Lawn Mowing- Are All Contractors the Same? Update

This is an update to a blog that I wrote in May of 2018. The information in the post was good and made sense then and it still makes sense now. I would like to add to this line of thinking. If you are looking for a landscape contractor to provide services such as lawn mowing, lawn treatments, shrub pruning, etc, why would you say, just put an estimate in my mailbox? The answer to that must be that you are shopping for your landscape contractor solely on price.

I believe that when searching for a service, such as landscape work, that price is the worst way to find the best service. When you don’t meet with someone to discuss your landscaping, you remove your ability to get a sense of how they will perform for you. You have probably hear it said in many different forms, such as, cheap is cheap, buy cheap buy twice, third rate quality, or probably best said as you get what you pay for.

As it is spring and the grass is growing,  we are receiving a lot of phone calls for lawn mowing service. With some people asking " Do you cut lawns every other week," as opposed to weekly,. Our answer to that is no.  While lawn mowing is not the most complex service that we provide in our landscape business, there certainly are best practices that are followed by professionals. 

I suggest, when searching for a landscape maintenance contractor that provides mowing service, you shop for value, not price. In my opinion, the best contractors do not mow lawns on an every other week basis. Lawns are made up of many individual grass plants. Each grass plant is made up of a root, stem and leaf (blade). When lawns are mowed every other week or infrequently The grass gets taller and in doing so the stem elongates, which means that when you do the next mowing, you are actually cutting off more of the leaf surface and leaving behind a plant that has more stem than leaf.

This is the opposite of what you should be doing which is removing the smallest amount of leaf surface so that the blade of the grass plant is available to take in the sun. Your lawn will respond positively and be healthier when mowed weekly because of this and not as well, when mowed every other week. True professionals also use edgers to provide straight edges on walkways and curbs. not a string trimmer (weed whacker), turned sideways, which can create a wide groove next to the walkway which is unsightly. 

So when searching for your lawn mowing contractor, you may want to ask a couple of questions that relate to value and not just price.
Questions such as
Do you carry liability insurance?
Are your employees covered by Worker's Compensation?
Do you have a NJ Home Improvement Contractor's License?
Because it really is true, you get what you pay for.

For more information about our Landscape Maintenance services please see our page or give us a call at 201-445-4646 to set up a free consultation.

Lawn Mowing- Are All Contractors the Same?

As it is spring and the grass is growing,  we are receiving a lot of phone calls for lawn mowing service. With some people asking " Do you cut lawns every other week," as opposed to weekly,. Our answer to that is no.  While lawn mowing is not the most complex service that we provide in our landscape business, there certainly are best practices that are followed by professionals. 

I suggest, when searching for a landscape maintenance contractor that provides mowing service, you shop for value, not price. In my opinion, the best contractors do not mow lawns on an every other week basis. Lawns are made up of many individual grass plants. Each grass plant is made up of a root, stem and leaf (blade). When lawns are mowed every other week or infrequently The grass gets taller and in doing so the stem elongates, which means that when you do the next mowing, you are actually cutting off more of the leaf surface and leaving behind a plant that has more stem than leaf.

This is the opposite of what you should be doing which is removing the smallest amount of leaf surface so that the blade of the grass plant is available to take in the sun. Your lawn will respond positively and be healthier when mowed weekly because of this and not as well, when mowed every other week. True professionals also use edgers to provide straight edges on walkways and curbs. not a string trimmer (weed whacker), turned sideways, which can create a wide groove next to the walkway which is unsightly. 

So when searching for your lawn mowing contractor, you may want to ask a couple of questions that relate to value and not just price.
Questions such as
Do you carry liability insurance?
Are your employees covered by Worker's Compensation?
Do you have a NJ Home Improvement Contractor's License?
Because it really is true, you get what you pay for.

For more information about our Landscape Maintenance services please see our page or give us a call at 201-445-4646 to set up a free consultation.