Entries for July 2010

If you compare a professional landscape service with other services that come to your home it is really quite a bargain. Plumbers and electricians have man hour rates averaging seventy five to over one hundred dollars an hour. Carpenters average fifty five to seventy five dollars per hour. By contrast the average landscape maintenance firm has hourly labor rates of thirty to forty five dollars. These numbers are from my un-scientific polling. All of these trades require skilled labor. The landscape maintenance contractor shows up with a far greater investment in trucks and equipment than these other trades on most occasions. I would estimate the average truck, trailer and equipment used today to average around sixty to eighty thousand dollars. The average life span of that equipment is about five years.

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It is a well proven fact gardening and viewing gardens/landscaping is a soothing way to unwind. With the modern low voltage lighting systems available today our homes can be very welcoming and soothing in the dark.

Unfortunately most home owners and landscape professionals overlook all the benefits of low voltage lighting in our landscapes. By adding a well designed system we can improve safety and security, illuminate our entry sequence, highlight our best features in the landscape, and set up dramatic “scenes”.

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One of the main complaints that homeowners have about landscape firms is they don’t return phone calls. Most of these phone calls are initial contact for new work. There are however some key things you should not say when you leave that all important first voicemail. Remember the landscape firm is qualifying you from that all important first contact. You may cause the best firm for your needs from even calling you back.

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The landscape industry has grown over the past two decades. More and more people are engaging the services of landscapers to maintain and design/build there landscapes. Also as urban sprawl continues it is mainly the landscaper designing our outdoor environments. As a seventeen year veteran of the landscape trade I must say our industry could be doing this much better. Some landscapers have horticulture degrees while some just buy a truck and dive in head first. What standard and measures has our industry set? How is the average homeowner to have confidence that the landscaper they engage for services is truly a qualified professional? It can become confusing to say the least.

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