Yikes! Our Text Messages Aren’t Working
About a week ago, our text messages stopped working on our business line. In this video, Eric explains how to reach us while we get the issue resolved.
Lawnshavers Welcomes Alicia Goldstein as Director of Lawn Maintenance Operations
About Alicia
Lawnshavers welcomes Alicia Goldstein to their growing lawn maintenance division as the new Director of Lawn Maintenance Operations.
Alicia is a graduate of St. Petersburg College with a BA in Business Administration and a minor in Leadership.
After completing her undergraduate studies, she began work as a Private Banker and Mortgage Lender where she excelled for 10 years, before turning her finance skills toward credit repair.
Alicia and her fiancé, Brian, also founded Purposed2Help, which is a non-profit operation focused on feeding the homeless in St. Petersburg, Florida.
Today, Alicia’s friends and family have continued to the mission of Purposed2Help, while Alicia, Brian, and Alicia’s canine “child,” Bella, spend their time working remotely and traveling the western coast. To date, they’ve hiked and photographed the California and Oregon coasts, and, as of this announcement, they will be traveling to Montana for the next phase of their adventure.
Alicia’s Role At Lawnshavers
Alicia will be taking over and further developing the role of Director of Lawn Maintenance Operations.
She will be the initial and primary contact for customer support, scheduling, and billing for all lawn maintenance related services, while managing member, Eric Lowery, will remain responsible for quotes and initial service consultations.
She can be contacted at service@lawnshavers.com.
Credit Card Policy
Can you trust your credit card information to your lawn company? With Lawnshavers, the answer is yes! We commit to protecting your confidential information, including all personal and financial data.
How We Keep Your Information Safe
When you submit your credit card information to Lawnshavers’ for billing, you are not giving your information to directly to Lawnshavers. Instead, you are providing your credit card information directly to the credit card processing company that processes your transaction with your bank. We simply supply you with their secure form.
We use CardConnect (formerly Bluepay) as our processor. They work together with our invoice management system, Service Autopilot, to securely protect your information.
CardConnect encrypts your data immediately, and Lawnshavers receives an electronic encryption “token” from CardConnect that allows our software to request a transaction from the card processor. No Lawnshavers employee has access to your financial information.
No one, not even the owner of the company, has access to your confidential financial information
Phone Payments
You may choose to use a different card from time to time. In such cases, you’ll need to provide payment information over the phone.
If you choose to pay for a service over the phone, rest assured that Lawnshavers will protect any confidential information you provide us. Our employees cannot write your information down, and they are not allowed to submit it anywhere other than our encryption software, per company policy.
How Do You Know We’re Serious?
Our owner is an ex-cop with no tolerance for fraudulent activity. Fraud is not going to happen on his watch without serious repercussions for the perpetrator. So yeah, there’s that, too.
Referral Program
Lawnshavers is committed to being the premier lawn maintenance service in Cumming, Georgia and we value the referrals of our customers. To reward customers that help us grow, we offer a $75 referral credit when your referral signs up for routine lawn maintenance with us.
How To Qualify For A Credit
All you have to do to earn
The Fastest Way To Find A Referral
The best referral is someone who is already in your neighborhood because:
- You know that we already service your neighborhood, so we should be able to accommodate them, and
- Keeping our driving time between yards low helps us keep our prices lower.
With this in mind, there are two really great way to find referrals in your neighborhood – Neighborhood Facebook and Nextdoor Groups. Some of our customers have been so successful at telling people about us in their neighborhood groups that they’ve earned as much as 6 months of free lawn service.
Three Ways To Use Your Credit
Once you receive a credit, you’ll receive an email to notify you of your credit. You’ll then be asked to decide how you want to use your credit. You’ll have three options.
- Keep your credit for yourself
- Split your credit with your referral
- Give your credit to your referral
Once you decide how to use your credit, it will be applied to your accounts accordingly and used to pay your next invoice(s).
Lawn Service Update
Due to the Monday holiday and multiple rains this week, we are obviously running a little behind schedule. After yesterday’s storm shut us down, it became obvious that we will be unable to complete all services this week. As a result, we will be adjusting our routing for the remainder of the weekend to address those properties who have had the longest time since last service.
The forecast for next week is promising and this schedule change should allow us to get everyone caught up and back under control as soon as possible. We know your grass is likely taller than you would like, and we are working through the weekend as weather allows to complete as many services as possible.
If you are an every other week mowing customer (especially those that are being fertilized), chances are your grass is extremely tall right now, as this is the primary growing season for bermudagrass . If this is the case, we strongly encourage you to change to weekly service through at least July and possibly August because your lawn may become unmanageable on a bi-weekly schedule. In some cases, we may require this change to continue service.
Overgrown bi-weekly lawns are made more difficult to manage by the rainy season, and in general, we are simply not able to expedite individual services at the expense of our overall route efficiency. If you are on a bi-weekly plan and your lawn grows more than you would like, your best solution to avoid an overgrown lawn is to convert to weekly service until your grass growth begins to slow around August/September.
If anyone has any questions, please let us know.
Eric Lowery, CEO
678-456-5662
service@lawnshavers.com
Rain Delay Notice
This notice is being sent to all active lawn service customers. With the rain and wet conditions this week, we were only able to complete about half of our scheduled lawn services. Rain is expected to continue for the next 11 days, and only two are expected to be 30% chance or less. Most are 50% or greater. Thankfully this has dropped from 80-90% for most days that was predicted just a few days ago.
Given the weather forecast, we expect delays in mowing services over the next two weeks, but we are going to do everything we can to get everyone caught up as quickly as possible. Some of you will have some tall grass by the time we get caught up but we’d rather cut your tall grass than risk rutting your lawn by putting our equipment on soft soil. We promise we won’t forget about you, but we do ask that you be patient while we get everyone’s grass back to manageable heights.
For those of you who are scheduled for pine straw, shrub work, mulch or other services, our priority is always to complete mowing first, but we will continue to attempt these jobs when we are unable to mow. I’m hoping to get our waiting list of one-time work caught up by next week regardless of the weather.
If you have any questions, please feel free to email me. I’ve attached a copy of weather channel forecast from Weather.com if you’reinterested. Stay dry!
Lawnshavers Newsletter – May 2018
Order Mulch and/or Pine Straw Installation ASAP To Minimize Seasonal Supply Delays
Bermuda Lawn? It’s Time To Aerate
Reminder Of Service Changes for 2018 Season
Maintenance Schedule
New Crews Added
Lawnshavers Welcomes Tyler Rex As New Crew Leader
Beginning April 2018, Lawnshavers customers will see a new crew from time to time and we’d like to introduce you to that crew’s new crew leader, Tyler Rex.
First, Lawnshavers welcomes Tyler to the Lawnshavers family and we are confident our customers will love his attention to detail.
Get to know Tyler
Hey, our employees are real people with real lives. They’re not just lawn mowing machines! So, here is some info so you can get to know Tyler as more than just a hard-working face.
- Tyler lived in Miami, Florida until he was 11. There he learned to appreciate being outside and enjoying sunshine and water. He loves the outdoors and just being in the sun (Side note: This helps in the lawn care industry!)
- He played piano starting when he was about 5 or 6 and took lessons for 10 years. This led to his involvement in a traveling orchestra in Miramar, Florida.
- Tyler currently lives on a farm where he enjoys freshly grown food and learning the ways of organic farming.
- This is Tyler’s third year as a landscaper. He has really begun to see the value of what a lawn care company does in order to make things easier for homeowners in terms of time, energy, and labor and now sees his role as a way to become a leader within the community.
- He enjoys hiking, long boarding, and listening to audiobooks (no lie, the owner of Lawnshavers listens to about 3 books a week. Tyler is darn near keeping up!).
- He also loves destination traveling with close friends. Most recently he’s visited Yosemite, but he’d tell you a nice beach never seems to be anything short of a great time, either.
Here’s what we think
Tyler has expressed a willingness to work and take on new challenges without hesitation. He is constantly seeking information to improve his work, his mindset, and develop a more robust vision of the world and of his role within our company. Tyler has been performing contract work with Lawnshavers for several months, and never once have we heard a complaint come out of his mouth. He shows up every day ready to work and is eager to get the job done right. And frankly, we’re happy to have him on board.
Here’s what he looks like, ya know, in case you want to make sure it’s Lawnshavers in your yard!
Cumming GA Mulch
Lawnshavers offers mulch service throughout Cumming, GA and surrounding Forsyth County.
Why Mulch Is Used In Flowerbeds
There are a number of reasons mulch is used in flowerbeds and landscapes. First, it just looks good! Even if you don’t enjoy working in your yard or gardening, you know a crisp, clean lawn when you see one. There’s just something about a well-manicured lawn with rich green grass, bright flowers, and well-pruned plants contrasted by the pop of a well-maintained flowerbed.
But not only does mulch look good, it also plays an important supporting role in the health of your flowerbeds. It moderates the temperature of the soil, retains and regulates soil moisture, and prevents many weeds from invading the areas around your decorative shrubs and flowers.
Lastly, it provides organic nutrients for your plants as it breaks down.
Types Of Mulch
When planning your landscape beds, one of the first things you’ll consider is the type of mulch and the color. There are a variety of options to choose from:
Pine Straw
Pine straw is a common and desirable product in the Cumming area. It’s relatively inexpensive, looks good, and is readily available. There are three common types: long needle, slash, and loblolly. Long needle pine straw is the premium, great looking pine straw that most landscapers prefer. It’s needles are usually 10” to 14” long. Visit our Cumming GA pine straw page for more information about pine straw products.
Cypress
Cypress mulch is made from ground cypress trees. It’s resistant to wet rot and has a distinctive pleasant aroma. You’ll also find cypress mulch to hold its color and since it’s a heavier mulch, it works well in sloped areas.
Pine Nuggets
Pine nugget mulch give a unique, rustic look to your landscape beds. They come in large and small sizes and it’s long lasting. Pine nuggets also don’t compress like other mulches so water and nutrients can be absorbed by the underlying soil more easily. The biggest drawback to pine nuggets is they are lightweight and will float away in pooled or running water.
Hardwood
Hardwood mulch is made from the shredded bark and wood of hardwood trees like oak and maple trees, and it will compact over time. This means it resists washing or blowing out of your landscape beds, but over time you’ll need to remove old mulch. Compacted mulch will prevent water and nutrients from reaching the roots of your desirable plants.
Dyed
Brown, black, and red dyed mulches have become increasingly popular choices for lawn design and decoration. Because they are generally made of treated wood from old wooden pallets many landscapers recommend using a natural mulch product instead. The dyes are considered safe, but the wood used in colored mulch may have had chemical treatments in a past life.
What About Other Mulches?
Other mulches do exist but are outside the scope of this post. Some people use shredded leaves, newspaper, or rubber products. All of these different options have their uses, but for this article we are discussing the most common products used by professional landscape.
How Much Does Mulch Cost?
Mulch product pricing varies widely. As a general rule pine straw mulch is sold by the bale and wood mulches are sold by the cubic yard or perhaps by cubic feet (such as the mulch bags at common home supply stores). For a free estimate from Lawnshavers for any type of mulch installation, you can request a fast, easy quote on our mulch services page.
Bales of Pine Straw
Depending on the type of pine straw mulch used, location, the distance for delivery, and the quality of distributor, expect to pay $2.50 to $8.00 per bale. There is a wide range of straw mulches and you’ll want to make sure you’re comparing apples to apples with any mulch quote. Sometimes the distributor will quote an installation fee per bale and sometimes they may be quoting just the bale. Delivery fees must also be accounted for and may or may not be included in the per bale yard pricing.
Lawnshavers offers pine straw service priced by the total coverage sq/ft. You can learn why we do that, and why this helps homeowners avoid scams by reading about our Cumming GA pine straw service.
Hardwood, Pine Nugget, & Dyed Mulches
As of the time of this writing, a rule of thumb wholesale estimate for a cubic yard of typical hardwood or dyed mulch is about $30. One cubic yard of pine nuggets will cover approximately 150 square feet to a depth of 2 inches. The per cubic yard likely does not include the delivery fee.
Rule of thumb retail pricing is $30-35 per cubic yard in our area.
Cypress
Cypress is a premium mulch and you can expect to pay several dollars more per cubic yard than other common mulches. Coverage area is the same per cubic yard.
Pricing Disclaimer
Pricing can vary by distributor and availability. Some wholesalers may also have a minimum order quantity that is not appropriate for your needs. Delivery fees and installation fees may also vary and are subject to change.
Delivery
Depending on where you live delivery may be available from the distributor or pick up may be required to keep costs low. If mulch is being delivered in bulk, Lawnshavers recommends dumping bulk mulch on the street (if safe) or driveway. Dyed mulches temporarily discolver concretes surfaces so a tarp is recommend. If you are dumping bulk mulch on grass, a tarp is mandatory. Mulch can be delivered to landscape beds by wheelbarrow. Avoid leaving mulch or tarps on your grass for any length of time to prevent lawn decay.
How Much Do You Need?
Calculating how much product you need is easy. If it’s an initial application, you’ll want to install at least 3” deep. If it’s just for color, 1” is probably plenty depending on how much mulch is already there. Here are your formulas.
Step 1: Determine the Sq/Ft area you need to cover.
Step 2: Determine how many inches of mulch you want to apply across your coverage area, but keep in mind that 3” deep total mulch coverage is considered the standard for a landscape bed.
1 cubic yard of mulch will cover approximately 100 sq/ft about 3” deep, 175 sq/ft 2” deep, and 300 sq/ft about 1” in deep.
Or if you’re lazy, you can google any number of mulch calculator websites.
Tools Needed For Installation
Tools Needed:
· Shovel
· Wheelbarrow
· Garden Weasel
· Spade
· Gas Powered Bed Redefiner
· Rake
· Pitchfork
How To Prepare Your Mulch Beds For Fresh Mulch
For proper plant health, it’s important to maintain your flowerbeds for proper function. A good bed will act as barrier to weeds, help retain soil moisture, supply organic nutrients back into the soil, and help your landscaping looking it’s best.
A common mistake homeowners make is they simply add new mulch on top of old year after year. This is ok in the short run, maybe 2 or 3 years. After 2 or 3 years most mulches become compacted. Once compacted, the mulch loses the ability to regulate proper amounts of moisture, encourages root growth in the mulch instead of in the soil, and prevents fresh water and nutrients from being absorbed by the soil below.
If you have more than 2 or 3 years worth of old mulch, Lawnshavers recommends removing the old mulch prior to installation of fresh mulch to maintain the vitality of your landscaping.
In the Cumming, GA area Bermuda is the most common turf. We based the steps of this process on managing Bermuda grass landscapes but you can follow the same steps for other grass types.
Preparation Step 1: Edging Your Beds
Because bed edging can be messing and will bring dirt into your existing beds, we recommend starting with this step.
Using a hand spade or a gas powered bed redefiner (such as the Echo BRD-280) you will create a new, clean bed edge.
Why do we do this?
A clean bed edge makes maintaining the bed edge easer. Bermuda grass is highly invasive and requires weekly attention to keep from spreading into your flowerbeds. Even then, you’ll find it will still find a way. By establishing a well defined bed edge, you help yourself by making weekly maintenance easier and creating a clean “wall” to prevent mulch from washing into your grass.
Bed edges should be 2” to 3” deep. Also, even a hand spade can do damage to utility lines. Call 811 and have your utilities marked before digging into your landscape.
Step 2: Use Your Garden Weasel
You probably played with grandma’s garden weasel as a kid. It’s a small device on a stick with spiked rollers that churns up the surface of the dirt. When the old mulch is compacted it retains too much moisture, prevents nutrient absorption, and can cause damage to your shrubs and flowers. Use your garden weasel to break up the old mulch. What you want is loose, uncompacted beds for your flowers and shrubs.
Step 3: Bring In The Mulch
Now that your bed is prepped, it’s time to bring in the mulch. There are a few ways to do this. If it’s bulk, we recommend dumping it on a tarp that protects your lawn, driveway, or street. Mulch dumped directly on your grass is a huge no-no. Trust us. Don’t do it. You’ll never get it out of your lawn. Use a pitchfork to fill wheelbarrows from your bulk pile and move the mulch around the yard.
If it’s a small area, you can just purchased bagged product in 2 or 3 cubic ft sizes and place the bags near the area you want to cover.
Step 4: Spread It
If you’ve never spread mulch before, you’ll be tempted to use a shovel. Don’t. You’ll save yourself a world of trouble if you use a pitchfork. It’s the right tool for the job.
You’ll want to keep an average depth of 3” of mulch (total) but taper that height as you get near the base of your shrubs or trees. Leave 3” to 5” around trunks of shrubs free of any mulch. Work your way around your beds with your mulch.
There’s no additional science to it. Just hard work.
Avoid The Dreaded Mulch Volcano
Do not create “mulch volcanoes.” What is a mulch volcano, you ask? Well, a volcano what happens when you place a large pile of mulch around your trees. It looks like the shape of a volcano. Volcanos cause your trees to create roots in the mulch instead of the soil and can rot the trunks of trees. The end result is an unhealthy tree that is likely to fail at some point.
How To Hire Lawnshavers To Handle Your Fresh Mulch Installation
Visit our lawn service homepage. Click “Request A Quote.” Fill out your information in the form provided and we’ll schedule an appointment to measure your lawn.
Once you approve the work, go to work on the day it’s scheduled and come home to a brand fresh new landscape.
Cumming GA Lawn Aeration
Lawnshavers offers Bermuda, Fescue, and Zoysia aeration service throughout Cumming, GA and surrounding Forsyth County.
What is Lawn Aeration?
The dictionary lists aeration as “exposing the action or effect of air, or causing air to circulate through.” That is exactly what aeration is for your lawn – exposing the action or effect of air on your soil. Lots of products and substances might be aerated for various purposes. Wine, grain, and fish tanks all benefit from the process of moving air through them.
For our purpose we will be discussing aerating your lawn or turf, and to provide a more practical definition, we will be discussing the process of creating holes in your soil that provide an assortment of benefits to your lawn.
Why Aerate Your Lawn?
When your soil becomes compacted (compressed), water and nutrients do not travel through the soil as well. It can prevent adequate root growth and nutrient uptake in your plants. In addition, thatch, which is a collection of organic debris that gathers between your green grass growth and the soil, becomes unhealthy if it is deeper than ½ to ¾ inch.
Regardless of your grass type, the process of aeration provides specific benefits for turf health by relieving the effects of compacted soil. It stimulates the decomposition of thatch material. Water and air, and thus nutrients, will travel better through the soil, and in turn your lawn will grow more vigorously.
How Do You Know When Aeration Is Needed?
Determining an aeration schedule depends on the type of grass you have. For our purposes we will discuss aeration for the three main grasses Lawnshavers manages in the area which are Bermudagrass, Zoysiagrass, and Fescue.
As a general rule, aeration is appropriate when your soil becomes impacted or when thatch becomes to thick. The frequence of aeration would depend on the use of turf. You aerate a ball field more frequently than a lawn that is rarely walked on.
When To Aerate Bermudagrass & Zosiagrass
At minimum, aerate a seldom traveled Bermudagrass lawn at least once every three years. On a heavily compacted Bermudagrass turf, aeration more than once a year would be reasonable. For most lawns that receive recurring lawn service with commercial mowers, we recommend one aeration per year. This recommendation applies for both Bermudagrass and Zoysiagrass. The timing of aeration for both grasses is also the same – you would want to aerate when the grass is growing fast, usually early summer.
When to Aerate A Fescue Lawn
Aeration for fescue follows the opposite schedule than Bermuda or Zoysiagrass. For fescue, your best months to aerate are generally March, April, and September-November. Avoid aeration when temperatures are likely to fall below freezing and June through August.
Types of Aerators
Spike Aerators
As a general rule, you’ll find two main categories of aerator – spike aerators and a plug aerators. A spike aerator is pretty much any device designed to poke holes in your lawn. You might have seen “aeration shoes” on a late night infomercial with spikes on them. Usually, the commercial advises you to wear them while mowing. These are a typical example of a spike aerator. The idea behind spike aeration, while good in theory, is less than ideal. Spike aerators may actually cause more compaction in the soil than they alleviate.
Plug Aerators
With a plug aerator, instead of putting a spike into the ground, a plug of dirt (usually 2” to 3” and about .5” diameter) is pulled from the soil and deposited on top of your lawn. The opening created by pulling this plug allows the compacted soil to break apart and loosen throughout the lawn. It also helps expedite the break down of thatch from the surface of the soil.
Plug aerators are the type of aerator any professional landscaper or lawn care company will use. Tow behind units can be purchased for a few hundred dollars, but a professional would use a powered aerator. New powered aerators generally cost between $3,000 to $10,000 per unit.
How To Aerate Your Lawn
Before aerating our lawn, make sure it’s moist. Not wet, obviously, but attempting to aerate a dry, compacted lawn will not be effective.
Call your 811 locator service to mark public utilities. If you have a sprinkler system you’ll need to mark sprinkler heads and any known lines yourself. These water lines are not a public utility. Unfortunately, you may not know where your actual sprinkler lines are. Note: An aerator can cause damage to improperly buried irrigation lines. In most cases, they are probably deep enough but a reputable lawn care company will expect you to bear the cost of such damage. A lawn service provider cannot know if they were installed deeply enough or not.
Assuming you have a powered aerator, which you can rent from stores like Home Depot, you’ll make passes in various directions across your lawn. You will likely make multiple passes over the same areas to insure adequate plug removal.
After aeration, allow the plugs to dry out. Once dry, you can break the plugs by mowing over them or using any common hand tools.
How To Hire Someone To Aerate For You
Many lawn maintenance companies and fertilization companies will offer aeration services. If you’d like an aeration quote from Lawnshavers, send us a quote request from our homepage.