Morbark Announces Acquisition Of Rayco Manufacturing: This Week’s Industry News

Want to keep up with the latest news in lawn care and landscaping? Check back every Thursday for a quick recap of recent happenings in the green industry.

Morbark Announces Acquisition of Rayco Manufacturing
Morbark, LLC has announced that it has completed the acquisition of Rayco Manufacturing, Inc. This transaction represents the first addition since affiliates of the private equity firm Stellex Capital Management LP acquired Morbark in 2016. Rayco brings a lineup of innovative equipment into the Morbark family across multiple product categories. In particular, Rayco stump cutters, aerial trimmers, forestry mulchers and crawler trucks will enhance and complement the existing Morbark family of products. Rayco founder, John Bowling, will continue his work with the team to develop new products and help improve the company’s existing product lines. He will continue to have an economic interest in the combined business and will be a member of Morbark’s Board of Directors.

Green & Growin’ 2018: Speakers, CEUs Announced & Registration Open
Online registration is now open for Green & Growin’ 2018, January 15-19 in Greensboro, North Carolina. The show includes more than 50 education sessions presented by green industry and business experts. Topping that list are keynote sessions with Eric Chester and Bryce Lane. On Tuesday, January 16, Chester presents “On Fire at Work — How Great Leaders Ignite Passion in their People” an inside look at how the world’s top corporations engage and inspire excellence. The author of five best-selling books on employee management, Chester is an award-winning speaker. On Wednesday attendees are invited to Breakfast with Bryce Lane, a green industry champion from North Carolina State University. A nationally-acclaimed garden speaker and NSCU Alumni Distinguished Undergraduate Professor Emeritus, Lane is the former host of UNC-TV’s Emmy award-winning television show, “In the Garden with Bryce Lane.” The show also has new mobile app and the North Carolina Contractors License Review Course will be offered for the first time.

Ditch Witch Hosts High School Students for National Manufacturing Day
In recognition of National Manufacturing Day, Ditch Witch hosted 220 high school freshmen on Thursday, Oct. 26 to help inspire the next-generation of manufacturers and celebrate modern manufacturing. Participating Oklahoma high schools included Perry, Covington-Douglas, Morrison, Mulhall-Orlando and Guthrie. Students from each school received a tour of the Ditch Witch and Subsite Electronics facilities. On the tour, students heard from factory employees and had the opportunity to ask questions about their work.

Harvey L. Massey Receives Lifetime Achievement Award From Association of Fundraising Professionals
Massey Services Chairman & CEO, Harvey L. Massey was recognized with the H. Clifford Lee Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association of Fundraising Professionals on November 1. This award is the organization’s highest honor and is presented to an individual who demonstrates a history of exceptional leadership and is personally active in philanthropy. Massey has been an unwavering philanthropist for 33 years. He and his wife, Carol, are longtime supporters of the Central Florida community, especially in the areas of the arts, healthcare and education. They formed the Harvey and Carol Massey Foundation in 2014 to further solidify their personal and professional commitment, and have made major contributions to the Dr. Phillips Performing Arts Center, Nemours Children’s Hospital for early childhood autism research, the Veterans Memorial Park of Central Florida, the Burnham Institute, Rollins College and funded a public sculpture for the “See Art Orlando” community project.

Advanced Turf Solutions Welcomes Four New Sales Representatives
Advanced Turf Solutions has recently added four new sales representatives to its team: Jeff Kolbe and Joe Leimbach in the lawn and landscape markets in Chicago and Cincinnati, respectively, Brad Fry in the golf course market in Southwestern Michigan, and Brian Winka in the sports turf market in Missouri.

New Outdoor Classroom Debuts at Tampa-Area School, Thanks to TurfMutt Grant
Thanks to a $10,000 grant from TurfMutt, an environmental stewardship and education program managed by the Outdoor Power Equipment Institute’s (OPEI) Research and Education Foundation, and Massey Services, headquartered in Orlando, a new outdoor classroom is debuting at Guardian Angels Catholic School in Clearwater, Florida and is ready to help kids learn valuable science, math and other lessons about the environment and living landscapes. The new outdoor space is the result of one fifth-grader’s creativity and hard work. Student Marissa Weber of Palm Harbor, Fla. won the TurfMutt “Be a Backyard Superhero” contest earlier this year. A dedication ceremony will take place November 9 at 8:15 a.m. at the school.

Limited Edition GreenCare for Troops T-Shirts For Sale
Project EverGreen and Nufarm are offering special edition “A Greener Call of Duty” t-shirts for sale with a portion of the proceeds going to support the GreenCare for Troops initiative. The shirts, which will be available through November 22, retail for $20 and can be ordered online. Orders received by November 15 have guaranteed delivery by December 20 in time for Christmas. The winning t-shirt design was selected by attendees at the GIE+EXPO in Louisville.

Brandt Hires National Sales Manager For Turf Products
Ken Mangum has accepted the position as National Sales Manager for BRANDT’s turf business, which includes the BRANDT, GRIGG and BRANDT iHammer product lines. In this role, Mangum will oversee the company’s turf and ornamental territory sales managers, engage key customers and work with the senior management team to set the strategic direction for the turf team. Mangum will report to John Guglielmi, BRANDT Specialty Formulations National Sales Director.

Exmark Awarded NJPA National Contract for Landscape Maintenance Equipment
Exmark has been awarded a national cooperative contract by the National Joint Powers Alliance to be a vendor of professional landscape maintenance equipment, attachments and accessories. The four-year contract, which includes an option for a fifth-year, was approved August 18, 2017. The contract gives more than 50,000 NJPA members in the United States and Canada access to Exmark commercial walk-behind, stand-on and zero-turn riding mowers, as well as turf management equipment including aerators, spreader-sprayers, seeders and more. The contract is valid in all areas where local laws and statutes permit cooperative purchasing.

EPA Approves Kabuto Fungicide SC for Spring Dead Spot
PBI-Gordon Corporation announces that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently granted Federal registration for Kabuto SC Fungicide for use in the treatment of spring dead spot (SDS) in warm-season turfgrass. Labeled for use on golf courses, sports fields, and residential and commercial turf, Kabuto is a proprietary formulation for the preventative control of SDS, and the preventative and curative control of dollar spot (including control of carboxamide resistant dollar spot). It inhibits all stages of development in the fungal lifecycle, and can be applied up to eight times per year as part of a resistance management program.

PERC Announces Second Annual ‘Propane Leadership Award’ Recipients
The Propane Education & Research Council announced a Pennsylvania dealer and a Louisiana landscape contractor as the recipients of the second annual Propane Leadership Award at the 2017 GIE+EXPO. PERC awarded Louisiana-based Rotolo Consulting, Inc. and R.S. Hollinger & Son, Inc. in Mountville, Pennsylvania, with the honor. Brandt Martin (RCI) and Lynn Hollinger (R.S. Hollinger & Son, Inc.) each received a personalized Louisville Slugger baseball bat to commemorate the award. RCI began using propane commercial mowers in 2011 and changed one-third of its fleet to propane within a year. Now, the company uses nearly 100 propane mowers, as well as close to 100 propane autogas-powered trucks to meet the needs of its growing customer base. For R.S. Hollinger, bringing propane equipment to the dealership’s sales floor helped the company get a leg up on its surrounding competition, one of the factors that convinced Ebling’s Service Plus in neighboring Myerstown to acquire the company as Hollinger and his brothers plan for retirement.

Rain Bird Announces New Irrigation Training Schedule
Rain Bird Training Services will host over 60 irrigation training events throughout the United States from October 2017 through May 2018. These classes are open to irrigation professionals at all experience levels, including contractors, distributors, golf course superintendents, designers and architects. All Rain Bird training classes count toward valuable continuing education units (CEUs) from the Irrigation Association, as well as some counties and organizations nationwide. Rain Bird Training Services offers three different ways for irrigation professionals to enhance their skill sets, become better water managers and improve their career prospects.

Read last week’s industry news roundup: Phipps Conservatory Displays Vertical Gardening

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Storm Stories: Timberline Landscaping

Stephanie Early vividly remembers the worst snow storm Timberline Landscaping ever had to deal with. It also was the very first storm the company ever had to handle. The blizzard of 1997 began on Friday, Oct. 24 and ran through the next day, paralyzing Colorado Springs, Timberline Landscaping‘s home base. It left at least four people dead and killed an estimated 50,000 cattle on Colorado’s eastern plains and in southwestern Kansas.

Early, assistant to Timberline Landscaping owner Tim Emick and the company’s marketing manager, recalls that blizzard as a turning point for a business eager to commit to the snow removal field.

What Timberline learned from a natural event seared into the memory of Coloradans who had to grapple with it is that a snow removal company needs a plan, needs to prep its own crew and its subcontractors, and needs good equipment. And, if need be, it has to produce its own chemical snow fighters.

This excerpt about the 1997 Blizzard published in the Colorado Springs Gazette gives an idea of the blizzard’s power:

“Terry Galbreath raised Highland cattle at his Bonny Burn Ranch near Calhan at the time; the herd of 17 crammed into the loafing shed during the storm. There was a drift from west to east that went over the horse barn, completely covering the loafing shed,” he recalled in an email. “It took me three days with the front-end loader to get the cattle dug out and make a path for them to get out to where the snow had been blown away and some ground showed. … When I finally broke through, April, our herd alpha, poked her head out and it was like ‘Storm’s over? Where the grub?'”

Photo: Timberline Landscaping

Early says that blizzard produced three feet of snow in 24 hours, with associated winds generating drifts five to 10 feet deep. “While we had been planning to become involved in snow removal, this storm launched our company headfirst into it,” she says. “Our crews were new to plow operations and were unseasoned. Starting with such a large storm was a huge undertaking, even for a company with about 95 employees during winter, as well as 15 subcontractors.” Timberline Landscaping was founded in 1982.

“Timberline has always had a ‘get the job done’ approach. Our crews tackled this in the same way. Even our president and several members of office staff aid in snow removal operations during large storms. We were able to help many stranded drivers during this storm, which was an added bonus. The entire city was at a standstill for days and our clients still remember it as one of the worst storms we have had.”

Timberline’s first storm taught the company to plan ahead, have backup personnel it can count on and take care of its own snow-fighting needs.

“We now have a detailed plan by number of inches. This allows us to know how we will respond and who will respond to each property during a major snow event or a minor snow event. This prep is done before each snow season and involves our team as well as many wonderful subcontractors. It details what equipment will be used at each property and who is on the crew. We also have backup personnel to call and try to work in shifts during major snow storms as there is nothing more dangerous than being overtired in adverse conditions.”

Developing your own expertise is critical, Early suggests. “One struggle we faced was a shortage of de-icing and anti-icing materials several years ago. It was incredibly difficult to obtain. Since then we have been producing our own salt-brine on site.” Also critical: some 120 pieces of equipment including blowers, pushers, trucks, converted lawnmowers, and a Daimler Unimog with an 8-foot-tall snow blower.

Visit PlowSite.com for more forums on equipment, business management and technical information. Join the conversation in the largest community of snow and ice business professionals.

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How To Promote Holiday Lighting Services

Before promoting holiday lighting services, decide who your company’s primary and ideal customers are.

Mitch Hendricks, vice president of Village Lighting Co., a manufacturer of holiday lights, describes large, high-end jobs as rewarding with generally good margins. Larger jobs take longer and unexpected issues can typically come up. The owners of high-end jobs are usually more particular about how things look and any maintenance needs.

Smaller, similar jobs are quick as well because they can be done via a rhythm and pattern. It is rewarding to get more jobs done, however there isn’t that grand, finished product to look at. These customers are also usually less picky about looks and maintenance issues.

Most landscape lighting pros now install low-power-use LED lights, which have several other advantages over the older incandescent holiday lights. Photo: Village Lighting Co.

One tactic that installers can use to sell services is to choose one, smaller lighting installation program that can be repeated on multiple houses. It can be promoted as a “$500 special,” or a one-day sale, in certain areas, Hendricks explains. Once there is a certain amount of customers signed up, it’s easy to choose a certain day and install all of the lighting jobs at once. “This makes work efficient,” he says, “plus the smaller lighting package is quick to install.”

The best way to promote and sell holiday lighting is by using the company’s existing customer base. These customers are already familiar with the company, trust the services and know company processes for billing and payments.

A good way to expand outside of the company’s existing customer base is to use a referral program. “Give back to those who support you by offering a free wreath for any referral who pans out,” Hendricks recommends.

You can also partner up with a local business. Work out a deal with the business, Hendricks suggests. Maybe make a trade with a restaurant: food for holiday lighting. “Make sure the job is amazing,” he says. “This will attract many people to ask who installed the lights.” It will help boost credibility of the company name and help the installers who are bidding jobs.

“During the bid process, they can refer to the lit restaurant down the street explaining they designed and installed that job.”

Another idea is becoming a preferred installer for a retail center. “Oftentimes people will ask hardware stores, nurseries, etc. if they know or could recommend someone,” he says. “Become that person.”

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Story Of A Landscape: Opening Up A Small Backyard

Say the words “Georgia” and “backyard landscaping” and the first images that come to mind are likely the formal gardens of another century.

John Newman, owner of Hampton, Georgia-based Classic Landscapes, Inc., turned that stereotype on its head with a project he calls “Cozy Contemporary Fire and Water,” and contemporary is definitely the style as the project incorporates large concrete steppers in a random pattern, a concrete fire table and plenty of linear design.

Certainly, the way Classic Landscapes got the job is a bit old-fashioned. The company still does a bit of print advertising, and the owners gave them a call.

“They had a space that was just unusable,” Newman explains. “They’re really outdoors-type people who like their garden and like to cook with herbs, but the original owners had planted some privacy screenings that blocked everything and the grass wouldn’t grow because there was too much shade.”

At the same time, he says they had some very definite things they wanted to see in their new landscape.

“They had a deck that was very small,” he says. “They like to entertain but the deck would only hold about four people with some furniture. The wanted a place to grow herbs, they wanted a water feature and the fire table, along with lighting.”

Photo: Classic Landscapes, Inc.

The first things to go were six or seven Leyland cypress evergreens that had been planted above the backyard retaining wall. Newman says they had grown so large it was like being shaded by a three-story building.

“There was privacy, but they were badly out of scale for the space,” he says. “The owners were concerned if we used equipment to take the trees out it would affect the wall from the weight, but it didn’t.”

That still left several crape myrtles in the space, and Newman added some smaller evergreens and a Japanese maple.

“It’s not necessarily a screening tree, but as it gets larger it will block some views in the summer,” he says. “We just don’t want things to get huge and out-of-scale again.”

Another important step was expanding the deck. Newman says the project about doubled the space by expanding it to the back façade of the house. He also opened up the space by running the steps across the entire open end and removing the handrail.

“When you have such a small yard you want to do everything you can to help create an open feel,” he says. “That was a key element to adding that extension onto the deck.”

Rather than change products or rebuild the existing deck, the addition is made of construction-grade lumber and the entire deck was painted.

At the bottom of the deck steps is one of the features that helps give the project such a contemporary feel. Several concrete steppers in a variety of sizes are set in the grass between the deck and the backyard seating area.

Newman says the steppers are individually poured concrete units.

Photo: Classic Landscapes, Inc.

“We didn’t want it to look like a country garden with stepping stones of the same size,” he explains. “We felt this lent a contemporary look. It’s nothing fancy.”

The seating area features a mix of outdoor furniture selected by the owners and the custom fire table, all set on a base of mini slate chips. Newman says their use was predicated mainly on their color.

“It’s a flat gravel, so it’s not like pea gravel or sand where you think you’re going to sink down,” he says. “It compresses well, and it provides a more-refined look without spending money on something like bluestone.”

The installation of the fire table required a specialty contractor who helped bring natural gas to the site. Newman says it’s really a simple setup, but the flames coming up through the glass aggregate provide an interesting look, and the linear look complements the rest of the design and especially the concrete steppers.

Photo: Classic Landscapes, Inc.

The same can be said for the 6-inch thick mini stone slabs that are used at 10-foot intervals across the backyard to disguise the fact that there is a slight elevation change in the main backyard. Newman says that’s his favorite feature.

“It’s a different use of them,” he says. “Typically, we used those in sequence, like a boulder staircase. Here, you don’t feel like there’s a slope; you’re just moving across this space.”

The water feature is a recirculating urn fountain seated in gray Mexican beach pebbles that match the color of the mini slate chips. Newman says it’s one of the yard’s centerpieces, and a real eye-catcher for people walking into the yard.

“This is a really good small space setup because you see the water and hear the water,” Newman says. “There certainly wasn’t space for a big fountain, and this is a nice, low-key trickle sound.”

Adjoining the urn fountain is the clients’ herb garden. The remainder of the backyard plant palette is strictly ornamental and includes Sunshine Ligustrums, which Newman describes as “very attention-grabbing.”

Along with some ornamental grasses, the space also includes some Miss Huff’s Hardy Lantana, which he chose for its ability to attract butterflies and multi-colored blooms, a couple Japanese maples with purple leaves, dwarf azaleas, creeping phlox and a bit of lavender.

“We went out on a limb with the lavender,” he says. “It normally doesn’t do well in Georgia, but the clients really wanted is so we said we’ll put one in, but it’s done really well.”

Although Classic Landscapes didn’t need to do much to the backyard’s drainage, the company did install new drip irrigation, which Newman says really isn’t standard for his area yet, but is his personal preference.

“About 10 years ago we decided we wanted to be more conservation-minded,” he says.

The same could be said for the project’s lighting, which is all low-voltage LEDs.

Photo: Classic Landscapes, Inc.

“We put some above the retaining wall on the existing crape myrtles, because they’re multi-trunked and it looks really cool at night to have those trunks up-lit,” Newman says. “A lot of it is area ground-lighting to make the area feel safe at night without turning on the outside lights on the house.”

Although the job took only about a month, Newman says his biggest challenge was coordinating the subs he brought in for different phases of the project, including the tree removal, extension of the gas line, electrical and carpentry work and pouring of the concrete steppers.

“Coordinating all those people can sometimes be a challenge, especially in a small space,” he says. “We had to communicate really, really well to make sure nobody stepped on anybody’s toes.”

While Newman and Classic Landscapes were recognized by the Georgia Urban Ag Council for a design/build/install project of less than $50,000, Newman says he’s most proud of having given the clients a design not often seen in the Atlanta suburbs.

And, of course, it also meets their needs.

“We made it flow with what their goals were and at the same time not make it look weird,” Newman says. “The house is not necessarily contemporary, so it’s a surprise when you come around the side and see this linear contemporary landscape that the homeowners enjoy and use a lot.”

However, he says he did learn one important lesson about creating a linear landscape, and that’s to make sure everything truly is linear.

“Even if it’s masonry, you must make sure it lines up really, well,” he concludes. “It’s not free-flowing. The lines should be straight, and to do that you should look at it in different ways, then double-check yourself as you go along.”

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Get Started Installing Holiday Lights

If you walk through a retail store in October, you’ll see lots of decorations for sale. Not just witches and pumpkins, but also trees and bells. Retailers, it seems, are intent on pushing the start of the holiday season earlier and earlier. For landscape companies that offer holiday lighting services, the season has to start even sooner.

“Most people want them up by Thanksgiving, so they can turn them on the following day, so you have to start early enough to make that happen,” says Aaron Wiltshire, president of Oklahoma Landscape in Tulsa, a 32-year-old company that added holiday lighting services in 2010. That means that sales and marketing begin during the summer, with orders for lighting materials placed shortly thereafter. And the installation work itself takes weeks and weeks to get all customers serviced.

“Christmas really starts early for us,” agrees Alan Marchant, co-owner of A & K Landscaping in Eugene, Oregon, which has been handling holiday lighting for a little over a decade. And, really, that’s part of the reason it works for many landscape companies. A & K Landscaping got into the holiday lighting business a little over a decade ago as a way of keeping its crews working during an otherwise slow time of the year.

The same was true for Oklahoma Landscape, says Wiltshire, who says that his main objective was to keep employees on longer during the slow season. (“And, of course, to make a profit,” he adds.) Wiltshire found that it made sense to repurpose irrigation crews after their season had ended and put them onto holiday lighting.

“We just put together some black and white flyers and passed them around to see what would happen. It didn’t really do well the first year — I think we had two customers that first year,” says Marchant with a laugh. While there’s some wisdom to getting into new services slowly, that was a little too slow. He says a large part of the problem was that they hadn’t chosen the right neighborhood to market this particular service.

A & K Landscaping had only been in business for a couple of years at that point, and while Marchant says they targeted a somewhat higher-end neighborhood, it wasn’t upscale enough to produce demand for holiday lighting services. So, the next year, “we switched up the neighborhood and dressed up our flyer with color, and from there we changed to a color door hanger,” he explains. “Once we got the right neighborhood, then it started to get some traction. It probably varies in every city, but once you get to the right home value, then people start paying for services like this.”

Photo: Village Lighting Co.

Now A & K Landscaping doesn’t advertise its holiday lighting services at all. “It’s just word of mouth; people just see our work next door, and then we end up doing the neighbors,” Marchant states.

Oklahoma Landscape got into holiday lighting by working with a local product distributor. “We signed up with them and went to one of their seminars and did some training and were able to network with other companies already in the installation business to learn a little bit about pricing,” says Wiltshire. He says that many installation companies work exclusively through distribution networks as far as purchasing the lighting materials, and that’s what Oklahoma Landscape did for its first two years offering the service. Other installation companies have signed up with holiday lighting franchises, notes Wiltshire.

But after a couple of years, he chose a different approach for Oklahoma Landscape. “We ended up choosing a lease-for-lights system,” he explains. “So all of our customers lease their lights from us.”

Wiltshire says he found that the profit margins for his company are much better when buying the lights and then leasing them to property owners rather than selling them outright. “And most people like the idea of a lease because if they move from that property, they’re not stuck with lights that are custom-cut to fit a specific home. We also guarantee the lights to function as long as they have the lease and they’re using us to hang their lights,” he points out.

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Creative And Artistic Paver Installations

There’s a little bit of art in every hardscape project — the way the lines flow, the way the colors come together, the way the finishes shine. Some projects, though, take artistic creativity to a whole new level.

That’s the type of project that Brian Larsen loves. His company, County Wide Landscaping in the Chicago area, has created and installed about 20 hardscape projects that incorporate intricate paver patterns and designs to create stunning driveways and walkways.

“The very first one I did was about 14 years ago. It was for a customer who really wanted something that no one else had,” he explains. In fact, that homeowner already had a custom driveway featuring a diamond pattern, but he wanted something that stood out even more. “So, I just sat down and designed something that sort of looked like flowers with circles and petals,” Larsen says. “I sketched it out, and once he liked it, I just went in and started sketching them out all over his driveway.”

Brian Larsen of County Wide Landscaping draws out his designs using computer-aided design software, or CAD, then prints the designs on a large-format printer. The patterns are set on top of pavers and cut out by his crew.

He now draws his designs out on computer-aided design software, or CAD, and prints the patterns out on the company’s large-format printer. Then, these printed patterns are set on top of pavers and cut out; in the case of repeated patterns, the shapes are moved and cut out multiple times. “There’s a lot of time that goes into each one of those,” he says.

The second project of this type that he did incorporated a rose motif into a massive 12,000-square-foot driveway. “We were there for about two and a half months cutting in roses,” recalls Larsen.

When clients say they want something special, he asks if there’s a symbol they like, a piece of art they are fond of, a favorite sports team logo, etc. Sometimes it’s as simple as incorporating their last initial into the design (“those are easy now!” he says). If the client doesn’t have any ideas, Larsen has plenty.

“If I go to Las Vegas or Miami, I’ll look at things I see in hotels. I’ll pick up patterns off the floors. I’ll sketch them or take photos and save them in a folder on my computer to go back to at a later date to get ideas from,” he explains. “When somebody wants something intricate, I’ll find one of those designs and recreate it on paper. Then I’ll scan it into the computer, and, in my CAD program, I just start shrinking and expanding them all over the driveway.”

Once he has a general design, Larsen meets with the client to fine-tune it. “They can see how busy it will be, and then decide if they want more designs or fewer,” he says. Once the final design has been printed on paper, his crew arrives at the job site, lays out the pavers that will make up the design, places the paper on top and then starts cutting the pavers accordingly. The printed designs are also placed on the driveway where the design will be inserted so that the existing pavers can be cut out in the exact shape of the design. Then it’s just a matter of putting the design puzzle together in that space.

Of course, this is all over-simplifying what is often a painstaking process. And a tremendous amount of cutting.

“When we’re done, it looks like it’s snowed everywhere,” jokes Larsen. “If you’re cutting into a 12 by 12 paver and there’s a point right in the middle, that’s where it’s a challenge. There’s a lot of cutting and grinding to get everything to fit exactly.” The key is to have a wide variety of different tools, he says. County Wide Landscaping uses three different sizes of cut-off saws (14, 12 and 10 inches), a table saw and five different sizes of grinders.

Another key is patience. The whole driveway (the background) can usually be installed in two days — “that’s the easy part,” says Larsen. “The inlays usually take about 16 to 18 hours each.” That means there’s a lot of calculations that go into bidding each job; if you’re going to install intricate hardscape designs, you need to know how long it will take or you can lose your shirt, he emphasizes.

The right materials

County Wide Landscaping has worked with a variety of materials for its hardscape designs. While clay is the easiest because it is soft and can be cut quickly, they rarely use it for these projects because the small pieces and sharp angles don’t hold up well. Larsen likes Unilock pavers, “because they have so many colors and styles and textures,” he explains. Sometimes the company travels long distances for these projects and ends up using what is popular in that region; most of the major manufacturers offer a good variety of pavers that can work for this type of application, adds Larsen.

More than the brand, it’s often the boldness of the pavers that decide what will be used for a given project.

“Some people don’t like the really bold colors; they like the inlays but they want to keep it simple, so the colors are more neutral and match one another. Other clients want really bold statements,” he says.

Sometimes it’s a mix of the two; one recent project was a patio with a dragon design that was created using green, rough-faced pavers from Unilock that resembled scales. The tongue was done in red, the teeth white and the mane was tan. Given the detail and the artistry of the work involved, Larson uses one specific crew that handles the intricate hardscape installations.

Not surprisingly, these sorts of unique hardscape projects don’t come along every day. “It’s difficult to sell intricate designs like that to clients, just because of the cost and the time that goes into it — so it’s really for people who have seen my work and want something special like that,” says Larsen. “It’s not that we advertise it, but people see one and it sort of spreads by word of mouth.”

It’s a niche market for contractors, too. “A lot of companies don’t want to bother with it because there’s just not much money in it after you add up all of your hours,” Larsen says, but he enjoys the challenge of getting to be creative rather than doing the same old patio or driveway all the time: “It’s fun. And it’s nice to see it when the job is done — the guys all take photos of the design … they’re proud of their work.”

Paver Art

For hardscape installers who want to add creativity to a paver project but don’t want to do extensive free-hand cutting on-site, a New Jersey-based company called Paverart produces intricate designs (such as logos, art and photo-like images) at its facility. These pieces of paver art are not created with paint or stain, but rather are cut from colored concrete pavers using the precision of a waterjet. The pieces and instructions are then shipped for installation by the hardscape contractor. At that point, it’s like putting together a pre-cut puzzle.

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The Importance Of Site Documentation

So many times, I gather with snow contractors from around the country and the topics discussed are rather predictable. Low-ballers, finding good help and getting sued. Those, in my experience, are generally the top three. Everybody moans and groans about them, and ideas get kicked around, but no real resolutions come to the forefront.

I generally talk about what can occur to snow contractors if they get sued. Now, just so we’re clear — most of the lawsuits brought about involve liability and whether or not the snow contractor did what was prudent in some particular circumstance that may have led to someone experiencing a lost-time or lost-wage accident (translation: slip-and-fall accident).

How can this be avoided? Of course, everyone knows that in today’s litigious society, anyone can sue anyone for just about anything. As I have said often, it isn’t a matter of if you’ll get sued as a snow and ice management contractor, it’s a matter of when. Once the suit occurs though, it then becomes a matter of protecting yourself as best you can under the circumstances. It does happen where the snow contractor makes mistakes that create or exacerbate an unsafe condition. In those instances, having insurance is a blessing. However, if you have done as you should and can prove it — the risk of a substantial payout can be mitigated even if not eliminated.

Recent statistics indicate that contractors who follow and abide by the ANSI/ASCA A-1000 System Requirements for Snow and ice Management find their insurance carriers’ pay-out substantially less than contractors who don’t abide by any standards whatsoever. Even the SIMA Best Practices are a better bet than following no standards, or following your nose. Those contractors who say “I’ve been at this for 30-plus years and I know all there is to know about plowing snow and melting ice” are often fooling themselves into thinking that makes them an educated snow contractor.

Process, products, materials and equipment change over time as enterprising individuals and organizations come up with new ways to approach the business. Additionally, nowadays a decent contractor will document some, if not all, of their activities on any given site.

Keep Details Of Every Site, Every Day

I’ve heard the question asked: “If I don’t document what I’ve done on a site, does that make me a bad contractor?” Not necessarily. However, if you think about it — to say “I remember exactly what I did on this particular site 4 years, 2 months and 6 days ago at 11:15 a.m. in the back corner of the lot” is suspect, at best. Memories are fallible, especially to a snow contractor who might be up for days fighting a storm, or a series of storms. Documentation can attest to reality and give the wise contractor an edge on actually being able to accurately verify or testify to the events of any particular day and time.

Documenting does not make you a great snowplower, but it does mean you can attest with some authority as to what transpired on any given day on any given site.

Follow recognized standards. Read the trade magazines. Get educated. Document what you do. Be a professional who recognizes that “things change” and keep up with those changes. This is a very good step toward avoiding costly lawsuits — and to keep sites you are responsible for maintaining safe for vehicular and pedestrian traffic.

Read more: Client Relations: Proof of Service

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