Dandelion / Weed Control

[KurtisCummings]

What is the best option for servicing customers that want Dandelion / Weed control? What are people charging for this service? In the past, I have only used this product: Weed-B-Gon Max by Ortho, it hooks up to your garden hose - worked pretty well, but at $6-$11.00 a bottle, the overhead seems a little high. It took two bottles to cover my personal lawn (.35 acres). http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?actio...esc&lpage=none I have a customer that wants mowing, trimming, and weed control and sits on .58 acres with little obstacles. All I am using currently are two push mowers, gas leaf blower, and two trimmers. I just learned a valuable lesson - NEVER estimate a yard via your county's GIS system or Google Maps (getting measurements online) I had a student call me who lives on campus - she wanted just lawn mowing & trimming. I saw she lived on .32 acres - I told her $25.00 weekly. I got to her house with my brother in law, found the lawn to be WAY overgrown, up to my knees (I am 5'9") - it took us an hour to knock it down. She said that they moved in in August (of 2008) and just now realized that they were required to mow their own lawn. Ideas, Suggestions on the Weed killing that is cost effective with a low overhead?

[picframer]

Lawn care business tips

Originally Posted by KurtisCummings What is the best option for servicing customers that want Dandelion / Weed control? What are people charging for this service? In the past, I have only used this product: Weed-B-Gon Max by Ortho, it hooks up to your garden hose - worked pretty well, but at $6-$11.00 a bottle, the overhead seems a little high. It took two bottles to cover my personal lawn (.35 acres). http://www.lowes.com/lowes/lkn?actio...esc&lpage=none I have a customer that wants mowing, trimming, and weed control and sits on .58 acres with little obstacles. All I am using currently are two push mowers, gas leaf blower, and two trimmers. I just learned a valuable lesson - NEVER estimate a yard via your county's GIS system or Google Maps (getting measurements online) I had a student call me who lives on campus - she wanted just lawn mowing & trimming. I saw she lived on .32 acres - I told her $25.00 weekly. I got to her house with my brother in law, found the lawn to be WAY overgrown, up to my knees (I am 5'9") - it took us an hour to knock it down. She said that they moved in in August (of 2008) and just now realized that they were required to mow their own lawn. Ideas, Suggestions on the Weed killing that is cost effective with a low overhead? I go at weeds with owner education, a healthy lawn that is thick with grass, will not have weeds or moss, it can be expensive getting there but if they maintain it or allow you to, it will be weed free. We have 17 new clients this week with Dendelion issues, first thing we do is manually remove them, put organic soil where they were, over seed and spray with an organic fertilizer and weed control, this is manufactured in Canada and I do not know if they ship to the USA. You can contact them at http://www.bjedistri-organic.com/ we spray the fertilizer/weed control once every six weeks. Andy

[swstout]

Originally Posted by picframer

We have 17 new clients this week with Dendelion issues, first thing we do is manually remove them, put organic soil where they were, over seed and spray with an organic fertilizer and weed control, this is manufactured in Canada and I do not know if they ship to the USA.

You can contact them at http://www.bjedistri-organic.com/ we spray the fertilizer/weed control once every six weeks.

Andy

I doubt the ship to the US. They don't even reply to questions!

Steve

[picframer]

Originally Posted by swstout

I doubt the ship to the US. They don't even reply to questions!

Steve

Steve, I received a large shipment from them yesterday, I do know from speaking to the owner they set Natures Lawn Care in NYC up as a distributor in the USA, Contact them and they will more than likely sell to you.

We are spraying their weed control with amazing results, they suggested a sell a four spray program over 5 months which I have been, man the money in this spraying is nuts, forget lawn mowing, it's faster, hardly any competition and ccheaper on the equipment side, I now have 5 employees spraying every day from Moss control to Weeds and everything in between.

[KurtisCummings]

I could not find Natures Lawn Care in New York, do you have a website?

Also, the more important question here ** what are you guys charging for this type of service?

A Flat fee?

Per sq ft?

Per Acre?

[swstout]

Originally Posted by KurtisCummings

I could not find Natures Lawn Care in New York, do you have a website?

Originally Posted by KurtisCummings

Also, the more important question here ** what are you guys charging for this type of service?

A Flat fee?

Per sq ft?

Per Acre?

Nature's Magic home is I believe is in Buffalo, NY. Their Web Site is http://www.natureslawn.com/. I don't Believe they have this line on their website yet but,
here is an email I received from their owner:
After significant testing lastyear, we are now using a completely safe liquid weed and feed product on many of our customer lawns. We will also be distributing this product to landscapers eventually. We would first have to get licensing for each state.

the product is a 14-0-5 fertilizer, but we will also have a 8-0-5 version late spring. For full lawn coverage as a weed n feed It goes down at 1 qt per 1000 sft, mixed with just 3 qts of water. So it has to be applied in a fine spray. I did all the testing with a backpack sprayer with a fan nozzle. You can also just spot spray weeds with this.
You need to apply this product every 10 days (between 8 and 14 days) for it to really do the job. Some weeds will be pretty much gone after the 2nd application, but tougher weeds definitely need 3. The very tough ones might need another follow up.

We start our customers with the 3 treatments and then go to applications every 4-5 weeks.

Right now, we have this product in huge tanks in our garage. I just got some 5 gallon buckets for people like yourself that might want to try it out. The bucket costs $95 + shipping. In drums it will cost about $14-15 per gallon, and it gets cheaper in 275 gallon totes.

Let me know.

Stuart

I bid most of my jobs by 1,000 sq.ft.

I have not bid any jobs with this as of yet. Still doing the research and pricing (when I have the time).

Steve

[picframer]

Originally Posted by KurtisCummings

I could not find Natures Lawn Care in New York, do you have a website?

Also, the more important question here ** what are you guys charging for this type of service?

A Flat fee?

Per sq ft?

Per Acre?

I charge per square foor, min $30.00 to spray. I charge $36.00 a square foot for Aerify Plus mixed with the Dethacher mixed with Insect control and Fertilizer.

The product we use for weed control also has a fertilizer, I charge $24.00 per square foot, client has to agree to four applications for us to stand behind it as weed control requires overseeding and it is a process.

Andy

[swstout]

Originally Posted by picframer

I charge per square foor, min $30.00 to spray. I charge $36.00 a square foot for Aerify Plus mixed with the Dethacher mixed with Insect control and Fertilizer.

The product we use for weed control also has a fertilizer, I charge $24.00 per square foot, client has to agree to four applications for us to stand behind it as weed control requires overseeding and it is a process.

Andy

My front lawn is 19,000 sq ft. That would be $570,000! Do you mean $30 per 1,000 sq ft?

Steve

[swstout]

Originally Posted by swstout

My front lawn is 19,000 sq ft. That would be $570,000! Do you mean $30 per 1,000 sq ft?

Steve

.
I put my tired mind ahead of my common sense. Andy said a minimum of $30 per spray, not $30.00 per sq. ft.

When Andy (picframer) speaks, I listen! I hope someday I can be as inspiring, knowledgable, and as good a teacher as he is. I have learned more from him, explored more services, made more profit, and improved my marketing from his posts than I can credit. He is our phD of organic lawn care.

Steve

[picframer]

Hey Steve,

You had me going there for a min on my math, yesterday was a 15 hour day, man I was beat last night. My son hired two more people again yesterday but we are still having issues keeping up, getting a lot from people who see our vehicles at job sites or see us doing work and stop for a look, had three from this alone yesterday. It doesn't make sense to move the crews if the people next door or across the street want work done however it puts us behind....oh well we will just keep our heads down as I am sure there will be a quiet time sometime soon. Economy was not hit that hard here, did a job for a bank manager myself yesterday, major water issues, anyhow he said last night over coffee he approved five new mortgages yesterday alone, they give clients a welcome package when they sign a mortgage, he took 100 of our post cards to include in the package, he couldn't stop raving over the job we did at his place which is very much appreciated as you know. I had two new employees with me cutting sod and removing it, replacing, cleaning up after me, man did they do a good job, I bought a bunch of Pizza gift certificates, well it was mainly a barter, Seth (son) and I give them out to crews that go beyond, food means everything to university students and man do they work hard.

Some spray jobs are more than $36.00, if it's a difficult spray I will sometimes go to $42.00, I have not yet had a quote turned down. Moss and Misquito spraying is big at the moment, I love it as it doesn't take much training and I don't have to buy a lot of expensive gear.

Did a deal with a local vehicle rental place and am renting small trucks, mainly Ford Rangers and it seems to be working well, had magnetic signs printed for the doors by Vista print all I have to worry about is gas, they include insurance, unlimited milage etc. employees have to be 19 or older, $25.00 a day all in, at the moment we are renting four. If we get a day(s) we are not working I can return them and then pick them up again, they also do not charge me for Sundays.

Would love to meet you as well some day bud as well as many others here, well it's 6:50 a.m., time to finish the coffee and head out.

Andy