Scarifying!! !!!!!

[gensetsteve]

I don't have any problems scarifying in spring especially after horribly long winters. For me it's about judgement, are the conditions suitable ?, what is the lawn going to look like 10 weeks down the line?.And is it necessary this year?

Obviously autumn is what I aim for but if I had scarified/aerated in autumn the last few years I would have had more issues.

 

If clients have got the money for so called professional lawncare businesses and like having the fancy van sitting outside their house that's their business. IME of watching these professionals operate I have nothing good to say of them.

 

At college one of the lecturers jokingly said if we fail the course we can still get a job with the local professional lawncare company, garden centre at B&Q and if we were just unlucky not to pass we will still manage to get a job at McDs.

 

Funny thing is Mcds actually have a good rate of pay for flipping burgers and a good career path if you want to go on to management. Same as shelf stacking in telcos if you progress and manage a large tesco store you will be on 100 k plus with bonus. Beats being a skilled man stood in the rain 8 hours a day 18 k a year

[Gnome]

I am well aware of said low skilled jobs ending up with good rates of pay. I stayed on at school to get more education and get a better job (Yeah right). I have bumped into too many people from my days at school now who left at 16 with very little in the way of qualifications who are doing bloody well for themselves.

[wrsni]

The other big no no is scarifying in spring it tears the side shoots

 

My son is a green keeper, what we refer to as side shoots or tillering they refer to as "lateral growth" and scarify specifically to remove it.

 

In the second year of his FDsc course there was a guy in to the college one day stressing that if they wanted to earn big money they'd either have to be world class at their job or go private and charge a shed load of money for maintaining peoples lawns.

 

Although it was of no interest to him I think most of his fellow students fancied the second option!

[Hobbsurf]

Lots of people out there wanting someone to do it for them - also a lot of people doing it for them - with no idea! And that includes the big "lawn care professionals" (LCP)

 

Market is pretty flooded now IMO, if it's a route you want to go down stay local & keep it small & look after your customer base.

 

The LCP crowd advocates customer growth, not customer care and there will always be unhappy LCP customers you can poach. Trouble starts when you've got a couple of hundred customers all wanting spraying and it rains for two weeks solid, weather can really mess your schedule up if lawn treatment is all you do.........

 

Russ

[mowandgo]

I mow a few lawns were people like GT have treated. The only good thing they do is supress weeds other than that the grass is awful Its wirey weak flufy horrible yellowy crap. When I mow if its any lower than 2.5" it tears out clumps. The guy from GT told my customer I need to sharpen my blades and service my mower. You can imagine my face when I heard this as I sharpen my blade with a quick touch on the grinder once a week as this makes quality of cut & mowing effcientcy so much better and what differnce would a service make? Any way I explaned this to the customer and sugest to mow once a week insteed of two to avoid over stressing when cutting but they we not intressted in the extra cost! Another bad experience for good old GT.

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

Saw my first mower out there today!

[penfold]

when i was at college starting my HND in hort (which I didn't finish), we were taught never to walk on a frosty lawn; woe betide us if any of us took a shortcut across the turf lecturers pride and joy of a crown bowling green on a frosty morning on the way to our lectures.

[Cheesy pete]

I mow a few lawns were people like GT have treated. The only good thing they do is supress weeds other than that the grass is awful Its wirey weak flufy horrible yellowy crap. When I mow if its any lower than 2.5" it tears out clumps. The guy from GT told my customer I need to sharpen my blades and service my mower. You can imagine my face when I heard this as I sharpen my blade with a quick touch on the grinder once a week as this makes quality of cut & mowing effcientcy so much better and what differnce would a service make? Any way I explaned this to the customer and sugest to mow once a week insteed of two to avoid over stressing when cutting but they we not intressted in the extra cost! Another bad experience for good old GT.

This is exactly why i hate them ! can't be the fault of the chemical they just threw on it !

I actually went to the garden at the same time as him( i was due to be there wasn't hounding him) and i had it out with him !

thing is he thought i was just a grass cutter complaining about extra work (well i was the grass was longer and and when it's wet it's a bitch to cut well ) but when i explained to him (with wagging finger) in front of the customer why we was wrong he backed down , my mower at the time was 2 months old . GT people with no quals ,no experience , no idea all the way up the chain never found anyone who knows squat about lawns who work for them ! rant over

[IVECOKID]

I mow a few lawns were people like GT have treated. The only good thing they do is supress weeds other than that the grass is awful Its wirey weak flufy horrible yellowy crap. When I mow if its any lower than 2.5" it tears out clumps. The guy from GT told my customer I need to sharpen my blades and service my mower. You can imagine my face when I heard this as I sharpen my blade with a quick touch on the grinder once a week as this makes quality of cut & mowing effcientcy so much better and what differnce would a service make? Any way I explaned this to the customer and sugest to mow once a week insteed of two to avoid over stressing when cutting but they we not intressted in the extra cost! Another bad experience for good old GT.

 

Yep exactly my bug bear. ....... Suggest to customer to mow every week during May -July to avoid stressing lawn and there answer can't afford it but pay silly money for 5mins of Lawn treatment .

 

Ste

[Gary Prentice]

Saw my first mower out there today!

 

 

Saw some grass through the snow yesterday:biggrin: