What did you dislike about other lawn care companies that inspired you to start your own business?

I was working for a company, and, basically, when I was out on the field, and we were doing an application of a fertilizer. I don’t think everybody does this, but I’m pretty sure that this scenario probably happens to a lot of people who hire lawn care companies.

You hire somebody to do your lawn care application of fertilizer. They trained the technicians to go around the borders of your lawn, and then go back and forth across the rest of your lawn. They start around the borders of your lawn, and then they go back and forth, until they finish your whole lawn’s applications. This is a standard application process to do a lawn, which will give even coverage, et cetera.

The difference that I would see with many lawn care companies is that they would have technicians with such large routes, so your route would be forty (0:16:19), and this company that I worked for is really well known in Toronto, I don’t want to mention their name.

This is what they do. They will put down an application of fertilizer. You order an application of fertilizer, they tell you when they’re going to show up, or they don’t tell you when they’re going to show up, and the only way you know they showed up is by putting a lawn sign on your lawn.

What happened with this company is a technician would get to the property, he would around the borders with the fertilizer, and some of the fertilizer would spread on the driveway, some would spread on the porches, and because he is in such a rush, he’s going back and forth through the lawn, not really giving it an even coverage.

Weeks later, you would see some spots. Anybody who had a lawn care company before would say, “How come I have weeds,” or, “How come this spot looks more green,” and “How come the whole thing doesn’t look green? This spot looks okay.” Basically, what’s happening is the technician has such a strong… his route is so long, he has a certain time limit to finish this property. He’ll go around the borders to ensure that at least your borders were done, and the fertilizer would spread on the driveway.

You would be like, “The application happened on the grass”, but he’s rushed all the way through the remainder of the grass, that you don’t have an even application. If you’re using corn gluten or some, I don’t know, some suppressant of weeds, for example, you’d notice, “Oh, I’m still getting spots of weeds here, but they did put the application. Maybe I’ll just call back, I know they did it.”

You end up paying, but you’re not getting what you’re paying for, because it’s rushed through. With our company, we time the routes so that an application of fertilizer, we know it’s going to take this much time to do it properly, and the way I know that it’s done properly is because I’ve done the square footage applications myself, and I’ve done it at a decent pace slower than my own.

I timed it at that pace. So if there’s an employee on the lawn, we don’t expect him to rush your application, but to give you an even application. The exact same process happens for lawn mowing, the exact same process happens if you get an aeration application, or if somebody is doing a soil and seeding application.

Many companies will do a seeding application. Here’s another application of companies who do a soiling and seeding application in the spring, so you get a thick, lush lawn. They will put down soil and seed on your grass. They tell you, “I’m going to put triple mix soil on your lawn, and I’m going to put down seeds.” Now, the first mistake with, I mean, 90 percent of companies over here in Toronto are doing this wrong. They are putting down triple mix and seed on your grass. Your grass grows, it looks green, but you get some weeds here and there. We don’t do that.

What we do is we put down an application of grass seed on the base of your lawn. We’ll dethatch your grass and put down an application of grass seed on the base of the lawn. Then we’ll put soil on top of it, but it won’t be triple mix soil like everybody else. You will have black loam soil. Just for the one reason, that black loam soil is not rich. It has no manure in it, it has no peat moss in it. It’s just like almost mud. It holds lots of moisture, but when it’s dry, it’s very dry, it’s not like mud, but it’s perfect for your lawn.

We’ll put that seed on the base, an even application of black loam above that, and then we’ll put another application of seeds above that. We sandwich in that black loam, in with seeds, so your lawn always comes out lush and green and healthy, and it gets better every year, it gets better with every application, you get stronger roots to your grass, you get deeper roots for your lawn, you get a better color because it’s holding more moisture in the drought season because it holds it like mud. That’s how we do the grass.

We’ve done tons of these, and we have tons of reviews on that, of people’s black loam and seeding applications, and that’s what we’re really good at, and we’re really good at everything that we do, but just a simple example of something that we’re doing differently that people don’t pay attention to, is something as simple as that.

The soil, the way it’s applied, the dethatching before it’s applied, the type of seed that’s going on, how we sandwich in the soil and the seeds, how we blend it in together to make sure that no birds, all the weather issues that come with putting seeds on your grass have disappeared because you know that seeds are at the base of your grass and soil’s on top of that and the seed on top of that soil has been mixed in, so even if you’ve seen birds on your lawn, you wouldn’t be too concerned, you know your grass is going to grow.

These are the kind of things that I’ve noticed working, people aren’t doing. Things that are kind of small annoyances that I never really mentioned, and actually, just off the top of my head, just thinking about a couple of annoyances that I’ve seen, those kind of pointed out to me, for sure.