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Simplify your leaf-raking jobs.

Oct 15

Posted by Lawn Care Business in composting, leaf raking | No Comments

Autumn is here and lawn care business owners know this is a great time of year to make tons of extra money raking leaves.

Early in my lawn care business, I found that two of the most time and effort consuming parts of my leaf jobs were bagging them and transporting them to a dump site.  If you don’t bag leaves you must either have an enclosed collection trailer or cover them tightly with a tarp to avoid having them blow out of your truck during transport.

During my second year in business, I devloped an idea of building compost patches in many of my customer’s yards.  Most of my leaf raking customers readily accepted the idea as long at I could build the compost site in an out-of-the-way area of their property. 

On-site leaf composting greatly reduces your leaf raking efforts.  Your bagging and transportation costs are greatly reduced and, come springtime of the second year, will have high quality leaf mulch to use as ground cover and soil conditioner in many areas of their lawn.

If you are exhausted by the bagging and transport aspects of leaf raking lawn care jobs, consider offering your customers on-site leaf composting.

Do you want to make tons of money this leaf raking season?  Check out our Lawn Care Business program.  You will learn how to start and operate a successful lawn care business.  You will also learn how to price and estimate leaf raking jobs so you can make the best profit possible.

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Lawn care business and earth day.

Apr 22

Posted by Lawn Care Business in composting, environment, lawn business strategies | No Comments

by: Lawn Care Business

Lawn Care Businesses celebrate Earth Day

earthday1

Well, our Earth has lasted for one more trip around the Sun and here we are again at earth day.  Being lawn care professionals, we have special opportunities to make positive impacts on our environment in the way we conduct our businesses.  The green movement has long used “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” as a mantra of environmental stewardship.  Let’s look at three simple ways we can incorporate that mantra into our daily business and make it profitable for our companies.

Reduce your use of Gasoline: 

With gas prices still at historic highs, you can reduce your use of gasoline by scheduling lawn jobs in nearby neighborhoods to coincide with each other.  Reducing driving distances and multiple trips to the same area of town is a great way to reduce gasoline consumption and increase your profit potential.

Reuse yard waste: 

Instead of sending yard waste, leaves, brush, and shrub clippings to the landfill, speak to your customers about making compost areas and brush piles on their property.  Composting is a great method of making free, rich, nutritious soil from yard waste that would otherwise go to the landfill.  Once fully composted, this soil can be used to pot plants or fill holes in the yard.  Managed correctly, small brush piles are superb habitats for song birds and other entertaining wildlife.  Birds build nests from gathered materials and brush piles generally break down to a very small size over a short period of time.

Recycle lawn equipment oil: 

It goes without saying (but we’re going to say it anyway) that you should recycle all oil drained from your machinery during the course of normal maintenance.  Auto shops such as Advanced Auto Parts and Autozone generally accept your used oil.  Buy a large footprint oil receptacle to capture drained oil from your equipment.  Once finished with your oil changes, take your spent oil to a recycling center.  Also, be sure to keep your oil receptacle out of the rain.  Rain displaces oil forcing it out of the container and contaminates its surrounding environment eventually washing oil into the ground or local waterway.

These are a few quick tips for earth day.  If you want to operate an eco-friendly, profitable lawn care company, look for our manuals and lawn care business software available through our website:

www.StartALawnCareBusiness.com

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Grass Clippings: To bag or not to bag.

Mar 27

Posted by Lawn Care Business in composting, mulching | 1 Comment

by: Lawn Care Business

Grass clippings: Bag, Compost, or Mulch?

As environmentalism continues to become a dominant issue in the lawn care industry, LCOs are continually faced with running their businesses in manners not harmful to our environment.

One issue you may be challenged with is what to do with grass clippings on finely manicured lawns.

1) Bagging the grass clippings:

Bagging is the least desirable method of dealing with grass clippings.  Bagging takes tremendous effort on your part
in extra time and extra work.  The bags themselves are expensive and you must either absorb the cost of the bags or pass the expense to the customer’s invoice.  Bagged grass clippings must either be disposed of in a landfill or dumped elsewhere.  Bagging is wasteful in so many ways and there are much better options for grass clippings.

2) Composting grass clippings:

If you must remove grass from your customers’ lawns talk your customers into having a compost area on their lawns. Compost areas can be as small as 2’x2′.  A compost area can contain household wastes such as banana peels, coffee grounds, and other similar items that otherwise will be sent to the landfill.  Grass can be added to the compost.  In as little as 8 to 12 months the compost will decay into rich soil that can be used in garden beds or to level rough areas in your customers’ lawns.

3) Mulching grass clippings:

The best solution in dealing with grass clippings is to mulch the grass right back into your customers lawn with your lawn mower.  Schedule your cutting appropriately so you do not have any grass to rake, bag, or haul off.  Though some of your customers may ask you to cut it as short as possible, raising your blades and cutting less off the top of the grass during each mowing cycle will give your customers’ lawns better stands of grass.  Slightly longer grass also chokes out weeds by depriving the weeds of sunlight and water. 

If there is excess grass, you are either cutting it too short, not cutting it often enough, or cutting it wet. Proper cutting disperses fine grass clippings into the lawn.  Grass clippings have lots of nutrients which continually feed the lawn and this is beneficial to new growth as the season wears on.   Some customers may ask about thatch buildup.  Once again, proper scheduling and height adjustment of your lawn mower blades will increase the health of their lawns and reduce the need for dethatching.

Professional lawn care companies know the correct methods of reducing waste and running their companies with an environmental state-of-mind.  Most customer appreciate this attitude and will follow your lead when you tell them bagging is not necessary.

Our Lawn Care Business Program gives you many methods of running a profitable, eco-friendly lawn care company.  For more information and to purchase the program, visit us at: 
www.StartALawnCareBusiness.com

 

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