Chainsaw murderer spooks landscapers?

People referred to him as "Crazy Chris," and if what he's accused of doing is true, crazy falls just a click or two short of describing this whacko.

Christian C. Nielsen, 31, (aka Crazy Chris), a cook at an inn near Newry, ME, is accused of killing and dismembering, with a chain saw, three people and killing and burning another at the Black Bear Bed & Breakfast. The killings are believed to have taken place over several days.

Two young landscapers — Ryan Wheeler, 22, and his half brother Ian, 18— are believed to be the last people to have seen some of the victims alive and also to have an encounter with Crazy Chris before his arrest. Dead are the 64-year-old innkeeper, her daughter, 35, and two guests, a female, 43, and a male, 50. It was Maine's worst homicide in 14 years, said police

 “I was weed-whacking right next to the house and he (Crazy Chris) was coming in and out and walking all around. All of the sudden, I happened to look up and he jumped me right there,” Ryan Wheeler was quoted in the Boston Herald newspaper. “He was less than three feet from me. I jumped and I was like, ‘Whoa. You jumped me.’ And he said, ‘What? When I was looking at you from the window?’

For all the grizzly details, click on the headline and follow up with these links:

http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=156391

http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=156122

http://news.bostonherald.com/localRegional/view.bg?articleid=156044

Elvis has left the house, but ServiceMaster is moving in

ServiceMaster, parent company of TruGreen ChemLawn, TruGreen Landscare and Terminix, is moving the 120 managers and executives remaining in its longtime headquarters in Downers Grove, IL, (a Chicago suburb) to Memphis.

And why not? It's principle operating divisions, including about 2,000 employees, are already based there. Did we mention ServiceMaster's new chairman and CEO, J. Patrick Spainhour, recently purchased a home in the Memphis area? It's expected to make the announcement of the move in October. — Ron Hall

Knotty knotweed dilemma

Council members on Bainbridge Island, WA, said that chemical pest controls were verbotin on public properties . . .That was until a week or so ago.

Because the island was being swallowed by knotweed, they softened their stance somewhat and approved the use of the herbicide glyphosate (Roundup). Knotweed is a nasty non-native invasive weed that is so aggressive that it's even crowding out other nasty non-native invasive weeds on the island, which is located in the Puget Sound near Seattle.

The lawmakers directed that the herbicide be injected into the stems of individual knotweed plants, and are seeking volunteers to help with the project.“It'll take a lot of work,” commented one city official. I guess you could call that an understatement considering that knotweed (several varieties) is growing just about everywhere on the island. The weed is in the buckwheat family and looks an awful lot like bamboo. - Ron Hall

What the hell is RSS?

When readers visit LM's Web page they can submit a question via e-mail and those questions are routed to me. The other day I got a good one: "I see a line on your page that tells me to click on it for an RSS link. What the hell is RSS?"

RSS, a digital-universe term for Really Simple Syndication, is a cool, painless way for you to get news headlines from just about any news source your heart desires (we hope of course that your heart really desires Landscape Management). It's a direct pipeline -- We post news on the Web site and those headlines get automatically refreshed on your Google or Yahoo Web page. They don't come to your e-mail inbox, you don't need to enter a password. It's all there. Seamless.

Here's how it works: Editors at LM update articles on our Web page every day. Most of the time here, it's our trusty Associate Editor and Web Guru Mike Seuffert who toils online.

You set up an RSS link once that links our articles to your personal Web page on Google or Yahoo (more on this in a second). Then, every time you jump on the Internet and this page opens, the latest, greatest LM headlines are right there. You didn't have to open an e-mail, you didn't have to lift a finger or even hit "refresh." Genius.

To get started: Go to Yahoo or Google and follow links from their home pages to create a personalized page. Block out about 20 minutes to get this done. When you're finished, set this new My Yahoo! or personalized Google page as your home page. That way it'll be right there every time you log on.

The browser will direct you through the process of creating your page. You'll get to pick from some basic news sources that all work on the RSS feed method, like CNN, USA Today, Sports Illustrated, Reuters Business, you name it. When you're done you will have a personal Web page that automatically gives you the latest headlines from whatever news sources you picked (you can fit as many as you want on there), plus any other custom element you might like, such as a weather report, blogs or daily comics.

Then come on back to www.landscapemanagement.net and click that RSS link. It'll walk you through adding our headlines to your new, personalized Web page. Do this for any other news source you want that supports the RSS technology. The result: All the news headlines on the topics you want from the sources you like are in one place.
— Stephanie Ricca

ServiceMaster hdqtrs relocating to Memphis?

Could ServiceMaster (NYSE-SVM) be moving its headquarters from its longtime location in Downers Grove, IL, to this vibrant mid-South city? That's more than a possibility, reports the Memphis Commercial Appea, quoting a city councilman there.

ServiceMaster is the parent company of TruGreen ChemLawn, TruGreen Landcare, Terminix, American Home Shield among others. It employs 170 in its Chicago-area headquarters, while its Memphis location already numbers more than 2,000 employs.

ServiceMaster is staying mum on the matter.

Click the headline to be directed to reporter Amos Makiís article in the Commercial Appeal. — Ron Hall

Hazardous-duty pay warranted

The biggest hazard to a landscape worker on the job?

1. Big machinery with whirring blades?
2. Relentless exposure to the sun and heat?
3. Robbers, lunatics and morons?

If you answered #3 you're right.

This past week alone landscape worker Tereso Vasquex Gonzalez was shot in the back and killed as he tried to walk away from a robbery attempt near Charleston, SC, Juan Patino was mowing a property in Richardson, TX, when somebody stopped their SUV and fired a shot that struck him in the arm and then sped off, and (this guy definitely needs some serious anger management or jail time, preferably the later) a 26-year-old man attacked Eric Torres, 23, with a baseball bat because he didn't like the way Torres was cutting the grass on a Jacksonville, FL, property. He hit the landscaper several times in the back, the head and the arm with the bat before another landscape worker, hammer in hand, intervened. — Ron Hall

Would you turn these morons in?

A good friend, the owner of a nice lawn care company in Texas, called me the other day with a lot of bad news. In addition to telling me about a mutual friend being diagnosed with a serious ailment, he said one of his techs was treating a lawn and looked over to an adjacent property and saw a black lab that had apparently died of the heat and lack of water. The unfortunate animal had wrapped it's chain around a pole where it expired.

In a separate incident recently a Philadelphia landscaper made a surprising discovery, a row of flower pots on Germantown Avenue, each containing a nice healthy marijuana plant.

In both instances authorities were notified? Would you have reacted similarly? — Ron Hall

The real champion please speak up

The 2-year extension of the H2B seasonal immigrant guest worker program expires Sept. 30. And everybody - I mean everybody - is strangely quiet about getting a new extension signed into law.

Ok, so I'll give it a shot. I'm saying 50-50 that a new 2- or 3-year extension of the so-called Save Our Small and Seasonal Business Act will be passed. If so, it will almost certainly ride on the back of an appropriations bill. . .

The Act widens the pool of seasonal immigrant workers for U.S. employers by allowing workers who have received H2B visas any of the previous three years to get them again, which is a good thing for the landscape industry, which employs lots of cheap labor.

This past spring it seemed that anybody with a connection to the Act that Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D - MD) brought before Congress was chirping like crazy, either seeking industry support for the measure or, more accurately, positioning themselves (or their organization) as the Act's true champions.

Three groups are working for passage of the Act, but how cooperatively is anybody's guess in light of the ongoing silence - the Washington D.C.-area-based Don Mooers/Hank Lavery faction, the Federation of Employers and Workers of America (a non-profit that has as its president one of the biggest and most assuredly for-profit H2B labor processors in the business) and the Professional Landcare Network.

Assuming the Act finally passes, who will send out the news release claiming to be the industry's champion in assuring a continuing stream of guest workers? — Ron Hall

Lawn care's founder a woman?

Elizabeth Senske, 87, died last week. Who's Elizabeth Senske you ask? She, along with Bill her husband of 65 years, founded what may have been the first professional lawn spray company in the United States. In 1947, shortly afer moving to Spokane, WA, the couple began Senske Lawn & Tree Company.

In the 1950s she and Bill took the state pesticide licensing test and she became the first woman in the state to become a licensed applicator although, as it turned out, she never had the pleasure of treating a property. Bill handled those chores while she handled the shop — keeping the books, answering customers questions and staying in touch with Washington State University on technical matters and updates.

Several decades ago the couple sold the business to Chris, one of their five children. Chris Senske was an active board member of Professional Lawn Care Association of America (PLCAA) in the 1990s.

Hopefully the link for the informative article about Elizabeth Senske that appeared in the Spokane Review newspaper is still alive. Click on the headline for the article. — Ron Hall

It's time to cut the crap

Dog poop. I hate dog poop. I hate walking a dog - in this case my son's 14-year-old beagle, Sparky - and having to pick up its poop. My son Jason, who wouldn't part with Sparky for a new GMC pickup, is living in an apartrment while he works in our area this sxummer. The landlord doesn't allow pets in his apartment, so we agreed to board the dog until Jason and Sparky return to their Florida home in October.
Hurray up October!
It's not that the wife, Vicky, and I don't like Sparky, we do. He's a good dog, although outrageously lazy, sometimes grumpy and, given the opportunity, will do those gross things that dogs do. But we dread the walks with Sparky who, instead of doing his business, in an alley or at a vacant lot, can always be counted on to squat on a pristine lawn, either on a busy street corner or, worse yet, while the homeowners are dining or relaxing on their front porch.
Then it's time to whip out the BP, the term the wife now uses, thinking it sounds a lot nicer than poopy bag.
After much experimentation with different pickup techniques, I realized that simple is best when performing this task. So I use Kroger shopping bags for PBs, the plastic variety of course. They're small enough to stick in your pocket when you leave the house, and you can easily tie a knot in them once you've picked up the prize.
Well, not only do I hate picking the stuff up, I hate it when other people don't, which leads me the American Pet Products Association's claim that 40% of all dog owners do not pick up after them. And since there are 74 million dogs in the United States, that's a lot of crap, which is kind of scary. For example, the City of Austin Watershed Protection and Development Review says that about 1,327 lbs. of dog waste end up in its Town Lake watershed area every day.
OK, so where am I going with all of this?
Now, you can fight back and have some fun too. Check out the Web site www.CutTheCrap.com by clicking on the headline of this article and you'll see something that might make a great giveaway to those special customers whose properties get bombarded (you know what I mean) from time to time.

Turn down the flame . . . please

It's official. The average temperature for the continental United States from January through June 2006 was the warmest first half of any year since records betan in 1895, say scientists at NOAA's National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, NC. June was the second warmest on record.

The average Jun.-June temperature for the contilguuous United States was 51.8 F. or 3.4 F above the 20th century average. Five states (Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska and Missoouri) experienced record warmth for the period. No state was near, or cooler, than average.

NOAA also reports that in June, 45% of the contiguuous U.S. was in moderate-to-extreme drought.

For the record — today in Cleveland, OH, (where I am writing this) the temperature is expected to top 95 F., tomorrow 97 F. I can hardly wait to climb into my car this afternoon after it's been sitting on a bubbling blacktop driveway all day. — Ron Hall

The most dangerous thing of all

More than 40,000 people in the U.S. die annually as the result of automobile accidents, yet many us accept bad and aggressive driving like it's a God-given right to endanger not only ourselves but anybody unlikely enough to get in our way.

Traveling our highways is dangerous business for sure, but who would think that you could get run over while operating a riding mower?

Leonardo Torres, 37, a crew leader for EnviroScapes in Nashville, TN, was struck and killed while mowing the grounds at an apartment complex recently. The operator of the car, a 53-year-old female, suffered minor injuries and is suspected of driving while on medication, according to news reports.

Torres worked for the Nashville company for five years. He leaves behind a wife and four children. — Ron Hall

Hazards of landscaping — grenades, lightning

Along with the usual hazards of the job (heat, working with whirring blades and big equipment, low-hanging branches) comes the hazard of digging up a live gernade with the pin pulled. A 23-year-old landscaper, digging outside a building housing an architecture firm in Elm Grove, WI, turned up the gernade, which was buried under about three inches of dirt.

A munitions expert says the gernade was one made after the Vietnam War. A bomb squad took the gernade to a safe place and detonated it, according to reports.

And while we're on the subject of hazards, the Times Ledger newspaper in Queens, NY, reports that a 36-year-old landscaper was struck by lightning in Glen Oaks, NY, July 20 as he was getting off of his mower. Å witness said he was thrown three or four feet from the mower. The landscaper, badly injured and missing several fingers in the mishap, was rushed to a local hospital, the newspaper reports. — Ron Hall

Time to clone Fogarty?

This year's Renewal and Remembrance service project was huge, almost 300 volunteers working in Arlington National and Congressional Cemeteries in Washington D.C. Workers flooded in from just about every Green Industry service sector — landscapers, lawn care folks, irrigation pros, arborists., and lots of their family members, too. Every year more wives and sons and daughters show up to help out.

This was the 10th year for the event, sponsored by the Professional Landcare Network. The first year there were barely enough volunteers to make a softball team, but Phil Fogarty, the energetic lawn care company owner from Cleveland, OH, has never slowed down in his commitment to the one day event. I believe he's served as chairman/organizer of the event from the beginning.

This year the volunteers caught a break. The temperatures "only" climbed to the high 80s although there was plenty of humidity for everyone.

Apart from the usual equipment breakdowns (nothing major) and misplaced pallets of material, the work went smoothly.

Every year the volunteers take on more and more work at the cemeteries. This year, in addition to their usual tasks of liming and fertilizing the turfgrass, crews also braced and cabled some of the larger trees in the cemeteries and others planted what appeared to be 40 or 50 new trees donated by various suppliers and nurseries.

If the event gets any bigger, PLANET will have to clone Fogarty. It's going to take at least two of him to manage the big production.

One last comment, the presentation by ANLA's Bob Dolibois to get the workers in the right frame of mind before embarking on the day was pretty darn special. If I can get a copy from him I will post it here.  — Ron Hall

They want their MTV . . .erhh, make that pesticides

Now that Canada's Quebec Province has all but made the possession and use of lawn chemicals a capital offense (ok, so I'm exaggerating a bit), homeowners there have been heading to nearby Ontario Province to stock up on bug and weed killers. Government officials say there's no way to combat this heinous activity, and they're worried that stockpiles of what Quebec as has branded as lawn WMDs will fall into the hands of the wrong people — people that like attractive lawns and gardens. Now this is news —law-breaking lawn lovers are making desperate shopping forays into Ontario lawn & garden stores. — Ron Hall

Seed prices going up

If buy perennial ryegrass or turf-type tall fescue seed, expect to pay more this year, as much as 20% more for perennial rye and the price of tall fescue is expected to be about 15% higher. Demand for seed was high this past spring and this year's crops are average, reports TMI Times, the weekly newsletter coming from Turf Merchants in the heart if Oregon's seed production region in the Willamette Valley. — Ron Hall

Time to shrink your routes?

Bombs. Rockets. Air strikes. There's nothing more predictable than people killing each other in the Middle East. With the price of a barrel of crude oil topping $78 in reaction to the escalating violence, who isn't expecting the price of gasoline and diesel to break the $3-per-gallon barrier.

If you would have asked me a couple of years ago how Joe Citizen would react to $3 a gallon gasoline, I would have bet the farm they would have kicked up quite a huge fuss. . .then cut back on driving.

Wrong.

And wrong.

Even so, higher fuel costs are squeezing everybody, and the smart folks with lawn care and landscape maintenance businesses are weeding out unprofitable clients, including those that require too much drive time to service.

Brian Leu, who runs Perfection Lawn Management, near Wichita, KS, says it costs him $115 every two days to fuel his truck and mower. He has 30 clients but says he's shrinking his routes to stay profitable.

Read more about Brian by clicking on the headline above. -- Ron Hall

The LM 100 — Tell us what you really think

We get so many phone calls and e-mails about our annual LM 100 list. Some are good, some are bad and some are downright ugly. Seems there are some sharp opinions out there about the benchmarks that make a company a "good" company. We're not taking sides. Trust us, we know first hand that revenue is not the only indicator of a good company, and that plenty of giant companies aren't great, while plenty of smaller companies could use a boost.

But our list is popular. We get more positive comments than negative ones, which is a good message to us that the list needs to be here. But smaller companies, keep an eye on LM's pages: We've got lots of special articles planned just for you.

In the meantime, check out this year's list at www.landscapemanagement.net and let us know your side of the matter by posting a comment here on our blog.
--Stephanie Ricca

Landscaper says "yabba dabba do"

Carey Dix, owner of Dix Landscaping, Jupiter, FL, was reunited with his 10-foot statue of Yogi Bear this past week. It seems that someone "borrowed" Yogi for a beer party on a nearby sandbar over the July 4th holiday weekend. Yogi, who had standing outside Dix's business with a "Welcome to Jupiter" sign in one hand and an American flag in the other, mysteriously turned up at a local marina a week after he disappeared.

The returning Yogi sported a couple of new holes and contained six empty beer bottles., reported a local newspaper. — Ron Hall

Some good press for David J. Frank

David J. Frank jumped into the Green Industry as a 10-year-old with a gardening service on the east side of Milwaukee. In 1973 he moved his operation a short drive west to Germantown where property was less expensive. Good move David Frank. Thirty three years later he's running a $25 million landscape company and developing a 140-acre parcel of land in Washington County, WI. A plant nursery takes up 110 acres, and he's also putting up a new 12,000 sq. ft. storage facility and a 2,000 sq. ft. carpentry shop.

Frank says he's been successful because of the great people that stayed with his operation.

Greater Milwaukee Today picked up a nice article about Frank that appeared in the West Bend Daily newspaper on July 6. Click on the headline to read the article or you cut and paste the following Web site for the same article. Whichever is easier for you. http://www.gmtoday.com/news/local_stories/2006/July_06/07062006_12.asp. — Ron Hall

Post 4th exciting news

The fireworks are over, the barbeque grill is getting a much needed rest and the recycle container is filled with beer bottles (empty of course).

Here's some news that will keep the July 4th weekend excitement going.

(OK, maybe that's a bit over the top. But maybe you can use this next bit of information to win a bar bet, assuming the guy on the stool next to yours doesn't punch you in the eye for being a wise guy or something.)

Did you know that Minnesota is the fourth leading producer of turfgrass seed. The State has its own "grass belt" that extends across two counties — Lake of the Woods and Roseau. Minnesota's 22,000 acres produced 5.4 million lbs. of Kentucky bluegrass seed in 2002. In recent years farmers have increased production of perennial ryegrass seed, as well.

Only the states of Washington, Oregon and Idaho produce for seed, reported the Duluth Superior News.

See what you miss when you ignore this blog. — Ron Hall

Hey, what's up with Mikulski's amendment?

Please, somebody speak up and let us know what's going on with the 3-year extension to the Save Our Small and Seasonal Businesses Act.

U.S. Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) introduced the extension to Congress this past February and everybody got excited. In fact, many of us drafted letters and sent emails to Washington D.C., as the Senate yammered about immigration reform through most of April.

The extension, as far as we can determine, remains a part of the Senate's version of the immigration reform bill, which is about as likely as get through the House and approved as I am of winning the Mega Millions lottery.

Mikulski, indeed the entire group that was pushing for the extension that would allow returning H-2B workers not to be counted against the annual cap of 66,000 visas, is too quiet on the issue. I guess they're figuring everybody in the landscape business is too busy right now to notice.

Hey folks, if something doesn't happen with Mikulski's extension (the act she sponsored several years ago to expand the number of H-2 workers expires Sept. 30), a lot of landscape company owners are going to be SOL come next spring.

Somebody speak up and tell us everything is cool with the extension and that you've got a plan and that something is going to happen with it before Sept. 30. Why so mum? — Ron Hall

GIE-OPEI Trade Show merger a done deal

This year's Green Industry Expo, the landscape trade show founded in 1990, will be the last GIE. At least as we've come to know it over the past 16 years. The GIE started as a collaborative effort among three, and then two associations - the Professional Grounds Management Society (PGMS), the Professional Lawn Care Network (PLCAA) and the Associated Landscape Contractors of America (ALCA). PLCAA and ALCA merged in 2005 to form the Professional Landcare Network (PLANET).

The legacy associations built their educational programs around the trade show.

This year's GIE will be held in Columbus, OH, the first week of November. The Outdoor Power Equipment Institute's EXPO, an annual event in Louisville, KY, takes place a month earlier.

We reported in October '05 that folks from PGMS and PLANET were strolling the show floor and outdoor exhibits at the OPEI Expo 2005, mostly an equipment trade show. It was the first time most of them had ever set foot at the Expo. They were scoping out an impending marriage.

While the GIE has always been touted as "the national" trade show for the Green Industry, it rarely strayed west of St. Louis. Other factors that made the decision easier to make were the expanded and renovated facilities at the Louisville Convention Center and the huge outdoor demo area at the Center. Two years ago the OPEI moved the date of its Expo from the blistering heat and humidity of July to October, just a couple of weeks earlier than the GIE.

The EXPO has, for all of its 24-year history, been a dealer show and an iron show.

It will be interesting to see how the major suppliers of chemical products -fertilizers, pest controls, etc. - embrace the merged trade show in L'ville. - Ron Hall

Talk about a hot foot

Some of the methods that Mark Hecker used to kill weeds at the pesticide-free park in Lawrence, KS, have included a machine known as a Flamer that burns weeds in the cracks of sidewalks and a horticultural vinegar. The Flamer discolored the concrete, which stayed hot for another 15 or so minutes. The vinegar killed the tops of the weeds, but they returned in a couple of weeks, he said.

Hecker, the parks and recreation superintendent there, says you don't need pesticides to maintain a nice, green city park — not if you can muster a lot of old-fashioned elbow grease. Hecker's department has been maintaining one of the city's nicer parks without pesticides thanks to a lot of hand-weeding by employees and park volunteers.

It's not likely the program will expand much unless a lot more volunteers step forward, though.

"With just doing the one park, it hasn't been that difficult to juggle our staff around and get done what we need to do," he was quoted in the local newspaper. "But it would be a much bigger concern if you did it systemwide."

In this case that would mean 52 city parks, requiring perhaps hiring four additional crews of three people each. The crews would also need trucks and equipment. And, of course, there's the matter of weed control in 200 landscaped flower beds located in parks throughout the city.

At least from this corner it would seem that the parks budget AND the environment come out losers if the city implimented a pesticide-free approach in all of its parks. In other words — more workers, more trucks, more energy used, more vehicle emissions, etc.

Click on the headline or visit for the article in the Lawrence Journal-World at http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2006/jun/18/pesticidefree_park_difficult_doable/?city_local. — Ron Hall

Big Box mishandles pesticides; pays big fine

The Home Depot will pay a $425,000 fine and is changing the way it handles pesticides and fertilizers after being cited by the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection, reported the Hartford Courant newspaper. The penalty includes a civil penalty of $99,000 and $326,000 that will go to a fund to educate other retailers in Connecticut about the proper handling and storage of hazardous materials.

The home retailing giant says it's changing the way it handles pesticides and fertilizers. To find out more, click on the headline of this article or visit the Courant's Web site at www.courant.com/business/hc-depot0615.artjun15,0,118447.story?coll=hc-headlines-business. — Ron Hall

A really nice gesture

The Airforce Times magazine carried a recent article about Project Evergreen's "GreenCare for Troops — Serving You While You Serve Us" program, which began May 22. In the program, lawn care companies provide free services to families of service members who deploy to the Middle East.

Katherine Brandenburg of Swanson Russell in Lincoln, NB, has been doing a great job of getting the word out. Nice going Katherine.

More than 1,000 lawn care companies signed up within the first month. (That number reflects branch locations of national companies, too.) So far about 100 families are taking advantage of the offer. You can bet the number will grow as word gets out. The magazine provided a link to the Project Evergreen Web site — www.projectevergreen — where companies and families can sign up. — Ron Hall

O.J. and seed field days

Can it be 12 years and a day since the bodies of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman were found in the courtyard of Nicole's condo in Brentwood. The murders initiated one of the most bizarre chapters in U.S. legal history, the O.J. Simpson trial.

It doesn't seem that long ago (6/17/94 to be exact) that colleague Bob Mierow and I were driving down I-5 in Oregon on our way to turfgrass field trials when the radio in Bob's old Volvo crackled with a second-by-second account of O.J., in a Ford Bronco driven by friend A.C. Cowlings, being tailed by dozens of police. The chase that unfolded in slow motion and ended in O.J.'s arrest, even to this day seems almost surreal.

I recall that afternoon, and watching the entire episode rebroadcast on network television later that evening, whenever the turfseed companies in the Pacific Northwest invite us for a June visit.

If you're interested in refreshing your memory of that strange O.J. experience, visit http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/Simpson/Simpsonchron.html or click on the headline above. — Ron Hall

Wow, this is brazen

Even with security at maximum level because of a visit by President Bush earlier this week, someone drove off with landscaper Lee Helmberger's pickup and trailer, which contained three mowers and other maintenance equipment. And they did it in broad daylight, reports the the Omaha, NB, NBC affiliate, Channel 6.

Helmberger told Channel 6 that he parked the truck and trailer at the Lewis & Clark Landing at the riverfront and when he returned they were gone. He says they were taken between 1 p.m. and 2:30 p.m. at a time when the area that was being patrolled by Secret Service and police preparing for George W.'s arrival. — Ron Hall

Florida city 'certifying' lawn service companies

Environmental stewardship is becoming a huge issue in the landscape industry. It will grow. All of us are going to have to realize this. Yes, I know that what we do enhances the urban environments that receive our services. But we live within a bigger world than just the lawns we treat or the properties we mow. That's the one we must protect (and be recognized for protecting) while we provide our services.

With that said . . . the Florida Gulf Coast city of Naples passed a law Wednesday, June 7. The council there agreed that all professional landscape companies providing services within city limits there to have at least one supervisor and at least 10 percent of their workers certified by the city by Sept. 30, 2007. The measure also requires companies that work as contractors for the city certify at least 10 percent of their workers within six months of entering into a contract with Naples, and certify at least 50 percent of their workers within a year of that date, reports the Naples Daily News newspaper.

Six hours of study on a range of subjects, including the effect of chemicals in the environment, proper plant selection, etc. will be required to earn a city certification, which can be renewed annually by taking more courses, says the newspaper.

The purpose of the law is to reduce the amount of pesticides and fertilizers that end up in ditches and canals that flow into Naples Bay and into the Gulf of Mexico.

This program sounds reasonable even with the modest administrative fee attached to it.

To see the Naples Daily News article visit http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2006/jun/08/naples_now_requires_landscapers_be_certified/?local_news — Ron Hall

It's been dry in merry old England

One government agency in England recently said that, per head, there is more water in some parts of Sudan than there is in London. Parts of England are suffering through their driest 18 months in a 70-year spell. Water restrictions have popped up all over the country, with many gardeners forbidden from turning on their garden hoses, a huge inconvenience for flower-loving Brits.

Not all the news resulting from the drought bad, however. Sales of drought-tolerant plants and rain catchment systems are brisk. And well drillers are as busy as they want to be.

The last time it was this dry for this long in England was 1932-1934, but the island nation didn't get much rain in 1976 either, reported The Christian Science Monitor in a recent article. — Ron Hall

Just how many would show up?

Some big numbers are being thrown around about how many legal immigrants might be coming to the United States and becoming red-blooded Americans (just like the rest of us) if the Senate's immigration bill (S. 2611) becomes law.

Robert Rector, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, says that if the bill became law we could expect 50 to 60 million new legal immigrants to the United States over the next 20 years. He says if the bill hadn't been amended in its final hours of debate as many as 103 million could have been allowed.

There are too many "ifs" in this equation to start counting now though.

Chances that the House, which has a bill of its own, will adopt the "guest worker" provisions in the Senate bill are less than slim. But something's going to happen in regards to immigration reform someday; you can bet on that. But it will be after the midterm elections. This Congress isn't going to do a darn thing that might rile constituents until after the dust of the election clears.

Meanwhile, members of the Utah National Guard, on George W.'s orders, headed to the U.S. Mexican border to start building fences, installing lights and whatever else is necessary to keep illegals from heading into the desert on their way to U.S. jobs and earning Yankee dollars. Today, the temperature is expected to be between 105 and 110 degrees F. in the southern Arizona desert. — Ron Hall

Vicious baby groundhog attacks landscaper

An English springer spaniel named Wanda saved a female landscaper from a painful ordeal the last week of May. According to a report in the Weston Forum (CT) newspaper, the landscaper (unnamed in the article) was working in the backyard of a client's property when she felt scratching on the back of one of her pant legs. Looking down she saw an immature groundhog clinging to and trying to nibble on her leg. The landscaper screamed and Wanda, napping nearby, sprang up, leaped on the woodchuck and shook it to death.

Tests confirmed the groundhog had rabbies. The landscaper got a rabies booster shot and Wanda was confined to the family home for 45 days to make sure she hadn't contracted the disease in her defense of the landscaper.

Read all the gory details at www.acorn-online.com/news/publish/article_6998.shtml, — Ron Hall

Got a job you wouldn't do?

In a refreshingly lighthearted look at the current comprehensive immigration reform debate, Santa Monica Mirror writer Steve Stajich writes a column this week on "Jobs This American Won't Do." It's funny, not political, and it'll make you mentally create your own list of "thanks, but no thanks" jobs. Mashed potato scooper? Thanks, but uh ... no.

Check it out here, from the Santa Monica Mirror, May 25-31, 2006, edition.

--Stephanie Ricca, managing editor

Tragedy shows even long-timers need safety reminders

Two recent incidents involving landscape workers underscore the continuing need for safety reminders. This is true even among veteran landscapers.

Jesus Samaguey, 55, died when the mower he was operating in Dublin, CA, started sliding on wet grass on a steep incline and turned over on him just before noon May 17. The incident is under investigation by California Division of Occupational Safety and Health.

In Riverdale, NJ, Joseph Schwarz, miraculously survived after being jolted and receiving burns to his head, hands and stomach after coming in contact with a power line. Schwartz, an experienced arborist, was in an elevated bucket trimming branches when the top of his head struck the power line. Witnesses said they saw three flashes of electricity pass through his body before Schwarz slumped over unconscious in the bucket, according reports in the local press. — Ron Hall

We're not there yet but . . .

We have the means to reduce illegal immigration using technology. Already some folks are talking about bio-metric identification cards. There are even more sophisticated ways to track things, including people.

Radio-frequency identification (RFID) is here. Most of us don't know much about it. As we learn more about it we will be astonished and, perhaps, frightened by the many ways it will be used.

RFID tags consist of a flat antenna and an embedded chip that can be as small as a grain of sand. The tags work in conjunction with a reader that emits radio waves as it searches for tags. Once the tag is within reading distance (it varies but can be as far away as 40 feet or more), it picks up the unique information on the tag.

The technology is, in a sense, this generation’s version of a bar code, but more sophisticated and intrusive. And with the ability to deliver a lot more unique information.

To date, RFID is tracking pallets of goods as they’re shipped around the world, and even individual items within retail stores. But the technology is not confined to hard goods. Club goers in some European cities are embracing subcutaneous chips, which allow them to party to their hearts’ content without the need of carrying a wallet or purse. Apparently their identification, which is matched to the club record of their credit card informaiton, can be pulled from the chip. Pets are getting the chip too. If Fido wanders off, all a dog warden has to do is pass a reader over him to find out where he belongs.

Is implanting humans with RFID— guest workers, tourists, felons, sex offenders, whatever — a good idea? The idea scares me to death. But the technology to track people is here . . . and you can bet somebody somewhere is considering implementing it in some form. — Ron Hall

Why all the crime?

You've heard me mention Google alerts before: The system at google.com where you can set up news alerts on specific topics to be delivered to your e-mail inbox every day. One of my key words is "landscaper" and in the last few weeks, every Google alert for that topic has returned a list of headlines from news sources all over the country large and small linking landscapers with one crime after another: petty theft, welching out of contracts, you name it.

"News" often means "bad news," and we hear a lot about why mainstream TV news shows don't play enough of the good news. Is this a similar situation? I can count on one hand the number of "good" landscaper stories that have come across my Google alert wire in the past few weeks. Makes me think that it wouldn't hurt to spend a little time spreading the good news about your own company in your local papers.
--Stephanie Ricca

Goofy journalism — you be the judge

This morning's Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper carried a front page article with these "facts" (among others) regarding lawn care.

7 million — approximate number of birds that die each year as a result of lawn-care pesticides

17 million — gallons of gasoline spilled by Americans every summer in the process of refueling their lawn mowers, leaf blowers and other gardening equipment, "or about 50 percent more oil than marred the Alaskan coast during the notorious Exxon Valdez disaster."

Who actually goes out and counts dead birds and then figures out what kills them? As for the number of gallons of gasoline being spilled, who's wasting gasoline at today's prices? This newspaper article reads like something you would see on a tabloid as you're waiting to pay for your bread and milk at the grocery checkout.

The reporter Michael K. McIntyre culled the "facts" came from a recent book by a Ted Steinberg, an environmental historian at Case Western Reserve University here in Cleveland. Steinberg's been getting a lot of positive press with his book that bashes America's so-called "obsession" with lawns.

Don't know what it is about a pretty green lawn that sets some people off. Criticizing and condemning lawns and lawn care seems to have become an obsession with them. — Ron Hall

TruGreen invades the UK

TruGreen is now in UK in a big way with 60 lawn care franchises and many more on the way. There are an estimated 20 million gardens in the UK, but lawns there are much smaller than lawns in the United States. The TG franchise owners use small vans to deliver their lawn care services. The model for the franchise owners is to move from owner/operator to four or five service delivery techs and vans. TruGreen, a division of ServiceMaster, began selling lawn care franchises in the UK in 2003, and is making eager lawn pros from many different backgrounds. They pay about 25,000 pounds (which is about $50,000 or $55,000 U.S. dollars I think) to get their franchise and training.

Another big lawn care franchise operation in the UK is a company called Green Thumb. I'll fill you in about them as I find out more. — Ron Hall

Stupid mower tricks

About 80,000 people suffer lawn mower-related injuries annually in the United States. The most common types are objects being flung out by the blades and stiking somebody, serious cuts, sliced off toes, etc.

A buddy of mine, back about 15 years ago, while maintaining an apartment complex, backed a riding mower over his two-year-old son. I read a nice article about the kid a few years ago when he was a high schooler, how he had discarded his prosthetic leg and become a pretty good interscholastic swimmer. No kidding. Bet he would have been a lot better swimmer had his dad been more careful.

I can't tell you how often I see dads mowing their lawns with a tiny junior or sis on their laps. Makes me shiver to think about what could happen. Also reminds me when I allowed my three-year-old son to climb aboard the new pony my dad, his grandfather, had just gotten him. Whammo, off it went, right into a busy street with my son clinging to its back.

What was I thinking?

That's the point — I wasn't thinking. This brings me to a recent article in the local newspaper about another braniac on a mower. It seems a guy in small Vermilion, OH, after having a few too many beers, hopped aboard his landlord's riding mower and headed to the drugstore about a mile away. When the police nabbed him and charged him with OVI, operating a vehicle under the influence, he responded: "If I knew that was the law, I would have walked."

Judges in Ohio interpret the word "vehicle" to mean just about anything with wheels on it, including roller blades and skateboards.

But even if you didn't have a beer buzz on, isn't a riding mower a strange way to get to a drug store? The pros know that a mower is a money-making tool and not a toy or a vehicle, but even they sometimes get careless. When they do, sometimes they pay dearly. — Ron Hall

We didn't make this up

The folks in London, Ontario, Canada, have been in a furious debate concening the use of lawn care chemicals. Some people want to ban their use and many people do not. Caught in the middle is the city council. This same scenario has played ou all over Canada these past few years and just when you thought you had heard about every reason there could be for banning lawn care chemicals somebody comes up with another.

Louis Guillette, a zoologist and an associate dean at the University of Florida, said that he wouldn't use pesticides on his lawn because studies have shown that animals, including humans, suffer unwanted affects to their reproductive organs when exposed to environmental contaminants such as pesticides. One of the affects is decreased penis size. Guillette made this and more detailed comments on the subject during a recent speaking engaggement at the University of Western Ontario, which is in London. — Ron Hall

Check it out: "Pesticides may affect penis size," The London Free Press, April 29, 2006

Hillary our next Prez?

Just got back from an event in Washington D.C. sponsored by BASF The Chemical Company. A nice affair that featured Charlie Cook, editor and publisher of "The Cook Political Report" as a dinner speaker. Charlie's as quick as a whip and he gets a devilish delight in reporting on the whispers in the corridors and the backroom plotting in our nation's capital. With his cherubic animated face and his middle-age spread putting a decided southern dip in his beltline, he's a sight to behold when he gets on a roll, pulling out papers left and right and referring to this poll and that survey and whatever else he can pluck out of the swirling, ever-changing D.C. scene.

But enough of this, here's what he had to say about the mid-term congressional elections that approach:

The "Macro View" is that the Democrats could pull a "'94 Gingrich" loooking atthe President's pathetic popularity rating and the public's general dissatisfaction with a lot of things, from the Iraq war to the price of gasoline.

The "Micro View" is that to gain a majority in either the Senate of the House, the Democrats are going to have to "run the table" on the five or six vulnerable Republicans up for re-election and the several dozen Republican House members that want to keep getting their great government perks.

In other words, as Charlie says, "I have no idea."

Now for Hillary. Yes, she's the most recognizable Democrat on the national statge right now and the only other Democrats mentioned as serious candidates are Kerry and Gore. "Been there, done that, got the tee-shirt," says Charlie
But it's a long way until 2008.

As for the Republicans, John McCain looks like the frontrunner but by 2009 he will be 72 years old. Condi Rice, somebody asked? Nope, says Charlie, she says she will NOT run. In any event, it will be a hard row to hoe for any RRepublican candidate in light of President Bush's falling approval ratings and the fact that it's mightly tough for the same party to win a presidential election after holding the presidency for two terms. Only been done once in the 50-plus years since WWII, says Charlie.

Those pesky pesky pesticides

Here's a news flash that both stuns and enlightens — Chemists at the Colorado School of Mines recently announced that they discovered pesticides in tobacco smoke. Apparently the pesticides got there because farmers use them to grow tobacco. The big news, at least from the chemists' point of view is that this is the first time they have been detected in tobacco smoke. They used electron monochromator mass spectrometry to discover trace amounts of flumetralin, endocrine, pendimethalin and trifluralin.

There you go. If you needed another reason to quit smoking, apart from lung cancer or heart disease that is, now you've got it.

Or, as Rose Annadanna says. . . "if it ain't one thing, it's another." (gosh, I thought Gilda Radner was swell) — Ron Hall

This book means 'business'

“Business Principles of Landscape Contracting” is a practical book on the “business” of running a landscape company. It's a "must have" for young managers or owners that are relatively new to running their own show since its focus is on business and systems and not on the technical details of how to install or maintain landscapes. Author Dr. Steven M. Cohan delivers business principles and examples in an easy to comprehend style, and shares the credit for the much of the information with fellow academics and successful landscape professionals who contributed case studies and reviewed drafts of the work.

Cohan is on the faculty of the University of Maryland’s Natural Resource Sciences and Landscape Architecture Department and uses this book, a text, to help prepare his students for the real world of landscape contracting. Why should they have this book all to themselves? It has too much practical information to keep in a classroom.

This book published by Pearson Prentice Hall, is available from the Professional Landcare Network (PLANET) Web site www.landcarenetwork.org. Click on the bookstore and type in the title. Cost is $85 for PLANET members and $100 for non-members. — Ron Hall

Unionized guest workers? You betcha!

Global Horizons, a big labor recruiter based in Los Angeles, signed an agreement with the United Farm Workers of America to improve wages, benefits and working conditions for the H-2A seasonal ag guest workers it brings into the United States. This is believed to be the first agreement of its kind involving a guest worker program. There are important differences between the H-2A (ag) and H-2B (seasonal non-ag labor) guest workers programs, but the significance of the agreement shouldn't be lost on non-ag labor recruiters or the contractors that use their services. Click on the headline above and read more about the Global Horizons deal. Or check out the AP article in a Houston newspaper at http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/3787117.html — Ron Hall

Fake grass has fascinating history

Remember AstroTurf? Of course, you do. In fact, the trade name became so well known that an entire generation used it to describe synthetic turf in general. Well AstroTurf is back. In fact, it probably never went away but you don't hear it mentioned often because of the more aggressive marketing by other synthetic turf providers.

That said, check out the following Web site to get the fascinating history of this product. http://www.astroturf.com/history.htm. — Ron Hall

I wonder what would happen if . . .

I wonder what would happen if I sneaked into, say, southern France (I've heard that's a swell place to live) and I started marching around the streets, waving an American flag and demanding that the government there not only allow me to stay, but provide me with health care and other social services but in a language that I can understand, English, not French?

What do you think? — Ron Hall

U.S., Mexico, Canada — one big country?

Ultra-conservative Joseph Farah, founder and editor WorldNetDaily, claims there are 20 to 30 million "illegals" in the United States and that the Council on Foreign Relations has a plan to merge the United States, Mexico and Canada within the decade. He says President Bush's efforts to get a Guest Worker program in place are steps in this direction. He says a lot of the immigration fuss, including the big pro-immigrant marches and demonstrations that coincided with the recent Senate debate on immigration reform are being set up by "globalists". Sounds nutty but here's the link anyway. http://mediamatters.org/items/. — Ron Hall

OK, here's the deal with immigration reform

How did things get so out of control with this immigration mess? It didn't happen overnight that's for sure. It didn't happen by accident either. It happened for a reason. Or maybe many reasons, most of them being political and economic.

So, what do do? Actually, the better question is what CAN we do? Realistically that is.

Sending all the illegals back to where they came from is nonsensical. It can't be done. No reason to bicker about this. They're here, and they're going to stay here. The only option that makes sense is to allow them to blend into society.

Strengthen the borders? That's a no-brainer too. Nations have borders and they have laws. They have to enforce both. Simple.

Expand and maintain guest worker programs? Wish we didn't need them, but we do. We need the high-tech brain power that's coming from places like India's incredible technical schools and we need the manpower from Mexico and Central American ranchos.

Monitor these programs closely and penalize employers who break the law, especially in regards to hiring illegals? You bet. Once we get workable guest worker programs that require foreigners to return to their home countries and families, there's no reason to hire illegals. — Ron Hall

Immigration not just a landscapers' issue

If you haven't seen it yet, this week's edition of the satirical news Web site The Onion had its own take on the national immigration debate taking place. — Mike Seuffert

Home gardening interest falling

The National Gardening Association has been tracking the lawn and garden market for more than 25 years, and is not happy with the trends it's seen lately. The garden business has essentially stalled over the last two years.

The NGA says that three of four households in the United States (80 million households) have participated in one or more types of indoor and outdoor do-it-yourself lawn and garden activities annually for the last five years, that number has shown a decline in two of the last three years. Fewer than half of all households (48%) did their own lawn care last year, and even fewer have a flower garden (36%) or a vegetable garden (22%). Those are the lowest numbers the NGA has seen in the last five years. It seems that for most people today, if an activity doesn’t come with a remote control or a keyboard, they’re not really interested, said the NGA.

Three years ago sales for all types of lawn and garden products – green goods, including plants or trees, shrubs, seeds, and bulbs; hard goods lines such as outdoor power equipment and tools; bagged goods like fertilizer and soils; and lawn and garden packaged goods – totaled $39.6 billion. Last year sales for these same lawn and garden product categories totaled $36.8 billion. That’s a decrease of only 7%, but it’s happened during the hottest housing market the country has seen in more than a decade. You would think that lawn and garden sales would benefit from the recent real estate boom, but they haven’t. About 80% of households in the United States are single-family homes with a yard, and for most people their home is their single largest investment. It seems odd that, on an annual basis, most people spend far more than twice as much on gasoline than they do to maintain their quality of life at home and improve their real estate equity by investing in their lawns and landscapes.

Most people spend less than 1% of their annual household income each year on their lawns and gardens. Last year the nationwide average spent on lawn and garden activities was $449, which was down from $457 the previous year and $466 the year before that. Whether your annual household income is $50,000 (which is about the median household income in the United States) or $100,000, almost no one in this country spends more than 1% of their annual income on their lawns and gardens.

The National Gardening Association is an organization dedicated to building and strengthening the connection between people, plants, and the environment. In a nutshell, we are about changing peoples’ attitudes toward gardening. Much of our work is focused on helping children experience gardening as an enjoyable, hands-on learning medium; a key element for health and wellness; and a fun and rewarding activity, among other benefits. An argument could be made that the downward trend in the lawn and garden industry is a reflection of the growing gap in the people-plant connection.

To learn more about the NGA visit the Web site http://assoc.garden.org/.

Control the border, pay more?

"People have dual interests," says Jared Bernstein, an economist speaking about the immigration reform debate now before Congress. "Ask them, do you want your lawn to be mowed as cheaply as possible? They'll say yes. Ask if they want to control the border. They'll say yes. Ask them if controlling the borders means they're willing to pay more for lawn care, they'll say how much? And that's what we're going to find out."

So it's not your job. So what!

The other day as I'm getting on the bus at the Park & Ride and hoping like all get out that nobody gets on the back seat so that I can take a nap on the way to the office (more room back there) I look over at the nice motels across the way from the bus stop and see a landscape crew getting ready to get it going. There's four or five workmen and a guy walking around looking at the tree islands (I'm thinking crew leader), and there's a pile of dark mulch (must have been four feet high) and a mini loader on a trailer. These guys are ready to go. It's a beautiful morning. Life is as it should be.

Coming back on the bus to the Park & Ride late that afternoon (oh yea, nice nap on the way back) I see a much smaller pile of mulch and every tree has a nice fresh ring of mulch around it. But, what's this? Paper wrappers, soda cans and a couple of plastic bags laying in a small ditch just a step or two from the trees.

Hey guys, pick up the debris. I know that's not your job, but your work sure would look a lot nicer if you took a minute or two to police the area when you finished with the day's mulching. Think about it. Wouldn't the maintenance guy at the motels put in a nice word for you if you gave him a little love by picking up the crap. Who cares who left it around your job site? — Ron Hall

Fuel costs squeezing us real bad

There's only one law that can never be broken, other than by silly government intervention that is. And that law is the law of supply and demand. It's so simple to understand, so vital to our capitalistic system and now so painful as gasoline prices bumped up over $2.75 a gallon today.

Friends, can $3-a-gallon gasoline be far behind? I think not. The summer driving season will soon be upon us and the oil companies are rubbing their hands in gleeful anticipation.

Higher fuel prices mean that everything that's manufactured or moved will cost more. In other words, EVERYTHING will cost more. Our surveys have told us that fuel costs of landscape and lawn service companies make up a relatively small percentage of their total costs. But with gasoline and diesel selling for more than double their prices just a few short years ago, fuel costs are definitely going to chew into that bottom line for companies that, for whatever reason can't or won't, raise their prices or find a way to deliver more revenue-producing service or product at each stop.

Keep following this blog — we're going to find out what you folks are doing about these high fuel costs. — Ron Hall

Hey Mr. Lawn Historian, lighten' up

A friend forwarded me a news release announcing the publication of a new book by Ted Steinberg, an historian at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH. The name of the book is "American Green: The Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Lawn." Mr. Steinberg is not a big fan of lawn care. Let me repeat that. Mr. Steinberg is not a big fan of lawn care.

In the book Steinberg takes aim at lawn care for polluting the atmosphere (lawn mower emissions), alienating people from their own yards and (never heard this one before) becoming a symbol of Cold War anti-communist sentiments. Now really, doesn't that seem like a bit of a stretch? — Ron Hall

Quit your peeing and moaning

Spent a couple of days in Monterrey, Mexico, a week ago and you won't hear any whining about work from this corner, not as long as the memories of what I saw there remain strong. And what I saw were hundreds of Mexican workers lining up at the U.S. consulate there, waiting and hoping to get visas to work in the United States. Hey friends, people from elsewhere in the world, and especially Latin America, are leaving family and friends to get a crack at $8-an-hour jobs.

OK, so who can live in the United States with an $8-an-hour job? Not many of us, that's for sure. But a day doesn't go by that I don't see some young fellow on a street corner with a cup in his hand panhandling passerbys. Then again, maybe he's making more than $8 an hour with that cup in his hand. Who knows?

I read somewhere that successful people get to be successful by doing jobs that other people don't want to do, which reminds me of the Roto Rooter guy in our town. He's one of the happiest and most pleasant people I know, and he's a hard worker too. We all have to be more like the Roto Rooter guy, meaning we better be get down and dig into our jobs (no pun intended) and quit our peeing and moaning about how tough we've got it. — Ron Hall

Pesticides in streams all the rage

The U.S. Geological Survey released a study this past Friday saying that pesticides have been found in almost all the nation's rivers and streams, and newspapers from coast to coast have been reporting like it's a big deal. It's not. But you wouldn't know it from the headlines. Here's a couple.

"Pesticides permeate U.S. waters" — Newark (NJ) Star Ledger (permeate?)

"Pesticides foul U.S. streams, fish" — The State, Columbia, SC

"Most U.S. rivers polluted by pesticides" — Xinhua, China (no kidding)

Yes, pesticides were found in U.S. streams and rivers, but not in concentrations likely to affect people or affect drinking water supplies. The USGS report makes that very clear.

I'm not big fan of pesticides and I wish we didn't have to rely upon them so much for our food and fiber. But with 6 billion people on this planet and another couple of billion more added to the total within the decade, we'll have to rely more and more upon chemistry and bioengineering to keep everyone fed.  — Ron Hall

Here's more powerful ammo for you

We all know that well-designed, well-maintained landscapes provide incredible paybacks to property owners in lots of different ways. Or we think we know that. Or we give the impression that we know that. Or, at least that's what we tell ourselves and our customers.

. . . But do we really know that?

A sharp guy by the name of Timothee Sallin, who works in his family's big Cherry Lake Tree Farm in Florida, has gathered a lot of the studies that show the real value of good landscaping and he put them on a Web site. If you want some positive data on what good landscapes mean for property owners and communities (or if you have information or data to share with him), check out www.magicoflandscaping.com. — Ron Hall

Want a great turf talking point? Go here!

If you're in the lawn care business, you gotta check out the following URL. It is DYE-NO-MITE information!

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Study/Lawn/printall.php

You can thank me later. — Ron Hall

Fee, Fi, Foe . . . Dumb

Here's a doozie. Tell me what you think.

The city of Lake Forest, IL, recently came up with the idea of charging fees to all landscapers that work in the city — $600 for a Class 3 license, $300 for a Class 2 license and $200 for a Class 1 license. Apparently the weight of the vehicles the landscaper uses in his trade determines which class the landscaper falls into. But that's not all. Landscapers would also have to pay per vehicle. You guessed it, the same goofy weight thing — $3,000 per Class 3 vehicle, $2,000 per Class 2 license and $1,000 per Class 1 license.

The reason for the fees? The city says it wants to protect residents against dirtball landscapers. Well, that's laudable.

At a public hearing on the proposed ordinance in late February, the Pioneer Press newspaper reported that about 50 landscapers showed up. They reportedly didn't squawk so much concerning the fee part of the legislation — it was the amount!

Judging by the reception this money grab got, it's not likely that it will see the light of day.

— Ron Hall

. . .and while we're in Florida

I saw the following scenario play out years earlier in Southern California. A lot of the people that work there, especially people working in low-paying service industry jobs, can't afford to live there. Many employers, including landscape company owners, count on their south-of-the-border workers to serve their customers. These workers (yes, they're legal) leave their homes at a ridiculously early hour, say 4 a.m, so they can get through customs and arrive at the job at a reasonable hour.

Now the same thing is happening in south Florida, in particular the Keys and in Collier County in the southwest corner of the state. In the Keys where the supply of housing is finite and demand is incredibly high, prices for property have gone through the roof. Hourly workers commute as much as 3 hours a day (one way) to get to their jobs. A similar labor situation is developing in Florida's southwest Gulf Coast, although not as dramatically.

Naples, once a quaint little town on the edge of the Everglades is now boomtown, albiet still with a lot of charm. Ft. Myers, Bonita Springs, that whole area is going real estate nuts. Even Immokolee where lots of the workers live is in for a big housing shock when a new college is finished near there.

Adios, little mom-and-pop motels and trailer parks. Hola, condos, gated communities and mega mansions.

Some folks are predicting that housing prices in south Florida will plateau or even fall, but don't count on it. Not even hurricanes — a not uncommon occurance in these parts — can discourage new buyers. Every week Baby Boomers with cash from selling their homes up north swallow up mortgages big enough to choke a mule, apparently figuring the kids can do quite well without an inheritance.

(Why or why didn't I pull the trigger on that neat 3-bedroom ranch on the canal in Cape Coral five years ago?) — Ron Hall

Tall grass means big, big fine

A guy in the south Florida village of Wellington got hammered with a $6,500 fine for letting the grass in a lot he owns grow too tall. The South Florida Sun-Sentinel newspaper reports that the stay-at-home dad had hired a contractor to cut the grass once a month, but the contractor didn't show up in December and the grass grew to 12 inches tall. Even after the contractor took the blame for the uncut lawn, the village wouldn't toss out or reduce the fine.

A village inspector wrote up the citation this past Dec. 13 and piled on a $250-a-day penalty until the property owner finally complied on Jan. 8.

The property owner, seeking relief from the stiff fine, claims he wasn't notified of the problem until he received a letter dated Dec. 29. Too bad, says the village, pointing out that this was the second time he had been cited for the same problem.

Almost hate to contemplate what the village might do to this guy if he ever gets a third violation. — Ron Hall

Turf war lines lawyers' pockets

You've got to wonder how things get to such a sorry state. What I'm referring to is a lawsuit and a resulting countersuit involving a homeowners association in Tampa, FL, and one of the resident homeowners. It seems the homeowner wasn't maintaining his lawn. Or at least not to the satisfaction of the HOA board, which took it upon itself to have the homeowner's lawn replaced in 2002, and to bill him $2,212 for sod and labor.

The homeowner claims that his lawn was no worse than anybody else's in the deed-restricted community. Oh contrar, says the HOA board. The yard was brown and weed infested.

You guessed it. The homeowner told the HOA to take its bill and shove it. The HOA responded by placing a lien on his house. Then the real fun begins. The two sides arm themselves with lawyers and for the past four years the legal fur has been flying.

To date the two parties, through their counsel, have generated motions heard by five county judges. Finally an end to the disagreement may be near. Mercifully, the case is set to come before a jury soon.

The way I see it, you've got two big losers here, the HOA and the homeowner. But I bet their attorneys are smiling. The two combatant parties have churned more than $100,000 in attorney fees — all of this over a simple residential lawn.

The search for intelligent life on planet Earth continues. — Ron Hall

Time to do it again

Hey friends, it's that time again — time to let your U.S. representatives and senators know what you think about the H-2B Seasonal Guest Worker program.

On Tuesday, Feb. 14, Senators Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) and Judd Gregg (R-NH) and other senators introduced legislation to extend the Save Our Small and Seasonal Businesses Act through 2009. The bill would extend the repeat worker exemption from the H-2B cap through fiscal 2009 (Sept. 31, '09). The same legislation (HR 4740) was introduced in the House yesterdday by Rep. Gilchrist (R-MD), Delahunt (D-MA), Bass (R-NH) and Ortiz (D-TX).

The passage of the Act in 2005 allowed the landscape industry access to seasonal immigrant workers when it looked like they would be shut out thanks to the H-2B''s federally mandated cap of 66,000 worker visas.

I know how some of you feel about immigration, any form of immigration. And I understand where you're coming from. Nations have borders and the borders are there for a reason. Yes, it's a damned shame that we've got the immigration mess that we've got. But don't blame the guest worker programs. Judged in comparison to other government run programs, this one is a slam dunk succes.

Let your lawmakers know that you support the guest worker programs and get the Act extended for two more years. — Ron Hall

Golf & flowers

Just got back from the Golf Industry Show (GIS) in Atlanta, the biggest Green Industry trade show in the United States. This year's event was held in Atlanta. Actually, Atlanta was the third choice for the sponsoring organizations. The Show was supposed to be in New Orleans, but a hurricane took care of that. Then it was moved to Houston. Ditto, this time Hurricane Rita.

As it turned out, Atlanta was an excellent choice. A lot of folks came to Atlanta expecting the worst — low attendance, grumbling by sponsors and suppliers. Whammo, I don't mean to sound like a Pollyanna, but the Show was as busy as could be. Another plus, at least for me, was that the GIS was taking place on one side of the huge World Congress Center. On the other side of the massive convention hall the Southeastern Flower Show was underway.

So, after spending two days pounding the floor of the GIS, I took a morning off and cruised the beautiful gardens at the Flower Show. Of special interest were the efforts of a dozen or so Atlanta area landscape companies. Thousands of people were oohing and aahing at the wonderful gardens they had constructed there. Everyone, it seems, is ready for spring to get here. It will arrive in Atlanta weeks before it gets to Cleveland where I returned after my trip to Atlanta. — Ron Hall

It's easy bein' green

This morning I received a link as part of my Google Alerts (topic for another blog post entirely) about an upcoming event sponsored by the Ecological Landscaping Association. I hadn't heard of this group so I checked out their Web site (www.ela-ecolandscapingassn.org). The group is committed to sustainable landscaping and golf course management for professionals and homeowners, and I was happily surprised to see what looks like a well-organized, large group of professionals involved.

Their upcoming event, rhw 2006 Winter Conference and Eco-Marketplace, held in Massachusetts (the group seems to have a lot of New England members) offers CEUs and speakers on topics ranging from practical management of invasive plants to beneficial insects.

I'm interested in this part of the business because I think it's where we're headed as an industry. Integrated pest management (IPM) has definitely become more mainstream, with contractors and manufacturers alike supporting those ideas.

But I'm also interested in it because it offers another approach, another style, to your line of work. Everybody's always talking about differentiating, offering new, better services or approaches--this might be an interesting way to do it.

--Stephanie Ricca

A sensible editorial

Cudos to the Brandon Sun newspaper. On Monday, Feb. 6, an editorial writer at that newspaper pointed out the folly of attempting to ban pesticides on private property. A committee within this city of 40,000 in western Manitoba, Canada, has been kicking around the issue for about a year. The editorial said that a city law, even a compromise measure hammered out by ban supporters and professional applicators, is unwanted and unneeded.
Check it out at http://www.brandonsun.com/story.php?story_id=17741. — Ron Hall

New landscape service?

Maybe he felt he wasn't making enough money on clients' properties. Or maybe he just needed something to keep himself busy on his lunch break. In any event, a 35-year-old landscaper working on Oahu in Hawaii, has been charged with attempted burglary after he was nabbed trying to crawl through the glass louvers of a customer's home. Authorities there have been keeping an eye on him for some time, according to newspaper reports. They believe he may be responsible for many of the 85 burglaries that have plagued the area . His cash-only bail was set at $40,000. (That's a lot of lawns to mow.) — Ron Hall

Texas could use a good slushin'

We got an awful snow here this weekend along the south shore of rambuctous Lake Erie, not awful in the sense that there was a lot of it; heck it barely covers the ground. It was awful in that it was a wet, heavy snow; actually what we got is better described as a prolonged slushing. Not enough actual snow covered the ground to excite the snowplow guys or make them any significant cash.

Meanwhile many regions of Texas are as dry as dust, which is exactly what’s happening to the soils in Leon County, in east Texas, for example. The good soil is drying up and blowing away, the grass is long gone and many farmers are bringing in hay from elsewhere to feed their livestock. When things get this bad, landscape and lawn care are generally near the bottom of public officials’ lists of concerns.

This is one big drought, not as big as the whopper that held Texas in its grips through much of the mid 1950s and, at least so far, not as devastating as the one in 1996. But it’s headed that way.

Some of little towns and the cities that draw water from the Edwards Aquifer are under severe water restrictions who no immediate relieve in sight. That’s in central Texas. Further north, the bustling Dallas/Ft. Worth region needs some water too.

If this drought continues, the landscape and lawn service companies could be in for a long and hot season. And one that will likely fall far short of they had budgeted for. — Ron Hall

Water — who will get it?

Every so often someone floats the idea (no pun intended) to send water from the Great Lakes to the arid Southwest. I'm not sure just how serious these discussions ever get, but just the suggestion always get an immediate reaction from state and regional politicos. They say "no way."

How likely is Great Lakes water to end up in bathtubs of Phoenix and Las Vegas? Probably not that likely, at least not in this generation. Apart from the cost of moving the water (and cost is probably the big issue as it always is), the Great Lakes are controlled by joint U.S./Canadian commission.

If the Southwest can't expect a significant new source of fresh water, what's going to do as its population continues to swell? Well, it would seem that it would have to do the best it can with the water that it has.

Could it be that some of us will be looking at our water bills the same way we look at our home heating bills and the gas pump when we fill up. In horror. — Ron Hall

Shaken not stirred

Where's the snow? Where's the ice?

All of us here in the Great Lakes are wondering . . . what's up with the weather?

While I'm not complaining about a January that averaged 12 F. above normal and, in my neighorhood, just a dusting or two of snow, if all my snow plow jobs were "by push" I might be thinking that next year I would be lining up some seasonal contracts, too. You know,the kind where you get paid a certain amount whether it snows or not. It's like snow plow insurance for property owners.

The only other people singing the blues in my neighborhood about this winter's unseasonably warm temperatures are the ice fishing guides. Their little shanties haven't moved from their yards.

I got to thinking about all of this this morning over coffee in my favorite Burger King when I saw a Chevy S-10 pulling a 16-foot Starcraft through the drive-thru. I can't recall ever seeing an open boat on Lake Erie in January before. Hope the three fishermen in that truck stay close to shore. That water is still mighty cold. — Ron Hall

Point and counterpoint

Took some time off this past week to do a little fishing in south Florida, visit a kid brother and attend the Sports Turf Managers Association Conference in Orlando. This is one cool group of guys and gals that don't get near enough credit for what they do. Money? Heck, most of them know they aren't going to make squat going into this gig. But they love what they do.

To the point, though.

Two of the educational sessiosn at the conference couldn't have presented the pesticide issue in more different lights. The first was by Chip Osborne. He's in charge of all the parks and city properties in Marblehead, MA, which prohibits the use of chemical pesticides. Osborne is a veteran horticulturist and he made no apologies as he layed out his "organic" program. There might have been 100 or so grounds managers in the audience.

The following day Erica Santella, Florida regional manager for TruGreen, gave an equally compelling presentation on the pesticide issue, this one focused on how grounds managers can communicate effectively with the press. Unfortunately, her presentation was going head to head with the long-anticipated roll out of the STMA's Synthetic Turf report, so she found herself presenting to just four people, myself included.

They say that "timing is everything." Maybe or maybe not. What a shame her presentation didn't follow Chip's. — Ron Hall

Pretty is as pretty does

I just read a column in a Florida newspaper asking for entries in an "Ugliest Subdivision Contest." One of the criteria was that the subdivision had to have terrible landscaping. So I got to thinking about what constitutes terrible landscaping. Is it puny trees? No trees at all? Brown grass? No grass at all? Often I see new housing divisions (sometimes filled with million-dollar homes) that have no landscaping at all. They might have lawns, but zero trees. What's the reasoning there? Sure, once the owners move in they can hire professionals to plant color, and shrubs and install patios and pathways, but these neighborhoods never have trees, and the new owners rarely plant them, unless they're small ornamentals.

These places contrast sharply with the older neighborhoods in my area where century-old homes sit on tree-filled lots on wide streets that used to accomodate streetcars going downtown. These houses themselves are worth a lot less money-wise than the brand-new ones, but the total package is a lot more aesthetic in my opinion. Why? Because of the big trees and the natural landscaping. I'm sure many of those homeowners complain about roots from the old trees pushing up their lawns, and squirrels moving the foundation of the old house, but I can't help but thing they'd still prefer their lots to the brand-new neighborhoods with no landscaping. — Stephanie Ricca

Those wonderful, flashy LED billboards

A former boss once advised me — "Never try to solve a simple problem with a complicated solution." In that spirit I offer the following observations concerning landscape and lawn care advertising.

Most landscape and lawn service company owners know that getting new customers is a numbers game. Assuming the services they offer are comparable to the market, their prices are in line, etc., the amount of new business they acquire from year to year will depend on the number of qualified contacts they make and pursue. For lawn care in particular the time-tested way to attact new leads is through direct mail pieces, telephone solicitations and door hangers. Put out X number of messages and get Y number of responses and a somewhat predictable number of new customers. Simple, right?

But, some of us prefer the more creative (i.e. more complicated) solution to the advertising challenge, If you have an adventuresome side, consider flashing your message on one of the the new electronic billboards. These electronic marvels come in two flavors — roadside and mobile.

I saw my first LED roadside billboard a couple of weeks ago on Woodville Road in Toledo, Ohio. It's colorful, high-definition and eye-catching. It has the ability to change messages instantaneously, from what I understand, so it can fit the message to the season or time of day even.

But hey, that ain't nothing, as they say.

Some LED billboards installed along busy highways in the San Francisco Bay area can actually profile commuters. They pick up which radio stations people are listening to and then tailor an eyecatching message on the billboards to that particular demographic slice of America. Say, most of the commuters are listening to ESPN for the weekend's football happenings, then the billboards might flash advertising for a popular beer.

Another advertising option are traveling EDS billboards. These box trucks have LED messages on three sides of the box. Apparently, you buy advertising space on the truck and the driver then cruises busy highways with the bright LED message alerting everybody on that particular highway of your service. Or, the truck parked at a busy intersection or location and everybody that passes there gets a load of your message.

Sure, direct mail and door hangers work . . . but why rely upon the tried and true (even it is a bit worn about the edges) when you can strike off boldly in another direction? — Ron Hall

Random Science, Non-Landscaping News

Here are a couple science stories I've been looking at this morning on the Web that probably will have no impact whatsoever on your life as a landscaper, but may be kind of interesting anyway.

Some whale species sing in different dialects depending on where they're from, a new study in the journal BioScience shows. Blue whales off the Pacific Northwest sound different than blue whales in the western Pacific Ocean, and these sound different than those living off Antarctica. And they all sound different than the blue whales living near Chile.

These findings could forever change the way we look at Star Trek IV.

In other news, researchers at a Missouri university have identified the largest known prime number.. The number that the team found is 9.1 million digits long. It is a Mersenne prime known as M30402457 — that's 2 to the 30,402,457th power minus 1.

"We're super excited," said Steven Boone, a chemistry professor. "We've been looking for such a number for a long time."

What's frightening is that I don't think he's kidding. I hope that the study was at least partially federally funded, so that I could have the pleasure of knowing that I particiated in some small way, and that my tax dollars are being used on such a worthy cause.

And I know you are all wondering, is there a global cooling problem on Pluto? Could it be the setting of The Day After Tomorrow II: Dennis Quaid in Space? Possibly, as Earth-bound astronomers taking Pluto's temperature have confirmed suspicions that the planet is colder than it should be. It's thought that the planet's lower temperature is the result of interactions between its icy surface and thin nitrogen atmosphere.

One scientist explained planets like Venus and Earth experience a natural greenhouse effect, where sunlight energy striking the surface is absorbed and used to heat the surface. On Pluto, the opposite happens. Pluto is a dynamic example of what we might call an anti-greenhouse effect, explained one scientist.

Maybe I shouldn't joke about these studies. Maybe they truly will have a practical application to our daily lives sometime within the next 2 to the 30,402,457th power minus 1 years. Then again, those scientists probably don't see what the big deal is when we have a new zero-turn mower or variety of grass seed. To each his own, I always say. Though I can't help but wonder what that phrase would sound like if I were a whale. — Mike Seuffert

Companies getting tough on smoking

With the new year comes new resolutions. I suspect "Stop Smoking" tops a lot of lists.

Some of my local landscape friends are getting tough with their smoking policies. Or more correctly "no smoking" policies. They tell me that they've forbidden their employees to smoke on customers' properties. They say it looks bad to clients, and they feel that it leads to too many "smoke breaks" during the day.

One owner friends has even put little "no smoking" placards on the dashboards of his three company pickups. A former smoker himself, he says he now hates the smell of stale tobacco and got tired of seeing ashtrays filled with butts.

More employers, given the choice, are going to hire non-smokers over smokers, especially if they're footing most of their employees' health care costs.

It would be interesting to find out what percentage of landscape/lawn service company owners have policies on tobacco use on company time. We'll survey our readers and see what kind of response we get. — Ron Hall

Symbiot says Adios to Erie operation

What's going on at Symbiot? Word comes that John Allen, who ran its landscape operations out of the Erie, PA, control central he built a couple of years ago, left Symbiot on Dec. 15. Then, a couple of weeks later, Matthew Glover, Symbiot's senior VP of national accounts, confirms that the Utah-based mega-service provider is closing down the Erie operation entirely. He reportedly told Jim Martin a reporter with Erie Times Newspaper that Symbiot is streamlining operations, reducing operations in the process. The Erie operation will be shut down sometime in the first quarter of '06

To find out how the move is being seen in Erie, PA, go to www.GoErie.com. Type in "Snow-removal" in the search box. You will have to register (it's free) but, until we can get more info, this is a pretty good look at the situation. — Ron Hall

This is no holiday treat

The Capital One television Christmas "No Hassles" credit cards pitch was an inane assault upon consumers' intelligence. Almost makes me glad Christmas has passed. Where's the humor in snarky David Spade's "No" as in "no blackout dates" to his co-workers in a corporate cube farm? Sarcastic. Smug. Capital One, and Spade, reached a new slithering low with its Christmas 60-seconder that had that annoying punk tossing "bonuses" to subordinates, including the moron behind the reins of a sleigh who (cue the predictable climax that's apparently supposed to be humorous but is cruel) gets dragged, screaming and whimpering, behind a team of dogs. Enough, enough, puleeeese. — Ron Hall

Christmas parties, why just once a year?

Tis the season . . . for Christmas parties. We had ours this past Monday night. A nice little affair. Trays of those fancy tiny snack things. A lot of us wore Hawaiian shirts (I own a dozen) and leis in spite of an outside temperature of 100 below zero. Alas, I couldn't hang around long. Having a long trip home, I sucked down my two free drinks, got to know a couple of my colleagues a little bit better and headed west.

Then, on a city bus heading for a park and ride, I heard about a REAL Christmast party. Turns out the guy sitting in the seat behind me had a terminal case of cellphoneitis. By the time I stepped off the bus, a trip of about 20 minutes, I knew more about this guy than I did about some of my in-laws. In fact, everybody on the bus, which was about half full, found out more about this character than they really wanted to know.

But the good stuff involved his company's Christmas party, held that afternoon. As he told it, he and a group of co-workers chipped in a total of $210, which they offered to a colleague if he would eat a "a case" of chocolate, or as he described it, "about 90 little bottles of chocolate" that the office staff had received as a gift from a client.

It seems the chocolate lover got about two thirds through the case, or about 60 "little bottles of chocolate" before . . . well, you can guess the rest. It wasn't pretty, and I'm talking about the bus guy's description of the event.

What is it about Christmas parties that prompts us to do these things? — Ron Hall

Callback times: How long is too long?

I never realize how important friendly, helpful customer service is until I'm on the receiving end of the frustrating, not-so-helpful kind. And around this time of year, 'tis the season. It gets tough when we're trying to get so much done in order to take a day or two off and I'm guilty too — I'll ignore e-mails and not answer phone voicemail messages until I get my other work under control.

But as a magazine editor, I'm in the service business so I've got to return the e-mails and the messages. It's not like I'm a government employee who can just let everything go to voicemail, haha.

I thought about this last week when I was trying to secure a Christmas "gift" for my dad, who had serious surgery this year and really doesn't need to spend his whole winter shoveling the driveway. I got a referral for a local landscape and snow removal company and called. Several times. I understand that this is the busy season for snow removal services and that many companies have a voicemail system for their calls.

But I never got a call back. I called three times, leaving detailed information and I never heard a peep. Now it's been longer than a week, and I'm really soured by the company's lack of a callback. Yes, I got a great referral and have heard nothing but good things about the techs, the pricing, and so on.

But if they never call me back, I'm not going to take the time to chase them down anymore. Next!
— Stephanie Ricca

This is a problem? Let's lighten up folks

Having been ticketed myself for such heinous crimes as parking too far from the curb in front of my home, leaving my car parked on the street for more than 48 hours without moving it, partially blocking a sidewalk after pulling my car into my driveway, I symphatize with the TruGreen service guy in Brooksville, FL, who is breaking the law, technically, for parking his truck in the street to do lawn services.

Cops there say they generally don't enforce the law unless somebody complains. Complains?

Yea, that's the reason why I've gotten so many parking tickets over the years, a neighbor who doesn't have anything better to do than play traffic cop on our street. Hey pal, go play with your petunias.

What say we give these home service people a break. What else are they going to do with their trucks, drive them up into homeowners' yards?

Here's the link to the article. — Ron Hall

Scotts tells smokers quit or hit the road

The Scotts Miracle-Gro Co. is getting tough on employees who smoke, reported the Associated Press on Monday, Dec. 12. They're giving them until this coming October to give up the cowboy killers or find another job. The company wants to reduce its health care costs. It reportedly pays 75% of employees' health insurance. Scotts employs about 6,000 people and recorded sales of $2.3 billion in its last fiscal year. The company says it can fire smokers legally in 21 states, the AP reported.

"Why would we admit someone into this environment when they're passing risk along to everyone else? Our view is we shouldn't and we won't," James Hagedorn, the company's chairman said in the AP news report. -- Ron Hall

The next generation

Last week, Ron Hall and I were fortunate to attend the Ohio Sports Turf Managers Association's (OSTMA) annual meeting held over lunch during the Ohio Turf Conference in Columbus. While we were standing around chatting before lunch, a gaggle of gangly young men in very new suits and ties clumped into the room together. It was a beautiful sight, these thin young men in their uncreased suits and carefully knotted ties. They were turf students who had each earned a scholarship or award from the OSTMA. To some, a $500 scholarship to help a 19-year-old attend the national Sports Turf Managers Association conference in Orlando next January might seem like small potatoes. But it isn't. A trip to the national show at just this stage of their training opens up a whole new world of opportunity for students. The OSTMA members, by their generosity and hard work, showed all of us the true meaning of professionalism. You see, it was a year of dynamic growth and reorganization for OSTMA, and thanks to the dedication of its members, the association has come through it stronger than ever. If you are lucky enough to have the chance to be involved with a class act regional or local professional organization like the OSTMA, seize the opportunity. By working together, Green Industry professionals can have fun, advance their own careers and contribute to the growth of the next generation. Congratulations to OSTMA and its honorees. -- Lynne Brakeman

Thinking beyond IPM

Want to see what the future of lawn care might look like? Check out this Web site.

This is the Web site of an ambitious project known as the Urban Landscape Ecology Program. It is the brainchild of Dr. Parwinder Grewal an entomologist and associate professor at The Ohio State University. He and a sizable number of colleagues (researchers, academics AND industry figures) are delving deeply into the role of lawn and landscape care in today's urban communities, and how it can be made sustainable. What you'll learn from this Web site will surprise you. — Ron Hall

Snow, snow everywhere

I've never seen so many snow pushing people (or maybe I never paid much attention before), but this morning I saw trucks of every size, shape and color pushing snow after last night's storm. The snow swept up from the Ohio River Valley, starting about 7 p.m., dumped its load and scooted on out to the Northeast. We got about six inches in my small Lake Erie community. It was the third snow event of the season. Hey, It's not even winter yet, not by the calendar anyway!

Stopping in at my favorite local coffee stop before sunrise this morning, I asked the manager. a friendly young lady, if she was happy with the job her snowplow guy was doing. She says with a shrug: "Yea, he does a pretty good job." She says she gets to work just before 5 a.m. and he's usually there and pushing snow when she arrives.

Grateful for the restaurant's warmth and the hot black coffee in the bitterly cold predawn, I looked out over the empty lot, cleared of its snow, and count about 30 parking spaces. The restaurant sits on about a half acre of property, I'm guessing. The manager tells me her "snowplow guy" charges $50 every time he pushes out the lot.

On an adjacent property, another restaurant, I see a F-250 with a plow, but it's parked. What's surely a young lady dressed up like an Eskimo is pushing a broadcast spreader back and forth, lengthwise, across that lot. I suppose that she knows that she can attach a small spreader to the back of her pickup and save a lot of walking. But maybe she doesn't mind walking. And she doesn't seem to be in any hurry. It could be her last job of the morning, or her only job. Who knows? — Ron Hall

The flying lawnmower

This is sure to be a hit at next year's EXPO and GIE shows: the flying lawnmower.

Children and lawnmowers don't mix

Just in case you need a reminder why using child labor in the Green Industry is a bad idea: See story here. — Mike Seuffert

EAB coming to Cleveland?

Just as the editorial offices of Landscape Management have just completed a move to downtown Cleveland, it looks like we're being followed closely by the emerald ash borer. According to an article from the Associated Press: "The emerald ash borer beetle, which has destroyed millions of ash trees in Michigan and northwest Ohio, has been found in Lorain County, State Agriculture Department officials said.

That is the farthest east the voracious Asian insect had been found and puts it closer to Cleveland, where, like in many cities, ash trees are popular street trees."

Lorain County is just east of Cleveland's Cuyahoga County. Thousands of people commute between the counties every day. It wouldn't be difficult for the EAB to hitch a ride. Just when we were getting comfortable here, too. — Mike Seuffert

Calling planet earth

The Chapel Hill News in North Carolina reported recently that 34 people there signed a petition asking the city to quit using herbicides and to severely curtail the use of insecticides on city property. The leader of the petition drive said she would not let her daugher go to town parks anymore in spite of the "integrated pest management" program it instituted in 1999.

When the question arose as to whether it would be wise not to spray a wasp nest near a city park, a local official offered this alternative — take a watermelon about 50 feet away and smash it open. Then dump five pounds of sugar on it."

"The bugs'll come. You haven't killed a thing, but it solves your problem," he was quoted as saying in the news report. — Ron Hall

As the snow flies ...

I already have my pet peeve figured out for the winter. Does that make me sound like a Grinch? Anyway, we recently had our first significant snow events here in Cleveland and I noticed this. In fact, I've noticed it every year but this is the first time I'm saying anything.

People, if you're going to clear off your front and back windshield, then for pete's sake, clean off the whole car!

You've seen these cars, trucks and vans out there, I know you have. The driver, in his hurry to get on the road, hastily scraped a hole to see out the front and another to see out the back, leaving a good six or more inches of powdery white stuff on the hood, on the bumpers and on the roof, making his car look like a doughnut. Then when I'm driving behind him and a good wind kicks up, as it is wont to do in winter, all that powdered sugar blows off onto my windshield and I'm blinded. Does he think his defroster is that good that it's going to melt snow on the roof?

Is this a teenytiny problem in the wider world of problems? Oh, definitely. But if you live in a snowy part of the country (and if snow and ice management is part of your business, then 'tis the season for you), try this: keep a cheap broom in your trunk or trailer. That's usually a good way to clean off the roof in one fell swoop (or at least brush it onto the next guy's parked car!)