Master Landscaping
http://www.masterlandscaping.net

Commercial property owners now have a certified landscape company that offers a sustainable landscape maintenance program.

Based in Redmond, Signature Landscape Services, Inc., offers commercial clients something new for their landscape maintenance: pragmatic experience working with the Northwest environment to create sustainable landscapes.

Pool Landscaping A sustainable landscape builds on and supports natural assets for healthier plants and spaces for people. Signature Landscape Services has reduced chemical and fertilizer use by evaluating the unique soil, water and plant requirements of each site.

Familiarity with their client’s properties keeps the company ahead of weeding or fertilizing problems by using soil and plant friendly mulches or compost to nip their chemical usage in the bud.

This careful, yet practical, consideration given to their garden chemical use has earned this new member a three-star EnviroStars rating, Pool Landscaping and staff are shooting for all five stars.

The company has reduced their chemical stocks and purchasing using a centralized inventory for the three company locations, and employees already use chemicals sparingly for weeds. They also compost green waste to provide a high quality source of soil amendments and mulch and to reduce waste.

As an EnviroStars member, Signature Landscapes Services, Inc., has joined a growing list of landscape related certified businesses. There are over 600 companies offering a variety of services from car repair, dentists, printers and veterinarians; a great way to take care of business while supporting environmentally sound businesses.

Tags: car repair, centralized inventory, five stars, landscape company, landscape maintenance, landscape services inc, natural assets, northwest environment, pragmatic experience, soil amendments, sound businesses, sustainable landscapes
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Meet with landscape designers at 10 private gardens and landscapes they designed and installed from Southern Marin to San Rafael, Terra Linda and Novato. These gorgeous, well-established gardens may feature a stone fountain, pond, waterfall or beehive.

Whether your garden has shaded or sunny areas you will get great ideas for successful plant combinations. Tour gardens are diverse, but all are pesticide-free.

Gardens may feature a creek with stabilization project, steep terraced hillsides with oaks, redwood and fern bordered rock creeks, succulents and ornamental grasses, fruit trees, lawns, herbs and medicinal plants or flat meadow areas. Some are Asian or English garden-influenced with a California twist. See ways to better use rain and irrigation water on your property.

Learn how the right plants and planting can reduce fire danger around your home. Garden includes natives and other Mediterranean summer-dry climate plants.

Discounts to visitors are offered on landscaping services. Refreshments provided and free resource booklets and other garden experts are available at each site to answer questions.

Marin’s Eco-Friendly Garden Tour Sat., May 17 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Featured designers include PlannedLand, Jeannine White; Edger Landscape Design; EcoScapes, Leslie Patton; Quinn’s California Landscapes; Blume & Dean Landscape; Equinox Landscape; California Native Landscapes; EcoLogic Landscaping, Leith Carstarphen; Reilly Designs and Art Gardens Landscape Company.

Registration required, directions provided at time of registration: Call Gina Purin of MCSTOPPP at 499-3202. Cost: $15 per adult.

Support Community Gardens with City Council

The cost of fresh fruit and vegetables is going through the roof. Many children have lost their connection to the earth and its seasons. Seniors have become increasingly isolated. People from all walks of life have little or no access to garden space, whether apartment renters or folks who own condos, townhomes or McMansions. Community gardens bring people together, provide opportunities for socialization and education on healthy gardening and eating.

Please contact the Novato City Council and let them know you support community gardens. The Garden Committee has identified two good potential locations. Novato covers a large geographic area and one garden would be a great start, whichever location they choose.

For little cost to the city, it will bring great benefit to Novato residents. Individuals including seniors and families with children will be able to experience the pleasure of gardening, the health benefits of garden exercise and fresh, pesticide-free food.

The Novato Community Garden Committee has been working with the city and other groups to find a permanent location. They received grant funding through the Kaiser Foundation and Supervisor Judy Arnold that will help the gardens get off the ground. Ongoing funding for insurance and water management will be provided by nominal annual garden plot rental fees.

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landscaping.thumbnail.JPG” alt=”cutting the lawn” align=”right” height=”133″ hspace=”3″ vspace=”3″ width=”200″ />The idea came to Kelly Giard in the middle of the night.

For three hours he scratched out the details on a yellow legal pad.

When he was through, he had mapped out the details of a lawn care business that even a Prius-driving, carbon-conscious customer could use without guilt.

Five years after his light-bulb moment, his business, Clean Air Lawn Care, offers environmentally friendly lawn care services here and in other locations across the country.

The Fort Collins, Colo.-based company uses electric- and biodiesel-powered equipment that’s quieter and cleaner than conventional gear. Its trucks are fitted with solar panels for charging the equipment. Some pieces need to be plugged in at night, so the company purchases carbon-offset credits that make it a carbon-neutral business.

Clean Air offers mowing, trimming and blowing services as well as grass removal to an organic waste recycling center. Employees don’t treat the lawn with chemicals. A green lawn care company is a new concept, especially for those in the traditional landscape business, said Giard, who grew up in Walla Walla and owned his own mowing service in high school and college. Some in the “horsepower driven” landscape industry didn’t think the equipment his company uses has the horsepower or speed to do the job, he said.

“Don’t get me wrong, they are really good people,” he said. “But this is way out of the box they think in.”

When Giard started the company in Fort Collins in 2005, finding reliable battery-powered equipment did prove challenging, he said. After some trial-and-error, the company found equipment that worked. Giard decided to use biodiesel-fueled mowers because he said a decent electric riding lawnmower isn’t on the market yet.

The Northwest Clean Air franchises here and in Portland, Ore., are some of the best-performing, Giard said. He isn’t surprised. Seattle is full of the ideal customer for his company, which he described as conservation-minded and fairly affluent. A smaller portion of customers are drawn to the service because it’s quieter than a traditional service. Clean Air services cost 10 percent to 15 percent more than traditional services.

The local Clean Air is based in Bothell and its owner, Peter Hamilton, said he has about 65 customers. If people truly care about the environment, they’ll take care of their own yard with their own electric or hand-powered equipment, he said. He sees his business as offering people a green version of a service they would use anyway.

“There will always be plenty of people who don’t want to mow their lawns — forever,” Hamilton said.

Right now the business serves the Seattle metro area, including Snohomish County up to Marysville, but they hope to expand to Bellingham in a few years. Company founder Giard expects 300 to 500 Clean Air franchises will open nationwide in the next decade. Plenty of people are interested in the service, he said. The main obstacle is finding a labor force with the right stuff. Giard said the company shut down a franchise in Atlanta when they couldn’t find a pool of good employees and the right person to run it.

“It’s hard work,” said Giard, who still mows a few lawns. “The machines aren’t self-propelled, and it’s hot down there. You can drink two gallons of water in an average summer day doing what we’re doing. It’s a lot easier to sit on a riding lawnmower.”

Clean Air doesn’t offer other landscaping services. In Harmony, a sustainable landscape company in Bothell, does and is working with Clean Air to offer a pilot program so customers can get the full-meal deal.

Tags: grass, landscape, landscape co, landscape company, Landscaping, landscaping service, Landscaping Services, lawns, obstacle, pool, Services
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Keep an eye out for a few hundred more TruGreen Landcare logos on landscaping equipment trucks and maintenance uniforms in the Atlanta area.

As of Jan. 1, 2000, seven well-known Atlanta landscaping companies will be changing their name to TruGreen Landcare, which has been acquiring these Atlanta companies for the last year and a half.

TruGreen Landcare is the sister company of TruGreen-Chemlawn, both of which are owned by The ServiceMaster Co. (NYSE: SVM).

%26quot;In the short term, one of our biggest challenges is creating value in the name transition. The challenge of that is that we have great name-brand recognition with our previous company names, but there is a value in us coming together and we don%26#39;t want to lose that,%26quot; said Ken Thomas, Southeast regional marketing and sales manager for TruGreen Landcare and former owner of Landscape Techniques Inc. (LTI), which was acquired last December.

The seven Atlanta landscape firms that are now functioning as operating units of TruGreen Landcare include Environmental Design Group Inc., Greentree Inc., Landscape Techniques Inc., Environmental Landscape Services Inc., Lifescapes Inc., Ruppert Landscape Co., and most recently, Greenleaves Inc.

Greentree and Landscape Techniques originally were owned by Landcare USA of Houston, which was acquired by ServiceMaster in the spring of 1999.

Because of that merger, TruGreen has become the largest landscape company in the industry with $600 million in annual revenue, according to the Associated Landscape Contractors of America Inc. (ALCA). The largest company up until the merger was Environmental Industries of California, with annual revenue of $490 million, according to the ALCA.

ALCA isn%26#39;t predicting any price hikes as a result of the consolidation, said executive director Debra Holder.

%26quot;In the very beginning, there was a paranoia among some of the contractors concerned about this [large] company coming in to their marketplace, but there is so much work out there it hasn%26#39;t had a negative impact at all [nationally],%26quot; Holder said.

Holder does expect the consolidation will help some of the smaller competitors find their own niche.

Tags: design group, landscape, landscape co, landscape company, Landscape Contractor, Landscaping, landscaping companies, Services
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Brickman acquired Portland-based Northwest Landscape Services earlier this summer landscaping services. This recent acquisition positions Brickman to serve virtually the entire Pacific Northwest landscaping services. Our ability to join forces with the area’s leading company is ideal landscaping services. (more…)

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