Joe says get ready for the 'blue-collar' revival

I like the name “Joe”. Everybody that I’ve known by that name has been a regular guy, hard worker, dependable, uncomplicated.

So it’s not surprising to me that a guy named Joe Lamacchia wrote a book titled “Blue Collar and Proud of It.” I’m happy to report, though not surprised, that Joe is a landscaper. He owns and operates Joe Lamacchia Landscape in the Boston area.

Joe’s proud of being a blue collar guy and being a landscaper, and he writes that America is going to need a lot more blue collar types — guys and gals — once this blasted recession starts loosening up.

His message to young people is that there will be no shortage of career opportunities for people that enjoy working with their hands and are willing show up everyday with a lunch pail and eager to put in an honest day’s work for an honest day’s wages.

Joe predicts that the services of trained, skilled tradespeople will be in ever greater demand as the U.S. population ages. And who do you think is going to install, maintain and repair all of the water- and energy-efficient systems that will give the green generation its complexion? You got it — the plumbers, electricians, roofers . . . and, of course the landscapers, says Joe.

Check out the Web site http://bluecollarandproudofit.com and let Joe know what you think. — Ron Hall

Mortgage companies not good neighbors make

My wife, Vicky, and I live on a brick street shaded by massive silver maples in a city of approximately 6,000 people in northern Ohio. Apart from the silver maples, which occasionally shed a huge limb and crush a car during a storm, peace and tranquility reign in our neighborhood of 70- to 90-year-old, wood-frame homes. Several of our neighbors use lawn service companies to maintain their properties, but most of them do their own mowing and cleanups. The lots are small, some as small as 50 X 100 ft., so there generally isn’t much to mow or maintain.

The property adjacent to our property, however, is twice the size of ours, and one of the worst eyesores in the city. The couple that lived there for more than 30 years is gone. The woman died of heart failure perhaps five years ago, and her husband suffered a stroke three years ago and was placed in the county home by his children. We miss them. They were good neighbors. Nobody has lived in the home since, and that's the heart of the problem.

Nobody apart from the neighbor on the other side of the property and myself have mowed the lawn, trimmed the shrubs or removed the weeds since then. We shared this chore for more than two years. For all practical purposes the house and property seemed to have been forgotten. Apart from a “for sale” sign placed in the front yard of the property for several months the first year of the home’s vacancy, there’s been no activity there. None. That was until this past April when a contractor showed up and informed us, the nearest neighbors, that he had been hired by a mortgage company (he wouldn’t tell us the name of the company) to maintain the property. He gave us a phone number to call if anything, such as vandalism, happened to the property.

He also informed us that his company had been contracted to mow and maintain 600 properties, most of them, we surmised from our brief conversation, wards of banks or mortgage companies.

He also informed us NOT to mow the property anymore.

“The mortgage company doesn’t want ANYONE on the property,” he said as friendly as he could.

More than six weeks later, nobody has mowed the property, that is apart from a scout leader and his son, who cut the front yard two weeks ago, an act of community service. Even they viewed mowing the back of the property, trimming overgrown hedges and cutting down the huge weeds growing alongside the property’s fence and house as more of a job than they cared to tackle.

When we called the number given to us by the contractor to report a gutter falling from the house and also the disintegrating condition of the property, we were assured both would be taken care of. The lady answering our call again warned us NOT to mow or ENTER the property. And no, she would not tell us the name of the mortgage company responsible for the home.

If you’re a contractor and you’ve read this far, share your experiences in maintaining foreclosed properties owned by banks or mortgage companies.

Has it been a profitable experience? Or a pain you know where?? — Ron Hall

There are wilder events than a turfgrass field day, but go anyway

There are more exciting ways to spend a summer day than to walk around under a hot summer sun and check out the differences among small rectangles of turfgrass at a research farm or university facility. A turfgrass field day is, well, basically a day devoted to looking at grass — and, of course, learning the best ways to keep it healthy and attractive.

OK we've established a field day won't be remembered as one of the more lively events in your life, although every field day generally serves up some other enticement – usually a barbeque or pig roast or something along those lines. Add that to the equation and a field day is always a day well spent and you'll learn more than you imagined, things that will make you a better turfgrass manager.

In the end, that's what it's all about, right?

Consider this: Your customers see you as the expert who can deliver the goods when it comes to green, healthy grass. It's a good thing that you can. Few of them know squat about turfgrass. They may understand that there are different species of turfgrass (Kentucky bluegrass, fescue and ryegrass, for example) but not much more. Because they’re essentially turfgrass illiterate they’re prone to buy seed based on price.

(This is probably true for many contractors as well. How else do we explain the quantities of seed sold in “contractor’s mixes”? These are usually mixtures of several species of less-expensive, common varieties that don’t perform to the level of newer varieties that have been bred for characteristics such as pest resistance or drought tolerance.)

Remember this: With turfgrass seed you get what you pay for.

A lot goes into today's improved turfgrasses. Developing, producing and marketing high-performance varieties is lengthy, expensive and often frustrating. It typically takes 14 years to go from initial variety concept to bulk seed production.

Plan on attending or sending some of your best technicians to the next turf field day in your region or state. Most universities with turf programs offer them. Most take place in mid-summer when the turfgrass is taking a nap and lawn care activities have slowed. — The LM Staff

Why 'the forgotten man' matters today

The generation of the Great Depression has faded away, and so too has the political ranker of that era. Few individuals remain of that era who came to regard Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, in all of its manifestations, as the grand mechanism that pulled the nation of out the depths of economic despair.

On the opposite end of the political spectrum were those who decried FDR’s efforts as an unnecessary and dangerous expansion of the authority and reach of the federal government into and at the expensive of the private sector.

Who was right? In the hindsight of history, the easiest call to make is that they were both right and they were both wrong.

In light of what’s often being described as our worst economic disaster since The Great Depression, I decided to learn what I can of that era and, hopefully, get some sense of what to expect in terms of a recovery, especially since there seems to be similarities, not to draw too fine a comparison of the eras or causes.

The most obvious similarity, of course, is the ascendancy of a Democratic President and Congress bent on massive government intervention into the private sector. This following an unpopular Republican administration.

If you’re interested in gaining a better perspective of the role of government during an economic crisis, and you want ammunition to buttress your biases one way or the other, I suggest the book “The Forgotten Man: A New History of The Great Depression,” by Amity Shales.

It’s an excellent starting point for understanding how FDR and his New Dealers expanded the size and power of the federal government in an attempt to force the economy into recovery, a recovery, that in spite of massive and often experimental government efforts didn’t materialize until America’s entry into WWII.

So, to get back to central question, who is “the forgotten man,” listed in the book's title?

Is the common man, the wage earner or the unemployed where much of the New Deal’s efforts were and today’s economic reforms are directed?

Or is the forgotten man the business owner, whether of that era or this? The producer of goods and services? The generator of jobs and the cornerstone of America’s successful market economy?

In the end this the heart of the question, whether it was posed during the New Deal era or in regards to today’s ambitious efforts to expand government into previously unimaginable sectors of the private sector.

OK, what did I get out of Amity Shale's book, admitting that one book or point of view is merely a start?

While some of the results arising from the New Deal (the implementation of social security and many of the public works projects, in particular) can be counted as positive results of FDR and his administration's efforts, nevertheless I'm even more concerned that our U.S. economy (and our society in general) cannot sustain itself if the business owner, i.e. the employer becomes “the forgotten man” to a government bent on over-regulation and wealth redistribution. — Ron Hall

He's a lean, green, mobile landscaping machine

If you’re a young owner or just starting your landscaping business you might want to follow the example of Columbus, OH-area company owner Tim Chiles, the 36-year-old founder of two-year-old Structural Gardens LLC.

This guy is one lean, green, mobile landscaping machine that uses the latest communication and computer technology to do business on the fly. Chiles carries a laptop computer in his service vehicle. He doesn’t even have to leave his truck, or perhaps he’ll stop at a coffee shop or other location with wireless access to whip out a design or proposal. He probably knows every WiFi spot in his service area.

“There is just a huge productivity increase,” Chiles, a certified landscape professional, told Business First of Columbus recently.

Is it working for Chiles? You bet it is. His fledging company has grown by more than 100% this season, generating revenues north of $250,000, even in this crappy economy, reports the magazine.

Here’s a valuable tip for you, check out Tyler Whitaker’s InfoTech column in each issue of Landscape Management magazine. Whitaker, the industry’s premiere “technologist” offers valuable information about time and money-saving technologies in every issue of the magazine.

We're betting that even Tim Chiles, as hip as he is to using technology to keep on top of things, might learn some neat stuff from Whitaker who is constantly finding ways to increase productivity using cutting-edge technology. — The LM Staff, shamelessly promoting one of magazine's sharpest and the industry's most valuable resources.

Avoiding a tall fescue feud on a farm in North Carolina

Which is the better turftype tall fescue cultivar — Tarheel II or Wolfpack II?

An innocent enough question, given that the question surfaced at a turfgrass field day.

But this wasn’t just any field day; this was the Scotts Professsional Seed/Pure-Seed Testing, Inc., Field Day in Rolesville, NC, which is within easy driving distance of both North Carolina State University (NCSU) and the University of North Carolina (UNC).

You see where we’re going with this, right?

The person asking the question (and he asked it with a sly grin on his face) was Dr. Charles “Charlie” Peacock, Professor of Crop Science at NCSU. He was one of several turfies respresenting the Wolfpack at the field day. For the record, there didn’t appear to be any Tar Heels standing among the 100 or so attendees checking out the test plots containing Wolfpack II, Tarheel II and several dozen other tall fescue varieties.

Peacock's question was directed at Dr. Melodee Fraser, who was hired to start the research farm 18 years ago and has led the breeding effort there ever since.

Sensing danger, Melodee wasn’t about to pick favorites considering the intense rivalry between the neighboring universities. Here answer: both varieties show significant improvement over previous varieties, particularly in their resistance to brown patch disease.

In the end, who can blame Melodee, who has devoted much of her adult life to developing the cultivars (along with many other improved grasses) for not publicly picking one of her “babies” over the other?

— by Ron Hall, who neglected (yet again) to wear a hat to a field day and suffered another sunburn on the top of his hair-deprived head.

Artificial turf offers landscapers a nice opportunity

If you’re in the landscaping business and looking for a new revenue opportunity, take a couple of minutes to investigate adding synthetic turf installations to your service mix. If you’re unfamiliar with the product, we suggest you visit the Website for the Association of Synthetic Turf Installers. It has an incredible amount of information on it that is helpful to contractors.

Artificial turf, for sports fields and for home and commercial properties seems to be immune to the lingering U.S. recession. Installations continue to climb at a brisk double-digit annual rate. More and more landscape contractors are offering installations.

Nowhere has this been more evident than regions of the country with expensive water or with watering restrictions, especially for homeowners and commercial property owners in the U.S. Southwest. Some water agencies there are even offering property owners financial incentives for taking out turfgrass and installing synthetic turf, as much as $1 a sq. ft.

Water agencies are targeting what they feel is wasted water. They claim that as much as 60% of the water that property owner use goes to outdoor irrigation. The majority of that is wasted, they say. Synthetic turf does not require irrigation, they reason, so it makes sense to encourage people to install fake grass to save water.

With or without cash incentives, synthetic turf is especially popular on properties where it’s very difficult to grow grass, for backyard putting greens and for dog runs, which homeowners appreciate because their dogs do not wear out the grass in their yards and get muddy.

Synthetic turf marketers stress the savings that artificial turf offers over turfgrass — the savings in water use, fertilizers, pest controls and maintenance costs because, obviously, you don’t have to mow synthetic turf. These are legitimate savings. But artificial turf requires maintenance, mostly sweeping, cleaning and, in some cases, sanitation. Who wouldn’t clean up the waste left by dogs on what is essentially an outdoor, weatherproof carpet?

Artificial turf is not inexpensive. The cost of a professional installation can vary from $6 to more than $20 a sq. ft., depending upon factors such as the prep work needed to lay the poly grass, property size and layout. The presence of small, odd-shaped areas within a landscape would increase the cost because of the extra time required to cut and fit the turf onto them.

Here’s a quick look at artificial turf versus natural turf on a home landscape:

Artificial Turf

— substantially higher initial cost to install
— lower ongoing maintenance costs
— 10-15 year life with minimal maintenance
— much hotter on sunny days
— while some communities offer cash incentives to install it, it is not allowed in some communities or HOAs
— does not provide a natural filter for runoff
— eventually will have to be disposed of

Natural Turfgrass

— lower initial cost
— higher maintenance costs
— often requires irrigation
— provides a cooling effect, reduces urban heat buildup
— a proven bio-filter and cleanser for stormwater runoff
— sequesters carbon, releases oxygen

Again, here's the website for the Association of Synthetic Grass Installers — http://www.asgi.us. — Ron Hall

Can this remote-control mower break into the commercial market?

Labor is the single largest expense for landscape companies. In these economically challenged times when everybody is looking for every efficiency, a remote-control mower that would reduce labor costs would be very attractive to some owners. To this point, in spite of some interesting tries, nobody's been able to come up with a unit that appeals to commercial cutters.

John Wright, owner of Southern RobotX, is the latest entrepreneur to give it a try. He says his hybrid remote control SRX22T commercial mower reduces fuel consumption by 40% and increase productivity for lawn care professionals.

Wright, a distributor of remote control mowers based in New Albany, MS, says that lawn care professionals typically use a bunch of men equipped with 2-stroke weed eaters to maintain slopes over 30 degrees. They are now able to maintain slopes up to 70 degrees with one man and a SRX22T hybrid remote control lawn mower. The hybrid power system on these mowers also keeps the battery charged, he says.

For more information on hybrid remote control lawn mowers, visit RemoteMower.com.

This physician makes house calls . . . . but with a mower

GRAND RAPIDS, MI — Emergency room doctor Nathan Arnold makes house calls.

But he won’t be bringing a little black satchel of pills and ointments. He’ll be showing up in a pickup truck sporting a solar panel on its cab and a trailer carrying a battery-powered lawn mower.

Arnold is a franchisee of Clean Air Lawn Care, an environmentally focused landscape service started by a Kelly Giard and a handful of other sharp young people in Fort Collins, CO, four years ago. It offers mowing and trimming with rechargeable battery-powered equipment and organic lawn care services.

You might wonder why a doctor would get into lawn care, as we did when we read the article in The Grand Rapids Press.

“I just feel good about doing it,” he told reporter Garret Ellison of the newspaper.

Obviously, he also thinks he sees a potentially profitable business opportunity, this in spite of Michigan’s economy, one of the hardest hit in the nation.

Checking the Clean Air Lawn Care Web site we see that the idea is growing with new franchise locations in Illinois, North Carolina, Texas and several in the Inner Mountain West and the Pacific Northwest.

By the way, Arnold just charges $40 for a house call . . . meaning mowing a standard-sized lawn. — The LM Staff

The Bahamas starts its own landscape association

NASSAU, THE BAHAMAS — The Bahamas Landscape Association (BLA) launched this spring. As of the end of May more than 50 individual and company members had signed up.

The BLA has partnered with the Florida Nursery Growers Landscape Association and is in discussions with The Bahamas Ministry of Education to acquire funding to provide professional certification to its members. The first “Certified Horticultural Professional” program is being offered to its members online.

The BLA sees certification as very important in creating standards in the Green Industry and providing training to industry members. — The LM Staff

Mississippi landscaper gives away a house

Not all the news you read in the newspapers or see on television makes you want to jump off a tall building. Every once in you see something in the news that makes you appreciate the goodness in people. Here’s one of those stories.

Richard Drummond, who runs Landscaping Logistics, in Biloxi, MS, knows what it’s like to lose a house to a disaster. Hurricane Katrina wiped out his home a couple of years ago.

So, when he learned that a long-time sheriff’s deputy in his area had lost his home in a recent fire and was living with relatives, Drummond offered to give him a house. This week a moving truck is picking up the 3-bedroom house and moving it to the property of the 75-year-old fire victim and former sheriff’s deputy, Glennis Pops Rayburn.

Drummond said he intended to sell the house, which he didn’t need anymore, to make room to expand his landscaping business. That was when he learned that Rayburn had been burned out of his.

"I had something that I didn't need anymore. And here was a man who has a great need for it," Drummond told reporter Brad Kessie of WLOX ABC 13 in Biloxi, MS.

Click here to see the WLOX video interview with Drummond.

Anti-pesticide documentary gets premiere

Paul Tukey's film, Hudson: A Chemical Reaction, premiered in Hudson, Monday night. Hudson is the small town in Quebec Province that set off the chain reaction that has resulted in the banning of lawn care chemicals in Quebec and Ontario provinces.

The film chronicles how Hudson, rallying behind a determined local dermatologist, battled the lawn care industry in court and, receiving a favorable Supreme Court decision in 2001, banned lawn care chemicals.

In the last several years, Tukey has emerged as organic lawn care’s most vocal and recognizable proponent, crafting his organic message into what appears to be a pretty nifty cottage industry. On his website he describes himself as “magazine publisher, best-selling author, public speaker and 2006 Gardening Communicator of the Year.”

In light of his new movie, he’ll need to update it to include filmmaker, too. — Ron Hall

A must-see movie for lawn care business owners

You won’t be seeing this movie in the local cinemax, but you might get to see it at a regional or state conference. Or maybe even on PBS, who knows? I’m talking about a 1-hour documentary entitled “Hudson: A Chemical Reaction.”

We haven't seen it yet, but we understand that it chronicles how Hudson, the small town in Quebec Province, successfully implemented restrictions within its jurisdiction on the use of traditional lawn care chemicals. The town cited health and safety concerns in taking the action, and battled several lawn care companies, eventually winning its case in the Supreme Court. That event, occurring a generation ago, has now been committed to legend, and is viewed as a milestone victory by anti-pesticide forces.

Since Hudson’s successful effort to ban pesticides, the Canadian Provinces of Quebec and Ontario have also essentially banned the sale and use of these products, and other provinces are expected to follow their lead.

Paul Tukey, who is emerging as North America’s organic lawn care guru, is the force behind production of the movie. He is the founder and editor of the magazine “People, Place & Plants,” author of the book, “The Organic Lawn Care Manual,” national spokesman for www.safelawns.org and co-host of a HGTV program . . . and now he’s into cinema.

Tukey collaborated with filmmaker Bett Plymale in making “Hudson: A Chemical Reaction,” which reportedly will be shown at the Toronto International Film Festival this coming September. (Plymale is also listed as director of photography on Tukey's "People, Place & Plants," website.)

From a business as well as a health standpoint, Tukey's decision to switch from operating a traditional lawn care company (which he claims seriously harmed his health) to emerging as perhaps the most recognized proponent of organic lawn care in North America, appears to be working out very, very well for him. — Ron Hall

Electric mowing maybe; push-mowing probably not

I recently read with interest an article in the Aurora Beacon (IL) newspaper about Kevin Franz and his Go Green Mowing Company. Apparently, Frantz has been offering mowing services for the past 10 years, but this year decided to mow only electric and hand-pushed mowers. In the article he describes his concerns about carbon emissions arising from the use of gasoline-powered mowers as the reason for using electric and push mowers.

The article said that Franz had secured “about a half dozen” customers and when he reaches 20 he intends to take on a helper. I’ve read several similar articles this spring in other regional newspapers about start-up lawn service companies that are using electric and push mowers only. These eco-mow professionals make for safe, feel-good copy for local newspapers, but you have to wonder if they can ever generate enough customers and do enough production week in and week out to make a commercial go of it.

Based upon my personal experience (that's me in the image), I don’t see how anyone could do enough production with a push mower to build what can legitimately be described as a growing concern of a company — assuming, that is, that the person doesn't provide any other property services.

For the past 34 years I’ve owned and used a push mower on our 50-ft by 100-ft. property. I started with an old Sears model that I bought at a yard sale, but about five years ago I replaced it with a light-weight Brill mower. My experience has been that a push mower doesn’t mow wet or high grass very well, and it takes longer to mow because sometimes you have to go over the same patch of grass several times with a push mower if grass conditions aren’t just right.

That said, my little green Brill is quiet, never fails to start and is easy to store when I’m done with it. I don’t see any reason to use a gas-powered mower on my small property, but I wouldn’t want to have to depend upon it to build a commercial mowing service; that’s for sure.

Electric-powered equipment is the better alternative for the eco-mow contractor, but the state of battery technology, as it now stands, hinders its adoption by production-oriented service companies. Obviously, the development of better batteries for electric mowers and other lawn service equipment would provide an attractive alternative for lawn service companies that want to serve the “greener” portion of their customer base. Corded electric equipment is just too unhandy for professional users, especially on larger properties.

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal highlights writer Gwendolyn “Wendy” Bounds experiences with the latest alternative-energy lawn service equipment, including the new battery-powered AMP Rider from Ariens Co. It's an entertaining article and highlights a trend that will almost certainly grow — quieter, more environmentally acceptable lawn service equipment.

Manufacturers are developing a host of new alternative-energy products to market but, so far, most of them are targeted for consumers. — Ron Hall

Our Memorial Days must always be green

Years ago, a good friend was in charge of the cemetery maintenance in our small town. For some reason he didn’t get the cemetery in the proper condition for Memorial Day. Perhaps the weather didn’t cooperate, or he had staffing issues or maybe he just dropped the ball. I don't recall the details. It doesn't matter. Our town won’t accept excuses for not having its two cemeteries and its public properties green, tidy and mowed for Memorial Day. The city fired my friend within the week.

Yes, coming out of a long, cold winter there's always a lot that needs to be done in our city, which hasn't changed all that much in the 39 years that I've been there. The downtown could use fixing up and the streets are begging for more than a little patching. But these things will have to wait, as they always do, until after Memorial Day, which this year is almost upon us already, a week early it seems.

My town takes Memorial Day seriously, and it always has as far as I can tell, although the significance of the day must have grown enormously here more than a half century ago. This was a long time before I became a member of the community but I've heard the story often enough that it's become more real to me than anything I studied in high school history class.

On Nov. 25, 1940, just weeks before Pearl Harbor was attacked and the United States entered WWII, a sizable group of local men were inducted into the U.S. Army, proud members of Company C, 192nd Tank Battalion. After training at Fort Knox, KY, and Fort Polk, LA, they were wisked to San Francisco and then to the Phillipines. Within four months of landing in the Phillipines they had been captured by an invading Japanese army. Of the 32 local men captured by the Japanese, only 10 survived the “Bataan Death March” and 3 1/2 years of hard labor and starvation as prisoners of war before being released and returning to our small community.

I’m not sure if any of the men still survives, hopefully so. But other people keep the memory of those soldiers alive, and many years ago supported the naming of a then-new city elementary school Bataan School. That’s appropriate, of course, as is the attention we give to the grass and flowers in our cemeteries and public properties that, in some small way, recognizes the sacrifices of these and others on this one day of the year.

And here we are, just days away from another Memorial Day, and our public officials are making sure everything will be ready, especially the county courthouse property that's in the center of town. It gets special attention.

Two inmates wearing county jumpsuits, are spreading mulch around the trees and in the small gardens that dot the 4-acre property. The courthouse grass is always its darkest green as Memorial Day approaches. One of the inmates, obviously preferring the work and the open air to his jail cell, tells me they he will have opened and spread 488 bags of the mulch prior to this coming Monday morning.

The grassy property, dominated by the handsome 108-year-old sandstone courthouse building, is where the townsfolk will gather this coming Monday morning and line the street to watch the tiny parade pass by — the high school band, the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts and Brownies, the three or four rows of marching veterans, some holding flags, others with rifles at their shoulders and many in uniforms now much too small.

The marchers, with locals following behind the police car that signals the end of the parade, will head north for another two blocks and then turn left to the west and stop and gather at a smallish rectangular Veteran’s Park behind the imposing brick former armory building, which is now an urgent care center. The park's purpose is easy enough to divine, even for a casual visitor. A hulk of a WWII tank and an adjacent “eternal flame" dominate the small area.

Following the script of every Memorial Day that I can recall, a local dignitary will lead a short solemn ceremony and the veterans will aim their rifles skyward and fire several rounds into the quiet morning sky.

This park too, as tiny as it is, will be freshly mowed, there will be flowers and everything will be tidy. Our small town will not look greener and its grounds will not again look so tidy and presentable as it does this and every Memorial Day. — Ron Hall

ASIC gets briefing on the amazing Masdar City project

Abu Dhabi is one of the seven emirates and the second largest city in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on the Persian Gulf. Although it averages just 4.2 inches of rain annually, it’s in full blossom thanks to its robust oil production and progressive leaders. Its skyline bristles with new skyscrapers, its streets with retail shops (including some of the most exclusive shops in the world), and its boulevards and parks are awash in greenery and colorful gardens.

Abu Dhabi, with about 900,000 people, is building what it is describing as the world’s first carbon-neutral city. Masdar City is a $28-billion development on a 7-year fast track to become the home of 50,000 people within a decade, and to become “a net carbon waste city.”

The city will be the most visible manifestation of the larger Masdar Initiative, an ambitious program launched by Abu Dhabi in 2006 to become a leader in the development of alternative and sustainable energies.

Jared Thorpe of CH2M Hill, provided details of Masdar City to about 150 people during the recent American Society of Irrigation Consultants (ASIC) Conference in St. Augustine, FL. ASIC members, who design and consult on major irrigation projects, were understandably fascinated by Thorpe’s overview of this visionary, sustainable project in one of the driest regions on earth. As designed, the city will recycle 80% of the water it needs, including capturing the irrigation water in underground pipes after it is used to grow crops.

Thorpe, from New Zealand, has been in the United States since 2001. The firm he works for, CH2M Hill, based near Denver, offers global full-service engineer, consulting and construction services. The company Web site says that CH2M Hill employs about 25,000 and that it had revenues of $5.8 billion in 2007.

Most recently CH2M Hill has been working in the UAE on desalination, the main source of the region’s drinking water, which will also supply potable water for Masdar City. Desalination, of course, is a huge consumer of energy. This, and other major energy users, such as the actual construction of the city, will be offset by the city’s greenery and by the production of energy once the city is up and running.

“This will be a brand new city,” said Thorpe. ‘There will be no cars. Private cars will be parked at the perimeter of the city, and there will be light rail to the airport and neighboring cities.” Within the city, people will be whisked from one area to another in what look like pods or something from the movie Blade Runner, the city’s Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) system, which will have several hundred locations and stops. The PRT will run on solar cells and batteries.

Electricity for the city will be supplied mostly from photovoltaics with some contribution from wind turbines and a waste-to-energy system, which is under development. “This city is going to be a testing ground for photovoltaics,” said Thorpe. The city will also use geothermal and concentrated solar power to help supply its energy needs.

Thorpe said the key to ultimately making the city function as designed is the comprehensive “integrated resource system modeling” that is being used. This, of course, depends upon tying all of the project’s complex components together with the aid of an incredibly sophisticated information and technology system.

Thorpe said the Masdar Institute of Technology in partnership with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) will be opening by the end of the year.

For more information on Masdar City, visit the Web site www.masdaruae or click on the headline above.

Neat, quick guide to sustainable landscape design

We're in awe of how fast this sustainability movement is taking off.

It appears that it's no longer just a word, but a movement, real. We’re just beginning to see it emerge in the landscape industry. We feel that once it gets rolling full blast it’s going to change the industry in a big hurry — and for the better. It's going to open up service opportunities that none of us imagined previously.

This growing focus on sustainability will broaden the need for the landscape industry’s professional services beyond aesthetics and deeper into ecological remediation and regeneration. Like our nation’s infrastructure (roads, bridges, water plants, etc.), our urban environments (public and private) need help.

Academia can see what’s going on and is there to help. We lifted the information below from a a neat little publication from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Extension. Click on the headline for the concisely written 4-pager. A nice introduction to sustainable design.

1 Windbreaks and shelterbelts conserve energy, control drifting snow, provide food and shelter for wildlife, screen unwanted views, filter dust and noise, and create microclimates that benefit plant health.

2 Berms (gradually sloped mounds of soil) help define landscape spaces by creating sloping “walls” along pathways or between different areas, elevating plants for better visibility, and improving drainage and growing conditions for plants in poor soil.

3 Ornamental grasses tolerate a wide variety of conditions, provide food and cover for wildlife and offer year-round visual interest. Many of these ornamental grasses are native to the Great Plains.

4 Groundcover plants used on steep slopes eliminate dangerous turf mowing conditions, lessen precipitation runoff and soil erosion, and provide additional visual interest and biodiversity.

5 Grouping similar plants into masses creates a stronger visual impact and interest in the landscape, copies natural plant community structure, and produces stronger edges in the landscape that are important for both aesthetics and habitat.

6 Selectively use higher maintenance turfgrasses in areas of high visibility, access, and use.

7 Use lower maintenance turfgrasses and prairie or adapted grasses in areas of low use and access (not necessarily low visibility).

8 Use organic mulch in all planting beds to increase soil water retention, reduce weeds, visually strengthen bed lines through the color and texture contrast between the mulch and turf, minimize short-term swings in soil temperatures, and enhance soil structure and organic matter content.

Source: Steven N. Rodie, Extension Landscape Horticulture Specialist and Anne M. Streich, Horticulture Educator, U. of Nebraska-Lincoln Extension

New water meters pose mowing risk for the unaware

If you’re in the mowing business be aware of the new ‘green” water meters that are being installed in some cities. The meters, which are installed flush into the ground, have a plastic transmitter that sticks up about an inch. It allows water department employees to get properties' readings electronically. The meter guy or gal doesn’t even have to leave their truck to find out how much water has been used on the property for the month.

Television station KSWO in Wichita Falls, TX, says that property owners in Lawton, OK, have been accidentally mowing off the transmitters with their mowers, costing the city about $100 per meter to repair, not to mention the waste in time and fuel.

Our guess is that this warning is unnecessary for you professional cutters since you know better than to mow that close to the ground anyway. Higher cut turfgrass is healthier turfgrass and discourages weed competition.

Click on the headline if you’re interested in seeing a video of the KSWO newscast about the mowed off water meter sensors.

Green claims alone just won't cut it

Do you want to sell green? Well, green by itself won't cut it with the great majority of consumers, says Honey Rand, Ph.D., APR, an engaging ball of energy with a smiling, here’s-the-real-deal way of making a point.

Rand runs a Florida-based consulting, pr and issues management firm that specializes in environmental issues and was one of the presenters at the recent American Society of Irrigation Consultants (ASIC) conference. Here's what she shared with the irrigation professionals about selling green to today’s consumers — four selling points:

1) An economic reason

2) An environment reason

3) A social reason

4) A political reason

Get any combination of three of these right and — bingo — you’ve got the sale. (Actually, Rand’s phrase was “you’ll change public policy,” which we’re taking as a flashback to her days as director of communication for the South Florida Water Management Agency).

Rand, Environmental PR Group, Lutz, FL, used the example of a swimming pool service to make her point. Apparently, there’s a movement to replace the fresh water in residential swimming pools with salt water. (Since not LM editor owns a swimming pool we'll take her word for it.) Companies are selling this service by providing the following reasons:

1) economic reason — pool treatments are less expensive

2) environmental reason — reduces or eliminates the need for chlorine

3) social reason — less time is spent maintaining the pool

4) political reason — none for this particular example


The take home message: Few consumers select a green service or product solely on green claims. Your product or service will need to be competitively priced, and if it delivers other benefits, you've got a sale.

What consumers really want is “substantive value,” said Rand.

Cocoa (mulch) a no-no for Fido

Apparently, cocoa mulch and dogs don’t go together very well. We just ran across an article in a local newspaper about a man’s dog gulping down an indeterminate amount of cocoa mulch and getting extremely sick as a result. While it would seem that cocoa mulch provides an inordinate amount of roughage for any system, which would create an obvious problem, apparently the veterinarian determined it was the cocoa more than the mulch that caused the pet's near-death experience.

Curious about what effect cocoa mulch might have on a dog, we Googled the subject and came across this information from dogownersdigest.com.

Chocolate contains theobromine. A naturally occurring stimulant found in the cocoa bean, theobromine increases urination and affects the central nervous system as well as heart muscle. While amounts vary by type of chocolate, it's the theobromine that is poisonous to dogs.

Not all chocolate is the same. Some has a small amount of theobromine; another type has a large amount and still another contains an amount that is somewhere in between. The quantity has a relationship with the weight of your dog. Small dogs can be poisoned, it is easy to understand, from smaller amounts of theobromine than large dogs.

I’m not sure if landscapers use cocoa mulch anymore, and we wouldn’t recommend it in light of the hazard it might present to the family pet.

If you want to know more about what chocolate can do to a dog, click on the headline.