.Thanks to “howdini” for posting this informative video on YouTube. Here’s their description of the video…

When it comes to insects in your garden, it’s a bug eat bug world, so don’t panic. Some bugs are good for plants. But how to control the bad ones without chemicals? Here’s great advice from Scott Meyer, editor of Organic Gardening magazine…

I especially liked this quote by Scott Meyer at the beginning of the video…

“The basis of organic gardening really is to build a healthy, well-balanced eco system. Chemicals kill the bugs, are harmful to birds and all the other things that eat the bugs. So, yes, pesticides disrupt the balance.”

We also found these related books to give you more information on controlling bugs in your garden naturally… organically. Just click on any of the images to find out more details…

The electric lawn mower has quickly become the darling of environmentally friendly lawn care enthusiasts. At first, electric lawn mowers were limited to corded models. Technological advances have really opened up the industry to include battery-operated mowers. So, both a corded and a cordless lawn mower are designated as an electric lawnmower.

Advantages Of An Electric Lawn Mower:

• Environmental - Obviously, there’s no air pollution because an electric lawn mower doesn’t have a combustion engine. There are millions of lawns to mow (just in the USA), requiring millions of lawn mowers, and millions of gallons of gasoline. It’s not hard to do the math. Now, reduce that number by just 10%… that’s 100,000 less gallons of gasoline. Oh… don’t forget to multiply that times the number of times you buy a gallon of gas per lawnmower per year.
• Storage - It’s a lot safer to store an electric lawn mower – corded or cordless mowers – than it is a gas powered mower. There’s no risk of fire or explosion.
• Noise - Do you have one of “those” neighbors who likes to mow the lawn at 6:30 in the morning… on Saturday or Sunday? Well, you wouldn’t care a bit if he used an electric lawnmower, because it’s much quieter.

Disadvantages Of An Electric Lawn Mower:

• Corded mowers - The cord length on most corded mowers is 100 feet to 150 feet. This isn’t a problem if your lawn is small to medium in size, and if the electrical outlet is near the lawn. Don’t use an extension cord unless it’s insulated, and has 12 gauge or 14 gauge wiring, and is less than 100 feet long. Also, don’t use more than one extension cord. Check out the orange extension cords at your local home building supply store, or hardware store. With the right extension cord, a corded lawn mower can reach 200 feet to 250 feet from the electrical outlet. That’s more than enough for most residential lawns.
• Cordless mowers - The length of time 24 volt batteries can hold a charge while in use can be a distinct disadvantage. Unless, you have a lawn mower model that uses rechargeable batteries… and you have multiple batteries… and rechargers. With all the technological advances in battery designs, it’s reasonable to assume that smaller-sized, more powerful batteries are coming that will offer more run time.

Electric Lawn Mower Safety Issue…

Although there are no volatility issues with electric mowers, there is a safety issue with corded models. If you lose track of the cord and run over it, you risk a dangerous electrical shock – or even electrocution if the grounding fails in the electrical outlet. I know this sounds like common sense, but it needs to be stated.

These are just a few things to consider if you’re planning to buy an electric lawn mower.

How To Develop The Perfect Name For Your Lawn Care Business

Your lawn care business name will have two jobs.  One is to be unique enough that people can remember who to call when they need lawn work done. The other is to tell the customer something about your business.  If you decide on John Nelson’s Lawn Services, (assuming you are John Nelson), your personal credibility is built into part of your company name. The downside of using your name as part of your business identity is that if you ever decide to sell your lawn care business, your name would go with it. In fact, if it has played a big part in the success of your business, the buyer will probably insist on it. But, what happens to your reputation if the buyer runs down the business? On the other hand, if you name your lawn care business something like Good Looking Lawns, there’s no personal involvement left once you sell it.

Just be sure you keep the name generic enough so you can add new services. If you name the company, John’s Lawn Mowing Service, it limits what you do.  By changing “lawn mowing” to “lawn care”, you can add trimming, gardening and other related services all under the same corporate ID. 

Will the name you want to use for your lawn care business be suitable for a web site domain name? These days, it’s vital for businesses to have a web presence, and the experts say the best domain address (URL) is your company name. To continue the above example, the best URL for John Nelson’s Lawn Services is johnnelsonslawnservices.com.  When people see your business name on your truck, or some other promotional material, they will enter your company name in their computer internet browser.  So make it easy for them to find you on the internet, and you will bring in more customers through your web site.

Also be sure to verify with your county clerk that the name you want to use is available. If it is, register it right away to reserve that name for your business.

Sometimes, its appropriate to use a  whimsical or funny company name.  The guys who created the moving company, “Two Guys and a Truck” knew the value of a humorous name.  A funny name can have some serious marketing value. 

So give your new company name a lot of thought, even if you already have one in mind that you really like.  Pick a name you love for your new lawn care business, just make sure you take everything into consideration first.

There are a lot of good reasons for starting your own lawn care company.  You might do it for the freedom that being your own boss gives you. You might do it to focus 100% on doing work that you are very good at which is making people’s lawns and gardens look great.  Or you might do it because you know you can do a better job running a business than the people you work for.  Regardless of the reason, it must be profitable enough to support you and your family.

So is it possible to make a good profit running a lawn care business?  Absolutely, most serious lawncare business owners stay in business for years.  So, what are the basics of building a profitable business that you must keep in mind to apply to your situation as you launch your lawn care business, and begin to get clients and generate revenue?

Strong Management Skills Will Keep Your Lawncare Business Profitable

Profitability is not a complicated idea.  It is basically making more money than you spend.  But it is a mistake to think you can reach profitability simply by controlling costs.  Too many businesses have gone under putting all the emphasis on efficiency and cost savings and not enough emphasis on getting new clients, and client retention.  You can see profitability when you and your crews are all fully engaged in money generating work every working hour of every day.

This can be a challenge particularly as you grow to the point where you need multiple crews.  To keep each crew on a job site, completing work and then moving to the next job site, and juggle the work and the workers each and every day will definitely test of your management ability.  But you learn the art of managing larger and larger crews and larger jobs AS your business grows beyond just you and your small collection of tools… to an empire. (Maybe empire is a bit much, but the point is to be willing to grow!)

You need to focus a good deal on these three things to keep your lawn care business growing:

1. Client retention. 
2. Bring in new clients. 
3. Cost control… making sure your crews are performing at peak efficiency while delivering top quality work to your clients. 

The kind of client focus that you need in order to become profitable must involve more than just you, the owner.  You must instill it in your lawn care business employees.  Satisfied, repeat clients are the foundation for profitability. So make sure you and your staff give each of them the “royal treatment”. 

The Best Lawn Care Advertising Is Good Old Word-Of-Mouth

As the owner and manager of your lawncare company, you must always be looking for ways to capture more business.  This sometimes means marketing and advertising .  But it also includes the best source of all… word of mouth from all those satisfied clients!

The real heart of profitability is customer satisfaction. You can build a reliable income from the monthly payments of a satisfied client base.  They will give you new work as you expand the kinds of services your lawn care business offers.   And they’ll gladly give you referrals by telling their friends and neighbors about the lawn service they are so pleased with.  That word of mouth marketing is free to you, and it will get you more business than any other type of advertising. 

These are all great reasons to take very good care of the lawn care customers you have, and grow your lawncare business from that base to greater profitability each year.

Perhaps the biggest adjustment will be that when you own your own business, you suddenly are confronted with this new creature called an employee.  But it is the employees you have on board with you that will make or break your yard care business.  That means that one of the most important skills you will develop as a manager and owner of a business will be your ability to pick, hire, and retain great employees.  That is because your business will truly be “as strong as your weakest link”.

If you used contract labor when you got busy before you turned your lawn care into a business, you developed some skills for evaluating who would be a good worker.  If you did get that chance, that judgment will be invaluable to you as you build your own small army of quality employees.  It is quite a balancing act to capture enough business to keep all of your employees busy, and at the same time think about growing your business. 

If you get a rush of new business, you want to capture it and turn those customers into long term clients.  But you have to be able to add new employees to take care of all of that business. Consider this:  can you trust your employees to take care of your customers as well as you would yourself?  You will soon discover that the most important resource you have is a labor source who can provide you with a consistent supply of workers who do a good job for you.  Whether this is a community that you network with to draw workers from, or a placement service, your lawn care business will benefit from having a way to recruit good employees.

Above all, when you develop a strong staff of good employees, you should bend heaven and earth to take care of them.  And if you can give your employees a little part of the success you are enjoying, they will become an even more valuable asset.

If you can keep a good group of employees working with you and you are always developing new talent, you will have conquered one of the biggest challenges of running your own lawn care business.  It will be a skill that will be a key component to long term success.