slated to hit dealerships in April. The models were designed based on six […]

Throwback Thursday: March 1998

To some landscape professionals the job of a company mechanic seems to be “the most obvious thing in the world.” They fix stuff, right? Not quite, according to the article “Miracle workers,” which ran in the March 1998 issue of Landscape Management. Authored by then-managing editor Ron Hall, the story brings to point that mechanics […]

Throwback Thursday: November 1990

Like glimpsing into a crystal ball, the cover story from the November 1990 issue of Landscape Management foreshadows what the Green Industry had to be concerned with in the decade ahead. Whether the crystal ball was broken or not, I leave you to decide. Titled “The service decade” by Rudd McGary, the then-senior consultant at […]

February 2014 Web Extra: McKay on ‘Predictable Success’

By Jerry McKay, Owner McKay Landscape Lighting, a $1 million to $2 million, landscape lighting company Omaha, Neb. The book that has affected my company for the better is Predictable Success: Getting Your Organization On the Growth Track—and Keeping It There by Les McKeown, president of and CEO of business consulting firm Predictable Success. I […]

Recruiting from retail

Cougar Irrigation staffs up with former Nordstrom employees to deliver excellent customer service.   Matthew Stamm is no farmer, but he sure knows how to cherry pick—employees, that is. The president of Cougar Irrigation, Austin, Texas, has hired the bulk of his irrigation technicians from Nordstrom on the philosophy the customer service skills they derived […]

Grinding logic

Mowing professionals share why they sharpen mower blades in-house or outsource the task. Rood Landscape has sharpened its mower blades in-house for so long the brand marker on its grinder is no longer visible. Accordingly, Maintenance Department Manager Jaron Sickler can’t conjure from memory what manufacturer’s name once bedecked the machine. None of that is […]

Throwback Thursday: August 2002

At the conclusion of my weekly visits to the Landscape Management archives, after I’ve placed the past issues back in chronological order and turn my heel away from the wooden bookshelves, the same thought lingers in my mind: We’re pretty good recyclers here at LM. Not because I pass an impressive amount of plastic bottles […]

5 ways to find value in Groundhog Day

On Sunday thousands of fans will descend toward a stage tucked away in a seemingly hidden valley to celebrate one of America’s oldest pastimes. No, it’s not the Super Bowl. Groundhog Day warrants a couple headlines this weekend, too, you know. Tomorrow marks the 128nd gathering at Gobbler’s Knob—or “the knob” as Punxsutawney, Pa., natives […]

Throwback Thursday: April 1988

If Super Bowl turf were a human it’d be the most high-maintenance celebrity in Hollywood—my equivalent of choice would be Kanye West, but that’s based on disdain (no, not because he bashed Taylor Swift onstage at the MTV Video Music Awards). It wasn’t until I discovered the April 1988 issue of Landscape Management that I […]

Photo slideshow: Lighting Summit 2014

The 2014 Lighting Summit was held Jan. 22-23 in Omaha, Neb. Hosted by McKay Landscape Lighting, the inaugural event drew eight attendees from across the U.S. for the opportunity to network and receive tips on how to grow their businesses.

Tips for cultivating lawn care techs

As winter lingers in parts of the U.S.—and will remain to for the coming weeks—some lawn care company owners are in prime positions to make headway on the spring season. A safe starting point is considering ways to cultivate your staff of lawn care technicians. Landscape Management called on Grant Birchfield, who was dubbed Ohio […]

Throwback Thursday: August 1988

I often wonder what long-time subscribers of Landscape Management think of current issues of the magazine. This week my mind is on those who subscribed to LM in 1988. What would their thoughts be on the January 2014 issue, primarily our st ory “The new norm?” The article reported there’s been a 30 percent to […]

Communicating financials with your team

This post is part of a threefold summary of A Better Way 2 Learn Financials’ 2013 Financial Management TeleSummit.  Presented by A Better Way 2 Learn, Go iLawn and Landscape Management, the event was held in three, live, hour-long segments Dec. 3 to Dec. 5. This is a wrap-up of the conversation “Talking Financials: How […]

Throwback Thursday: October 1999

Weed Man USA graces the cover of our January issue this year, but 15 years ago the company warranted a mere page inside our book—page 16, to be exact. “Weed Man launches move into the U.S.” headlined the story written by Executive Editor Sue Gibson. The article ran in the October 1999 issue of Landscape […]

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