Kicking off the New Year

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Hoping you had a Merry Christmas and wishing for a prosperous New Year to all of our team, vendors, and clients. Thank you for all the success that came with 2021!

The past year has presented a number of opportunities and challenges. I am proud of all that we were able to accomplish. We brought turf care services, irrigation service and irrigation installation in house. We added at least one crew to each division (mowing, turf, install, and landscape management), and grew the company by over $1 million in revenue. It was not easy and we surely didn't do it perfectly, but I would argue that our teams commitment to service and our leaders focus on continuous improvement aided in us handling the demand the best in the area. I hope that our growth has only made our client experience better but if it didn't please reach out to me and let me know! We have a number of blessings to look forward to in the new year, and look forward to serving you!

We just about have this leaf season in the bag! If you haven't been one of our regular service clients or if you have some trees that weren't ready to let go and have some late season leaves we will still be offering leaf clean-ups all the way into March. Give Bob a call if you are ready to get them cleaned up or if you missed out and want to set up bagging service for next year!

Scheduling Winter / Spring Clean-ups and Mulching

For the most part, the last leaves have dropped and this is the perfect time to get dormant perennials, grasses, and many shrubs and trees cut back or selectively pruned. It is also a great time to tackle any overgrown jungle areas you might have been avoiding (along with the snakes, bugs, and poison plants hanging around in there). Once that is done we have plenty of mulch, pine straw, or any other ground cover material you might need in stock and ready to put down to give the beds a fresh look and be ready for Spring! It will be here before you know it. Don't wait until Spring to call or it might be Summer before we can get to it!

2022 Spotlight

Introducing the 2022 additions!

We thought it would be fitting to celebrate the new year by sharing the exciting news about our growing family. Both Trent and Carlton's families are expecting the addition of a baby boy. The cousins, Winston Brooks Jarman and Corbin Allen Tyndall, are both expected to arrive in early February. It can't be put into words how many miracles are at work for this to happen. Soon to be big brother Dalton Jarman (2) and big sister Kinley Tyndall (4) are looking forward to meeting their little brothers!

Meet Our Team

A note on this "Winter Weather" vs your turf

I'd bet most thoroughly enjoyed the above average temperatures over the break between Christmas and New Years. I made the best of it in flip-flops, shorts, and a t-shirt, as I took down decorations, played outside with Kinley, and did some projects around the house. It did create a bit of heartache for the part of me that would usually spend the week chasing waterfowl. I was also discouraged at the sight of green grass finding its way up through what should be a dormant lawn this time of year. The mix of Centipede and especially the St. Augustine in my yard have really awakened after over a week of days in the 70s and nights in the 60's. I would suspect that the wetness followed by the cold we are experiencing this first week of the new year will lead to pretty widespread winter kill in warm season turf. Particularly wide blade Zoysias, St. Augustine and Centipede. Just something to be on the look out for come early Spring, until then, let's hope for a more consistent weather pattern to close out the winter.

New Plans and Changes to Existing Ones

Service Offerings

We have certainly grown over the years to offer a variety of services to our clients. We often find that some of our clients using us for one service aren't aware of all that we can provide. If you have any of the following needs please reach out, we would love to do all we can for you!

Mowing

Includes leaf removal, bush hogging, and serves all type of properties from small residential to large multi-family, industrial, commercial and HOA's.

Landscape Management

Offers detailed plant and garden care, as well as small to medium sized clean-ups and enhancements. Includes tasks like pruning, weed and pest control, fertilization, soil amendment, bed edging, mulching, planting, annual and perennial plant bed design and installation, container planting and landscape lighting.

Turf Care

Fertilization, plus weed, pest, and disease control in turf areas.

Landscape/Hardscape Design and Install

We can create, build, or renovate about any feature of your yard. Outdoor living areas like patios, walkways, driveways, walls, kitchens, pool decks, fire and water features etc. We install sod, plants, boulders, mulch, landscape/architectural lighting. We provide irrigation system design, installation, and service and much more.

Landscape Materials, Supplies, & Dumpster Service

Becoming the largest landscape contractor and service provider in the area affords us the opportunity to stock a number of products and supplies for any outdoor project. Mulches, pine straw, gravel, rock, soils, and natural stone are just some of what we supply. We can also provide short term dumpster rentals to deliver materials, or for your waste removal needs. We are happy to help you with needs for your DIY project and offer contractor discounts for builders and landscapers.

Price Increase

It probably comes as no surprise, but we will be increasing rates on many services for 2022. We've all seen the rising costs these last two years. Labor, trucks, equipment, fuel, materials, etc. are all on the rise. We have done our best to adjust to these changes without passing it on to clients in hopes some of the inflation was temporary. The strain that has been put on our supply chain, the labor force, and fuel are too much and appear to be here to stay. For clients with mowing, turf care, landscape management, and/or other maintenance services you will be hearing from your account manager of how these increases will affect you. Thank you for your understanding, and I hope that these changes will be few and far between.

New Year's Resolutions

We recognized some challenges in 2021 that prevented us from providing the service and experience we expect to provide. Many of you were more gracious than we deserved and I sincerely thank you for sticking with us. The most significant challenges we are facing are;

Labor challenges
Supply chain challenges
Rising costs

I will spare you the stories of our struggles, it is a similar story you have heard from friends, neighbors, the media, and posted on the windows and doors of your favorite restaurants and places to shop. We want to share some of the efforts we are taking to ensure you get the best service possible in spite of those challenges and hope that we can continue to earn your trust and your business.

1) Labor

We are increasing our recruiting and retention efforts. Last year we cut our advertising spending half way though the year and put it into recruiting. This year we will do the same from the start. We have increased wages across the board twice in 2021 and are revisiting our wage scales again for 2022. We are implementing the Greenius training platform to better educate and empower our team. We have applied to receive 12 H-2B temporary guest workers for April - October. For more information click on H-2B click the flyer to the right, We have revised our covid protocols in accordance with new CDC guidelines which shortens missed time from work. We invested heavily in trucks and equipment to allow us be more efficient with the team we have but also to expand our team and create more capacity this year.

2) Supply Chain Challenges

Because of the demand for our services our lengthened project lead times has somewhat solved this challenge for us. We have a great network of vendors and many of our materials are sourced from those who manufacture, grow, or mine their own products and we don't have to worry about distribution. We have had to limit some product offerings and currently avoid some manufacturers on hardscaping, lighting, and other manufactured products. It certainly helps to allow us to be involved in the planning phase early on so we can help guide decisions on material choices that allow us to receive them on time for the start of your project. Parts for equipment repairs and supplies for maintenance activities are a bit more challenging. But we are doing our best to forecast our needs and purchase those things ahead of the season to avoid breakdowns and delays. Pine straw is going to be hard to come by again this Spring. We intend to keep two tractor trailers stocked starting this month. I would recommend getting it early if you want it!

3) Rising Costs

If you've read this far you've already seen we are implementing a price increase to combat all the inflating prices. Our hope is that we can continue to make efficiency improvements through investing in our team and equipment and that in spite of the increase in rates, we are still able to produce the work competitively without a significant rise in prices. Realistically though, our teams have been producing about all that can be expected and the charges will be more. We are exploring more new vendors to do our best to offer the most value. We are also doing our best to take advantage of Early Order Programs. We use these programs for tools, supplies, annuals, chemicals, fertilizers, drainage products, and more. For some materials like fertilizers, PVC/plastics, and electrical components there is so much volatility that there may be additional surcharges when the time comes.

If you are looking for the best design / build landscape or hardscape experience don't wait until you are ready to do the work, start planning now. We are booking small projects with a lead time of 5-8 weeks and large projects at 12-14 weeks. Our Spring install project calendar will be full soon so please don't wait if you want to do something this year!

http://www.atlanticcoastlandscape.net