I want to give you a walk-through of a job we completed that has just about every type of service that we offer on it. The job started off to do the work for this house right.  We were doing a retaining wall to fix the drainage, clearing the back yard, irrigation system, sod, pavers, landscape lighting, and fencing. So, we started off working here and about day 2 into the project, the neighbor came over and said, "listen we've been getting bids on our back yard for 5 years." They had huge drainage problems.  If you can see, the water came down from that area and just washed out the whole backyard. There was no sod, and it was overgrown with weeds.  All that water came downhill into this property.  It’s a big natural area so where I'm standing. This was just no backyard.  It was all completely down to bare dirt with a lot of channeling where all the water had flowed into the property. Our job was to fix all of that. As I said, this neighbor came over...

If you are doing any type of irrigation work, then you know that the sound a screwdriver makes when you poke it through the lawn into the grass and you hear plastic. You know that is one of the most rewarding sounds. That means you've been looking for an irrigation valve in a yard and you finally have hit plastic. Now you can actually begin the work of replacing the faulty valve. So, I want to give you a quick outline of what this yard looks like.  It is really, really big. It's fall and there are leaves all over the ground.  I looked at this yard knowing I had a leaking valve somewhere and thought, "This is going to be a really long day trying to find this."

Look for the Green

But one thing that I did as I came around the side of the house, and what I noticed is about a 4ft diameter patch that is much darker green than the surrounding area. So, it made me think, "Why is that so much darker of a green color?" Well if water is leaking, it's irrigating it very well and...

Breaking News

Breaking news right now a man is fighting for his life after a landscaping accident. The man had to be pulled from a pond after his mower tipped over into a pond with a rider on it. Stan: An incredible amount of people are injured or killed every year in lawnmower related accidents but let's find out how many accidents there are we're going to talk to somebody a whole lot smarter than me. Hello McFly, you're up. Three two one! Reporter: He rolled over an embankment into a creek and then that riding lawn mower he was on, fell on top of him. Stan: The sad truth is a lot of these accidents can be prevented. We're going to cover three simple steps to keep you safe. But before we get into that, how many accidents are there actually every year. Relax, calm, down breathe through your nose, not your mouth.

Accidents Happen

Stanley: Oh! Well, thank you Mr. Monkey, but you can actually call me Stanley. First off Mr. Monkey, I just want to say thank you for giving me the...

Host:

I'm taking you into a project today, where thinking outside of the box saved a customer twenty thousand dollars. We're going to be transforming your yard, aren’t we? We’re going to save you tens of thousands of dollars instead of rebuilding this retaining wall. We're going bring this slope in. Customer: And stop my patio and three season porch from falling into the woods. Host: Yeah, it's falling down. Too many times people automatically fall into this belief that they have to reinstall what is already in place. Oftentimes what is already there is a failed design or inadequate for their updated needs and their circumstances. I'm here with the customer, so now that we're done, what do you think about, from where we started the concept we started with, which is kind of unusual? We didn't rebuild the retaining wall, what we focused on was eliminating the need for retaining and cutting your budget by nearly half, by doing so.

Customer wife:

I absolutely love it, my...

Today we're going to be doing a review of the ECHO2620T and here are the criteria’s:

• Is it durable?
• Is it going to make you money?

I'm not going to be very technical because I don't care if the engine displacement is 12.1 cc's or twelve 12.2 cc's what I care about is it going to last? Is that thing going to put money in my back pocket? A tool is a means to an end for me.

ECHO2620T

Let's talk about some of the specs on this 2620T. This is one of the largest and most powerful in the Echo line up. This machine was able to tackle some of the worst conditions I was able to throw at it, and it did it like a knife cutting through hot butter. Power and fuel increase leads to increased weight. Now the pro and the con.  The pro is if you’re going to buy one machine to do just about everything in your life, this is the machine for you. If you have tall grass, or you need to trim the ditch or something, you’re going to want something that is going to be able to cut...

ExMark Walk Behind vs Grandstand?

All right, a walk behind or a Grandstand, which mower is right for you? We have three simple criteria today. Number one: versatility; one lawn mower, can you do everything you need it to do on your accounts? Number two: operator comfort; at the end of the day are you ready to go again or do you just feel like you've been in a boxing match? Criteria number three is growth; eventually, as an owner or operator you‘re going to move out of that stage and you are going to hire someone to run your lawn mower. Which mower are you more comfortable putting a potentially inexperienced operator behind? Let's get started. Let's talk about versatility, I have found that the walk behind mower can do just about everything that a Grandstand can do, but it conquers the slope. They absolutely master the slope in comparison to a Grandstand. Now, what you're going to see in this clip is I'm going to be mowing about a twelve to maybe fifteen percent slope. I can do...

Sod Basics

It's all about the sod today. We're going to talk about what it takes to have a successful, instant green backyard. We are going to go over grading, we're going to go over the depth of black dirt and to dispel a few myths there. We're going to talk about the watering schedule; when to water, and how much. We're also going to go over when you can mow the sod. We're going to teach you how to peel back the sod and determine how healthy your sod is and then the scourge of sod, fighting the Japanese beetles. What to look for, so you can cut them off before they become problematic, so let's get into it. The first thing I want to do is to dispel a myth that you've got to have four inches of pulverized screen black dirt. If you actually put that much black dirt on top of your subgrade, this soil, this black dirt is going to compress and cause uneven waves in your sod. The four inches isn't necessary and sometimes incorporating it can be a little difficult like tilling your entire...

Lawn Mower Troubles

What started out as a normal day ended up in three very close calls. For some reason, I happened to have the Go-Pro strapped right to my chest. The day began normal, in fact, it was better than normal.  It was 8:00 in the morning. The sun was shining and it was dry out. Being from Minnesota, not a single one of you guys pick on me about my accent, but I think I’m going to lay it out a little thick for you know don't you know? We’re going to do a little bit of a trailer set up here, and we're going to show you what we’ve got, but we only got about a half a day of mowing that we can get it in because we got a few thunder boomers that are coming our way. Weed eater here. We like to trim up around the trees with those there and then we got two fifty inch Grandstand.  Those are kind of like the Drag cars of lawn mowers, so they’re really fun to use. We can take them on the steep slopes with no problems.

Thunder Boomers Don't Ya Know

I...

I'm meeting with Brian right now. We are going to be re-landscaping, and so I make sure we are on the same page.  What we’re going to be doing is we will be getting rid of these trees and bushes. I’m going to cut all of the bushes down.  We’re going to haul that out.

Think Outside the Box

If you guys cut grass, I want you to start thinking a little bit outside the box and expanding your services.  I’m going to take you step by step through this $2,400 dollar job. It took us two days to complete with two guys and a minimal amount of materials.  Now you see me running a skid loader right here. You don’t need a skid loader to pop trees on the ground. Keith Kalfas has an amazing video where he shows doing the exact same work with a pickup truck. But I want you to understand that this project was done in two days.

2 days = 60 Lawns

It would be equal to cutting 60 lawns over the course of a summer. The profits are immense because of the...