From Where I Stand... My first stint in the landscape industry began as
the neighborhood lawn boy. I had three “clients” in my neighborhood. I had a fourth client who never paid me, but gave me free room, board, and covered my college education so I can’t really complain. I knew absolutely nothing about horticulture, safety, or proper equipment maintenance but that didn’t stop me. Then again, that hasn’t stopped many upstarts in the industry. I mowed when it was hot and when it was raining. I edged anything that was taller than a dandelion. I sharpened my blade twice a decade. I mowed when the lawn was long, short, green, or brown. I look back at those days with a fond sense of nostalgia. Yet, at the time, I would lay on my couch dreading the next time I had to mow. However, the money was good. I parlayed my earnings into an expansive baseball card collection that, today, is worth less than the gum the cards came with. Then there were the lawn clippings. Ah yes, the lawn clippings. “Clippings” is a word that is fading from the American lawn boy lexicon. Ask any lawn boy and he will bristle at the mere thought of bagging lawn clippings. I remember walking up and down each row, I’d be one more row away from video games in a cool basement with an RC Cola, and then “plop,” a lump of wet grass would fall between my feet. “Maybe it was just stuck, I’ll press on,” I’d think to myself. Plop-plop-plop. Curses! Time to shut off the mower, retreat to my garage, grab a bag, remove the catcher, and that was when the fun started. Pouring lawn clippings into a brown paper bag was like filling a shot glass with a fire hose. Either they came out too fast and dumped a concentric circle around the bag or they got stuck in the bag and I had to remove them with a sweaty, green arm. Most of the time, right as I was about to drop them into the bag, a gust of wind would blow pushing the bag closed. The clippings would then rain down on top of the bag as the wind laughed at my misfortune. Nowadays, lawn boys have it easy. These super-fancy mulching mowers have made bagging clippings a thing of the past. In my day, I had to push my mower uphill both ways. My mower was pulled by a team of horses. My mower ran on steam. Mulching mowers are really a postmodern concept. For decades, mowers ran on man-power and bagging clippings was not an option. When gas powered mower became popular, many resulted in longer clippings that were unsightly on the lawn. The bag attachments caught the clippings and it was left up to the homeowner or landscaper to dispose of them. The clippings needed be caught, put into a dark bag, picked up by a large truck, driven to a remote location, buried, and holy water was poured on the ground just to ensure they would never be reborn. The primary driver of this return to mulching was the land-
scape industry. It is technically still possible for a company to sell the idea of bagging. I am sure a client would love to hear their manicured lawn will not have clumps or piles. They can sell the myth that thatch will grow. They can justify higher costs for the more labor intensive process. Yet, that is not what happened. The industry looked around and said bagging was dumb. It was wasteful, cost prohibitive, had no impact on the lawn, and dealing with trucks full of lawn clippings was becoming a major hassle. That culture change permeated into the homeowner market and you rarely see a neighborhood lawn boy cursing at a brown lawn clippings bag. So what is the point? The point is that landscape companies have the power to change any industry practice they wish to change. Think of all the various ways the landscape industry has evolved in the past ten years without any law, ordinance, or regulation stating they had to. Clippings, crew sizes, composting, fertilizers, IPM, de-icing, natives, container gardening, edibles, etc. are just a fraction of the changes the industry has voluntarily put on itself without anyone asking them to. The changes go viral and even the small mow-and-go, teetering on the distant edge of the industry, is using mushroom compost. It is natural to look externally for solutions to our problems. The second some tragedy hits, our minds immediately turn to what law could have been created or repealed to stop it. We look to governments, academia, scientists, and even non-profit associations like ILCA to fix problems. I can’t tell you how many times ILCA, who has no regulatory authority whatsoever, has been asked to solve a problem that only a regulatory authority can solve. ILCA is an informationbroker, not the police. Undercutting, employee poaching, theft, illegal contractors, price gouging, etc. are not issues ILCA can “solve.” We can educate and help, but we cannot bring perpetrators to justice. Ultimately, we must place our faith in agencies with regulatory power, sometimes they deliver, sometimes not. The fastest way to enact industry-wide change is to lead by example. Ok, I will pause here for the inevitable groan. Hear me out. The landscape industry, because of the size of the businesses and the network of suppliers can change incredibly quickly. There are advantages to an industry whose “average” sized business is $1.2 million in annual revenue. There are fewer and fewer layers to crack in order to get to the level who can best initiate change. In addition, a vast network of equipment, material, and nursery stock suppliers connect all landscape companies. On top of that, a white-collar network of lawyers. insurance brokers, and accountants understand the HR and business challenges. ILCA has the god’s eye view of this network. It’s alarming/relieving how quickly word spreads. It’s almost instantaneous.
Salvation Lies Within
The Landscape Contractor June 2015
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