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...

Asphalt, concrete, or brick stone paver patio, which surface is right for your property? We’re going to go over the pros and cons of each, what kind of maintenance you can expect out of each material and what the initial investment is in relation to the other materials when you're thinking about first doing an install.

Asphalt

Let's start with asphalt. Asphalt, the average price is going to vary by your geographical location but will be between four to eight dollars per square foot. Asphalt typically has the least initial investment into it but be warned, asphalt also has the highest level of maintenance of the three surfaces that we've covered. After your initial installation happens, about every three years you should expect to do a resurfacing. Asphalt is going to develop cracks and you have to apply a rubberized compound which stops the cracks from spreading and spidering throughout the driveway.

Concrete

Concrete comes in about dead middle for initial expense, averaging...

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...

.Starting a Business with No Money

Speaker 1: Alright I’m on with Mike Michalowicz, he is the author of four absolutely amazing books that are going to impact your life. Speaker 2: Well I just want to address one of the most challenging issues that most businesses have; a lack of resources. You lack money, you lack contact, you lack a network, you can’t find the employees. What I found is, actually "lack" is your best tool, your best advantage, but you don't know how to use it. So I explain how that adversity of not having, you can leverage and springboard from your competition. Speaker 1: So you teach contractors and business owners in general how to start with absolutely no money whatsoever and then to grow their business. But what they are learning while they are starting with no money, is how to survive but, then you take it in the very next book, The Pumpkin Plant and you go hey, you know what? You grew, you started. It’s time to stop surviving and it’s...

I’m building an outdoor living room and it’s time to update some of my old tools.  I’ve always gone to Dewalt for everything. Then I realized except for saws. Every one of my saws has been Milwaukee. I thought maybe we’ll give some of the other Milwaukee tools a try. So I picked up what they called an M18 fuel. It has something called a "one key," and I think this one key thing is a bunch of malarkey. I think it’s more of a gimmick than anything else. This "one key" is like you hook up your smartphone to your screw gun. I’ll tell you straight up you not going to find any single one of us hooking our smartphone up to our power tools or drinking lattes at lunch. Plain and simple those two things are never going to happen.  So, that’s more of a sale gimmick. But, I decided to give a try it anyway. So I picked it up the first thing I was thrown.  I’m used to having a little longer gun. The typical Dewalt cordless screw gun...

All right I’m with Greg Wittstock. Some of you may recognize him from the Tv Show "Pond Stars." Greg is the number one manufacturer in North America of pond products. We just got done doing a podcast, and Greg literally told us how he went from having absolutely nothing to owning a $60 million a year corporation with 95 employees. He has been in the Fortune 500 top fastest growing companies four years in a row.

Greg Wittsock

Thank you for coming on. Today we talked about something that I think is a critical element. We talked about manufacturing, distribution, leadership management, and your new academy.  You touched base on were how you grow from nothing to something and gave us four strong points in leadership and management. Can you go over that with us?

Different Stages of the Business

Greg: When I started off, I was in the field working directly with the guys. Then I developed the 20 step way of building water features and that was our system. Stan: So you...

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...

Should I Buy Diesel or Gas?

You know for me a truck is a tool, not a toy. As soon as I take my truck off road to have fun with it, I'm basically playing with my money. When I buy a work truck, I want to make sure that I'm absolutely maximizing the bang for my buck. I want to try to get the absolute most return out of my initial investment for that truck. What we'll talk about is the concept do you want diesel or do you want gasoline. When I think about diesel trucks, the thing that I think about is that I have about a ten thousand dollar initial investment over a gasoline truck. But if that's a truck that I'm going to be using long term, then I don't mind investing in that truck. If I plan on holding on to that truck for ten or fifteen years, then I'm going to look at buying a diesel truck. If you can prove fuel economy is there, you have good power in the diesel truck. Between the fuel economy and the improved power, a diesel engine is a great way to go. Plus they are typically...

Landscaping Legal Help

Today we’re going to talk about the legal problems. I am by no means an expert on anything legal, but I do have a lot of unfortunate experiences.  I’m gonna share two horror stories out of the fricking catalog of horror I have. Hopefully, this will help you guys out.

Unauthorized Retaining Wall Repair

The first horror story I am going to share with you something some of you may be familiar with. We did a giant boulder retaining wall, and during that process, something happened to the neighbor's retaining wall. My customer asked me to go out and fix the neighbor's retaining walls. He was just nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs that the next door neighbor was going to mad at him. He wanted me to help them out in some way. Because I was doing such a big project for him in the first place, as a kindness to my customer, I went to the neighbor’s house and fixed their retaining wall. That guy is suing me...