Summer Mowing Tips
When it comes to lawn care and making sure that your grass looks picture perfect, there are several different things you, as the homeowner, need to do. Taking a lawnmower over your grass every couple of weeks is simply not enough if you want your grass to have that lush, healthy green to it.
While mowing is not all you have to do, it is an important first step. Believe it or not, there is actually a right and wrong way to mow your lawn, and if you want your grass to look picture perfect, you will want to make sure you’re doing everything that you should be. When you are mowing your grass, be sure it is with a sharp blade to ensure a clean cut. When you don’t have a clean cut, and you tear away part of the grass blade as opposed to an even cut, you can dry out the tip of the blade. This makes your grass look brown and sickly, as opposed to green.
Another way to ensure you get the cleanest cut possible is to not mow your lawn while it is wet. Wet grass blades have an elasticity that, even with the sharpest of blades, will tear rather than cut cleanly. Also, try to adjust the height of the blade so that you’re never cutting more than about 35% of the blade. This helps keep the seed and roots cool, and doesn’t dry the grass nearly as quickly. Finally, be sure to not mow in the same direction too many times. If you mow north to south one week, try mowing east to west the next. This cuts back on the grass that is matted down by repeated treads with the wheels of the lawnmower, thus ensuring that your lawn doesn’t have those dreaded treads.
To learn exactly how I do lawn care, visit http://www.bladeslawncare.com/ where you’ll learn everything you need to know about grass types, lawn care tips, and much more.
Filed Under Lawn Care, Mowing | Leave a Comment
How to Start a Lawn Care Business
Starting a lawn care business is not that difficult. Just look at how many young teenagers are running around with a trailer and some pretty nice equipment. It’s not rocket science, but you do need to have some direction. Choosing the right direction takes some knowledge and that is what we are going to give you.
What do I need?
The first thing you need is a desire to start and run a successful business. If your heart isn’t in it, then you might as well go home. The next thing you need is to write up a business plan for your new venture. This includes coming up with a name for your business, listing your startup expenses, writing a mission statement, and creating a list of short-term and long-term goals. Develop a list of several points that will be key to your success. Finally, you need to lay out the steps you need to take to meet your short-term and long-term goals.
What should I name my business?
Obviously, one of the easiest names to pick is your own, but some people like to get creative and choose names like Razor Lawn Care or Above the Hedge.
What equipment should I get?
This is one of the most important steps to the success of your business. It is the difference between being professional and well… not. You need to get commercial grade equipment if you want to succeed. The amount of use and abuse your equipment is going to have is very substantial. I’m sorry, but Wal-Mart brands are not going to cut it. You need brands like Toro, Husqvarna, and Exmark. To start out with you are going to need a good walk-behind mower, edger, trimmer, and blower. As your business grows you can add a zero-turn radius mower and other equipment as needed.
How do I get clients?
Ok, so you have your business plan, your equipment, and a will to make things work. Now what? Get some clients. Starting out is the hardest time to get clients. The key is to display yourself and your equipment in a professional manner. First impressions are everything. Once you have established yourself, you won’t have to work nearly as hard to get more clients. The easiest and cheapest way to get started is to exhaust your circle of influence. That is family members and people that you know. Then you can make some business cards, signs, and flyers. They aren’t that expensive and you can pass them out pretty easily. If you’re still not getting enough clients, then you may need to start going door-to-door. Remember to present yourself and your equipment in the most professional way you can.
What price do I charge?
Pricing is a sticky issue. Nobody has a set formula that is easy to apply. It all depends on your location, competition, customer, and the job. I personally have a $25 minimum that I charge for extremely small yards that take 15 minutes or less to finish. The price can go up to as much as several hundred dollars depending on the size and difficulty of the job. The key with pricing is to get the job and charge enough to make it a profitable job.
Do I need accounting software?
If you want to make things a hundred times easier, yes, you need accounting software. I use and recommend Quickbooks Pro. It is pretty easy to setup and makes keeping up with your finances a breeze. You can also create really professional invoices to send out to your customers, keep up with when you receive payments, and who still owes you money.
How do I deal with trouble customers?
Everyone ends up getting a trouble customer and there is nothing more annoying than someone who is never pleased with your work and basically demands something for nothing. I always treat these customers with the same respect that I would any customer with one exception. I always charge them more. If they accept my higher prices, then I get paid for dealing with them. If they decide to stop using me, I got rid of them without a bad taste in their mouth because I was respectful. It is a win-win way to handle them.
Keys to Success
Finally, let’s discuss the keys to your success in starting up a lawn business. Always do more than is expected of you. Going the extra mile always pays off. It means higher customer retention, referrals, and ultimately more money! Present every aspect of your business with the utmost professionalism. Your image and reputation are everything to your business. Do not do anything to hurt them. Last, have fun and enjoy your work. Take pride in the job you do and you will succeed beyond measure.
You can learn more about lawn care, grass types and ways to increase your lawn business at: http://www.bladeslawncare.com
Filed Under Business, Lawn Care | Leave a Comment
When to Apply Crabgrass Preventer
Crabgrass preventer or preemergent should be applied in late winter or early spring before the crabgrass emerges. There use to be easy postemergent solutions that killed crabgrass pretty easily, but due to some EPA guidelines, these are no longer available for residential use. Therefore the best chemical method of getting rid of crabgrass is using a preventer before it emerges.
So, what does crabgrass look like? It has coarse leaves and thick stems that form a circular base at the ground. Crabgrass is one of the hardest weeds to get rid of and presents most lawn owners with a great challenge. Sometimes it requires some serious elbow grease to get rid of it by simply pulling each plant out of the ground and throwing it away. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that for you!
Filed Under weeds | Leave a Comment
Understanding Inorganic Fertilizers
Most of the common types of fertilizer that you find in your local supply store are called “inorganic fertilizers”, or “mineral fertilizers”. This is because rather than including organic components that supply the nutrients that most plant life need, these fertilizers include things such as limestone, rock phosphate, iron, and sodium nitrate.
These kinds of fertilizers are broken into two groups: macronutrients and micronutrients. You can tell the difference between micro and macro by looking at their concentration levels of plant dry matter and how they are chemically mixed. For instance, the six macronutrients are, in and of themselves, broken into two groups: primary and secondary. The primary macronutrients are Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium. The secondary macronutrients are Calcium, Magnesium and Sulfur. The reason why these are considered secondary is not because of any difference in allotment in any particular kind of fertilizer, but rather because plants, even ones that need fertilization, usually can get calcium, magnesium and sulfur from the earth.
Micronutrients, on the other hand, are a different story. There are hundreds of micronutrients that plants need to thrive; however, they only need certain amounts. Most micronutrients are required somewhere between five and one hundred parts per million, with some micronutrients required even less. Some of these micronutrients include Boron, Copper, Nickel, Chlorine, Zinc and Iron.
While macronutrients are considered the primary nutrients for keeping plants alive, micronutrients are often credited for keeping many species of animal and insect alive. Many mammals who graze get their calcium and iron from the plant life, and if the plants do not have enough iron for the animals to consume, they can become very ill and even die. That is one thing to consider when you weigh the positive and the negative aspects of fertilization. If you want to fertilize your garden, but you are worried that you may oversaturate the ground, you can also always look towards organic fertilizers, which are proven to be much safer.
Filed Under Fertilizer | Leave a Comment
Spring is Here, Time for Some Scotts
One of the best ways to improve your lawn is to get on a regular fertilizing schedule. Scotts lawn care products are my favorite of the bunch. It could just be their marketing campaign or they might just have the best products around. I just got through putting out some Scotts Bonus S for St. Augustinegrass. Not only will it help green up my grass, but it will help kill the broadleaf weeds as well. This Spring, don’t get caught without some good fertilizer.
Filed Under Fertilizer, Lawn Care, Product News | Leave a Comment
Stop Dogs From Peeing on Your Grass
Do you have trouble with animals, especially dogs, urinating on your lawn and causing brown/yellow spots? I live in a neighborhood that has great sidewalks and lots of people walk their dogs by my house. Not only do they pee on my lawn, they often poop and their owners don’t pick it up! How irritating. I found a great article called How to prevent dogs from urinating on your grass and it had some good tips to keep those pets away.
Filed Under Lawn Problems | Leave a Comment
Save Time on Lawn Care
I am realizing quickly from my own lawn that the longer I consistently do proper lawn care, the less work I have to do. For instance, this year I have only watered my lawn 3 times. Obviously, the large amount of rain helped me minimize water usage, but we did have about a 5 to 6 week drought through the heat of August. The best part is my lawn is better than it ever has been. There are probably 3 main things that have helped my lawn grow really strong and resilient. The first thing is fertilizing my lawn on a regular basis. This gives the grass all the nutrients it needs to grow strong roots. The second thing is mowing high and never more than 1/3 of the blade. This protects the roots and crowds out weeds. The last thing is watering deep and infrequent. This encourages the roots to grow deep down into the earth and gives the grass incredible strength and longevity. All of this together requires less time for lawn care and gives you more time for important things - like family. Ordering lawn care service from TruGreen could be another option as well.
Filed Under Fertilizer, General, Grass, Irrigation, Lawn Care | Leave a Comment
Automatic Irrigation Systems
An automatic irrigation system is a real time saver for those not too interested in spending time caring for their lawn. It doesn’t stop there, however. Even if you love spending time doing lawn care, an automatic sprinkler system will help you do it better. You can control when, where, and how much water your lawn gets with ease. These things are often difficult to perform with your run of the mill garden hose. Are you feeling extra constructive? You might consider installing a system yourself. It is not the easiest job, but you can save a ton of money by doing it yourself.
Learn how to install a lawn sprinkler system
Filed Under General, Irrigation | Leave a Comment
Gray Leaf Spot on St. Augustine Grass
We have had an insane amount of rain in the south this summer and it is really opening up the grass for disease. One extremely common disease that I got and I have seen it everywhere is gray leaf spot. It is not particularly fatal to your lawn, but you do need to refrain from fertilizing and let your lawn dry out after all the rain stops. It will eventually go away. It is a fungus and can be fought with a fungicide, but it is not necessary.
Filed Under Disease, General | Leave a Comment
Zoysia Grass
Zoysia grass is quite possible one of the best grasses you could have on your lawn. It is very low maintenance and grows a thick, green turf that chokes out just about everything. There are several options for getting zoysia including seed, plugs, and sod.
For more on: Zoysia Grass
Filed Under Grass, Lawn Care | Leave a Comment
keep looking »