Thanks to Todd Green for posting this video to YouTube. Here is his description of this lawn care and maintenance video…

For lawn maintenance, edge grass with a blade, mow the lawn in different directions, trim grass evenly and use a blower to remove grass clippings. Learn about safety equipment, such as earplugs and glasses, when mowing a lawn with this free video from a professional landscaper on lawn care tips. Expert: Bill Elzey Contact: www.showplacelawns.com Bio: Bill Elzey is the owner and manager of Showplace Lawns in Austin, Texas. Filmmaker: Todd Green
Video Rating: 4 / 5

So… you’re putting all the pieces together to start your own lawn care business. Make sure you have your business name right at the top, because there are lots of things to consider before making a final decision.

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.

How To Develop A Profitable Lawn Care Business

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.

When you start your own lawn care business, there are a lot of new situations you have to get used to.  Perhaps you did lawn care for years as an independent contractor or you worked for someone else on their payroll.  The lawn care doesn’t change, and if that is what you love to do, you are on the right track starting your own lawn care business.  But when you’re the boss, the world is a very different place.

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.

Susan’s Lawn Gardens is pleased to feature this article from today’s guest authors at  LANDSCAPING-BLOG. They are landscape experts, so we feel very comfortable recommending their work to our visitors. 

Common Landscaping Tools for Each Landscaper

by Landscaping-blog

For the avid do-it-yourself landscaper, the right tools are important. After all, if one wishes to save money on the expenses associated with having a well cared for yard, it is best to make sure that he or she has all of the tools necessary to create an attractive landscape. By understanding some of the most common tools used for basic landscaping needs, you can ensure that you have everything you need to keep your lawn in the best possible shape, bringing delight and distinction to your grounds, be they large or small.

Shovels, rakes, trowels, and hand cultivators. These are the most basic of tools when it comes to landscaping. Every home should be supplied with these basic implements. They make just about every landscaping endeavor possible. Shovels to remove sod and turn soil, as well as dig the holes necessary for fixtures like trees and hardscapes, Rakes are essential to smooth out planting beds and prepare ground for things like sod without packing the dirt. Trowels and hand cultivators allow you to perform minute work that requires more attention to detail. All of these tools are necessary to the proper functioning and care of a landscape.

Pruners and shears. These tools are used to improve the appearance of woody plants and trees. They keep plants from encroaching in other areas, and they also promote the overall health of the plants. They help maintain a neat appearance, and if you have topiary concerns, they are indispensable in maintaining a set shape. There are hand pruners, tools that help with the smaller branches and are easier to use, loppers for getting thicker branches that are to large for pruners, and even pruning saws that can help you with the toughest of branches. Hedge shears provide a way for hedges to be trimmed more conscientiously than with electric or gas-run trimmers (although these are widely available and can make maintaining hedges much easier).

Lawnmower. This is perhaps one of the most common and most obvious of landscaping tools. It is meant to keep the grass at a reasonable level, and to keep the lawn neat and healthy. Related to lawnmowers in the trimming department are things like weed wackers, which are very useful in keeping edges that can’t be cut by a mower nice and neat. Additionally, the use of some special machinery, designed to eliminate thick brush is useful to have on hand, even it is only in the form of a machine rented once a year.

Other tools of interest. Of course, there are specialty tools that may be needed depending upon on the features of your landscape. If you have a water fixture, it is important to make sure that you have the proper pumps and filters, and that you have little skimmers that can allow you to remove larger pieces of debris from the water. Automatic sprinklers can make watering the lawn and your other plants much easier, and you should have a garden hose for special watering needs. Regular household tools such as hammer and nails, levels, and drills can be helpful if you have built landscape features like patios, decks, pergolas, and trellises. They can also be useful in building things like containers and creating raised beds.

Wheelbarrow. A wheelbarrow will always be of infinite use for the avid landscaper and improver. Wheelbarrows are very useful for moving debris as well as bringing needed implements to their proper places. They haul dirt and bring in plants. They make it possible to for one person to carry a load that otherwise she or he would not be able to handle. For the serious landscaper, a wheelbarrow is indeed necessary.

When you have all of the tools necessary to take care of your landscape, then you are well rewarded for your hard work. Acquiring the more common tools can also save you money in the long run, as they can be used over and over again. Additionally, many of the more common landscape tools are fairly small in size and easy to store in a garage or a shed. As long as they are kept neatly arranged in place, they are easy to get to when needed, and not hard to find. Proper maintenance of you tools is important: keep them from becoming rusty, and make sure your lawnmower and other gas or electric implements are well oiled and always have plenty of gas. Proper care of your tools ensures that you will be able to properly care for your landscape.

Above information is brought to you by www.Landscaping-Blog.com   Landscaping-Blog.com is world’s online informative resources for Gardening & Landscaping where you may find information related to landscaping, gardening, flowers & plants, gardening equipments, various tips & tricks for your home garden etc. To find out more, please visit www.Landscaping-Blog.com

Article Source: Common Landscaping Tools for Each Landscaper

Do you remember learning how to braid dandelion flowers into a necklace or headband? Remember blowing the tufted seeds into the wind… with faerie warriors riding them into the Grouchie Giant’s Kingdom next door?

All too soon your magic world disappeared when dandelions morphed into weeds… they became a garden chore that earned you some allowance money.

Well, time hasn’t changed perceptions very much…

The first step to controlling weeds in your lawn is understanding exactly what you’re dealing with.

That saying, “A weed is just a plant out of place” is still true. If you flipped through a botany field guide, you may be surprised at the plants you would find classified as weeds!

• Clover in one person’s flowing lawn may be considered fashionable, but not in another’s.
• Golf greens are often covered with bentgrass, but if it crept up into some yards it would be considered a weed.
• Dandelion yellow among all that green grass may be quite pleasing to an artist, but to a “lawn lover” dandelions are the enemy!

While perhaps pretty on their own, weeds stick out like a sore thumb in lawns and gardens because they may be of a different color, size, or texture… drawing attention away from the lawn.

Aside from aesthetic values, weeds can also drain nutrients from grass and other plants, and this competition of resources can thin out what should be lush. And what’s worse is that weeds are fighters. They can withstand conditions that many lawns and plants cannot… so they’re “naturally” inevitable!

Treating lawn weeds begins with correct identification…

There are two classifications of lawn weeds, based on their growing habits:

Grassy weeds…

These are like grass (duh!), but unwanted grass. For example, you planted bluegrass but there’s also some crabgrass in places. The crabgrass is just growing in the wrong place. Here are some other examples of grass “weeds”:

•  
  • Annual bluegrass
  • Barnyard grass
  • Creeping bentgrass
  • Foxtail
  • Crabgrass 

Broadleaf weeds…

These are what most people picture when they think of weeds. Because their leaves are broad, they are more easily distinguished. Some examples are:

•  
  • Yarrow
  • Chickweed
  • Clover
  • Ground ivy
  • Thistle

  • Dandelion

How to control weeds…

Once the weeds in your lawn are identified, you need to decide if it’s worth the effort to remove them. If it is, keep reading…

Did you know that most weeds can actually be controlled by focused lawn care maintenance? If you’ve developed a dense and vigorously growing lawn, you’re already combating the problem.

Weeds can also be a sign of problems in the soil. By killing them, you are simply putting on a band-aid… not solving the problem. For example, knotweed grows in compacted soil… a red flag signal for soil conditioning.

Here’s how to concentrate on a vigorous lawn care program, instead of focusing so much attention on destroying the weeds:

• Raise or lower the mowing height
• Change the frequency of mowing
• Change the amount of time between irrigating
• Increase or decrease fertilizer applications
• Aerate the soil

All these steps maintain better grass, thus keeping the growth dense and vigorous… which absolutely discourages weeds.

In addition to the above weed controls, there may be occasions when chemical products are needed…

These are the types of herbicides available in local garden centers:

Pre-emergence herbicides…

This type affect seeds that are germinating. Since they are best used two to three weeks before the seeds start to grow, they work best to combat annual weeds.

 Post-emergence herbicides…

This type is used, as the name implies, after the weeds have sprouted. Since it must be absorbed through the leaves, this type of herbicide works best with a spray. They can be applied at any time, but are most effective when the weed is still young and growing.

Selective post-emergence herbicides…

This type is usually used to control annual, biennial, and perennial broadleaf weeds, as it will not damage grass. But, it can kill trees, shrubs, and flowers. It also has to be used in proper conditions as well… with no rain in the forecast for two days following application, temperature 60-80 degrees, and no winds.

Non-selective post-emergence herbicides…

This type kills all types of weeds, and is best used to spot-treat grassy weeds that are not affected by the selective herbicides.

Remember the saying, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder”? One of your neighbors sees his dandelion-strewn lawn as Nature’s work of art. Your other neighbor sees it as a crying shame… a complete mess.

So, if I were you, I wouldn’t blow dandelion tufts in THAT neighbor’s direction… the one where everything’s green and there’s no yellow to be seen, anywhere… where “weeds” are banished forever!

Susan Nelson Hopkins is a reformed gardener and lawn lover. She is resigned to the inescapable fact that we all must conserve water and do our part to protect the environment. But she has learned that this doesn’t preclude lovely, healthy gardens… and lawns. Her tip… less is more! Check out the rest of Susan’s Lawn Gardens. She is also webmaster of Susan’s Bird Gardens and several more gardening sites and blogs.