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• 

  Fenlandphil April 9, 2010 at 6:45am

  I know it's not directly related but I looked at a steel shop franchise a few years ago, it was selling steel to punters, for me there seemed little advantage, the fees were considerable, as was the commision. As I already sell steel to the public there seemed to me to be no gain.
  The other one I looked at was a courier franchise, as we go here and there delivering our products, I wondered whether a tie in was possible, again the set up costs and capital commitment seemed horrendous. I couldn't see the return being good enough.
• PRO

  Gary RK April 9, 2010 at 9:38am

  I employed a ex-coloured digit employee for some while.
  
  Stunning is word best used to describe what went on during their visits.
  
  I learned a lot, some of their practices left me absolutely gob-smacked...
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  Ben Jones April 9, 2010 at 10:15am

  I should probably declare up front that my cousin has a franchise with the company you are referring to, but I have never heard anyone with a bad word to say in fairness about the work they do. He doesn't employ anyone without the correct qualfications and they spend time with him learning the job before they are allowed out on their own. Lets be fair it is only lawn treatments they are doing. It's not rocket science so you don't need six months intensive training before you could be let loose.
  I think the problem is that it is a franchise and the franchisee will vary in their professionalism and someone who is not so thorough may give the whole company a bad name.
  
  The winter treatment they do is a scarification, leaf collecting and aerating treatment to my knowledge. Not sure though, like I say cousins business not mine.
  
  However I know when he did his training it was a pretty intensive program and he was away from home for a month or so if I remember rightly
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  Eliot Saieva April 9, 2010 at 3:29pm

  ITS ONLY LAWN TREATMENTS!!! Im afraid , like the general public , you are misled & misinformed by the Tom Thumb pubplicity machine . Scarification is NOT a winter operation , hollow coring is when topdressing is to be applied , spring or autumn , & the cores should be swept up . They carry out these operations in winter to earn money , plain & simple . On the plus side , a quarter of my customers are ex tom thumb , so keep up the good/bad work !
  Ben Jones said:

  I should probably declare up front that my cousin has a franchise with the company you are referring to, but I have never heard anyone with a bad word to say in fairness about the work they do. He doesn't employ anyone without the correct qualfications and they spend time with him learning the job before they are allowed out on their own. Lets be fair it is only lawn treatments they are doing. It's not rocket science so you don't need six months intensive training before you could be let loose.
  I think the problem is that it is a franchise and the franchisee will vary in their professionalism and someone who is not so thorough may give the whole company a bad name.
  
  The winter treatment they do is a scarification, leaf collecting and aerating treatment to my knowledge. Not sure though, like I say cousins business not mine.
  
  However I know when he did his training it was a pretty intensive program and he was away from home for a month or so if I remember rightly
• PRO

  Gary RK April 9, 2010 at 4:10pm

  Ben,
  
  I think you treading on dodgy ground with that statement : "Lets be fair it is only lawn treatments they are doing"
  
  The lawn is major part of most peoples landscape. It deserves to look good and have it shown respect. Many people spend years training in turf care to turf managment.
  
  It is not just a case of dishing out a product from a spreader or sprayer. It takes knowledge and experience to undestand what a lawn needs in terms of cutltral and chemical treatments, added to fact they need to understand pesticides (ie PA1/PA6).
  
  The approach you mention married with some franchises IS EXACTLY why they have a bad name (rightly or wrongly).
  
  I've studied turf care (along with many on here) and would hate to have my experience dismissed by such a simplistic statement.....
  
  
  Ben Jones said:

  I should probably declare up front that my cousin has a franchise with the company you are referring to, but I have never heard anyone with a bad word to say in fairness about the work they do. He doesn't employ anyone without the correct qualfications and they spend time with him learning the job before they are allowed out on their own. Lets be fair it is only lawn treatments they are doing. It's not rocket science so you don't need six months intensive training before you could be let loose.
  I think the problem is that it is a franchise and the franchisee will vary in their professionalism and someone who is not so thorough may give the whole company a bad name.
  
  The winter treatment they do is a scarification, leaf collecting and aerating treatment to my knowledge. Not sure though, like I say cousins business not mine.
  
  However I know when he did his training it was a pretty intensive program and he was away from home for a month or so if I remember rightly
• 

  Nick Donaghey @ Garden Gurus April 9, 2010 at 4:54pm

  Exactly right Gary,
  
  It's precisely because they think that they can throw a few chemicals down or run a scarifier over the lawn (at any random time of year they choose) that they have such a bad reputation.
  
  gary @ affinity landscapes said:

  Ben,
  
  I think you treading on dodgy ground with that statement : "Lets be fair it is only lawn treatments they are doing"
  
  The lawn is major part of most peoples landscape. It deserves to look good and have it shown respect. Many people spend years training in turf care to turf managment.
  
  It is not just a case of dishing out a product from a spreader or sprayer. It takes knowledge and experience to undestand what a lawn needs in terms of cutltral and chemical treatments, added to fact they need to understand pesticides (ie PA1/PA6).
  
  The approach you mention married with some franchises IS EXACTLY why they have a bad name (rightly or wrongly).
  
  I've studied turf care (along with many on here) and would hate to have my experience dismissed by such a simplistic statement.....
  
  
  Ben Jones said:

  I should probably declare up front that my cousin has a franchise with the company you are referring to, but I have never heard anyone with a bad word to say in fairness about the work they do. He doesn't employ anyone without the correct qualfications and they spend time with him learning the job before they are allowed out on their own. Lets be fair it is only lawn treatments they are doing. It's not rocket science so you don't need six months intensive training before you could be let loose.
  I think the problem is that it is a franchise and the franchisee will vary in their professionalism and someone who is not so thorough may give the whole company a bad name.
  
  The winter treatment they do is a scarification, leaf collecting and aerating treatment to my knowledge. Not sure though, like I say cousins business not mine.
  
  However I know when he did his training it was a pretty intensive program and he was away from home for a month or so if I remember rightly
• 

  Anthony Toop April 9, 2010 at 7:26pm

  Picked up some lawn work today from an existing client, up till now i have done just the general garden maintenance but today i was asked to take over the lawn care and they will cancel there contract with tom thumb. The guy came round last week to do one of there quarterly visits to apply 'feed and weed' the lawn is approx 80square meters, apparently he turned up, was there barely 5mins in total, threw some granular product around in a sporadic fashion and then was gone! oh, and he looked about 12yrs old!
• 

  Geoff Norfolk April 9, 2010 at 10:11pm

  To be fair to them..... even if we don't want to be!!....... from what I've heard, they don't charge much for applying weed/feed and expert or not, it would still be difficult to take longer than 5 minutes to treat 80 square metres!! A lady who's garden I sometimes do some tree work for, was quoted £100 to hollow tine a small lawn.... about 100 square metres..... thought that was a bit steep. From my observations, it seems the people that use this company are frequently the sort of people that wouldn't employ a gardener and do most things in the garden themselves....... perhaps not very well! Although not ideal, their lawns do generally appear to improve though I'd like to think they'd probably improve more if we were doing it!!
  
  Anthony Toop said:

  Picked up some lawn work today from an existing client, up till now i have done just the general garden maintenance but today i was asked to take over the lawn care and they will cancel there contract with tom thumb. The guy came round last week to do one of there quarterly visits to apply 'feed and weed' the lawn is approx 80square meters, apparently he turned up, was there barely 5mins in total, threw some granular product around in a sporadic fashion and then was gone! oh, and he looked about 12yrs old!
• 

  Ben Jones April 10, 2010 at 12:51am

  Sorry I don't mean to cause any offence to anyone here, and certainly wouldn't dismiss the training anyone puts in. I know how much learning I have done and I am still doing to run my business.
  My point was, compared to a lot of people doing full garden maintainance or landscaping, or tree work or maybe a combination of all these and more, where you need to know a wider range of skills maybe. That the service offered by this firm is fairly limited. Also that there is going to be a variation between the different franchise owners. This is not something unique to this firm. A well known car parts supplier in the UK gives the impression of being one big firm but they are actually all diferent franchises with wildly varying levels of service and knowledge by the staff within.
  
  Once again I apologise I do not mean to demean the work done by anyone here.
  
  Thanks
  
  gary @ affinity landscapes said:

  Ben,
  
  I think you treading on dodgy ground with that statement : "Lets be fair it is only lawn treatments they are doing"
  
  The lawn is major part of most peoples landscape. It deserves to look good and have it shown respect. Many people spend years training in turf care to turf managment.
  
  It is not just a case of dishing out a product from a spreader or sprayer. It takes knowledge and experience to undestand what a lawn needs in terms of cutltral and chemical treatments, added to fact they need to understand pesticides (ie PA1/PA6).
  
  The approach you mention married with some franchises IS EXACTLY why they have a bad name (rightly or wrongly).
  
  I've studied turf care (along with many on here) and would hate to have my experience dismissed by such a simplistic statement.....
  
  
• 

  Lawncare-4u.co.uk April 10, 2010 at 1:38am

  i think they do pa1 and pa6 . my instructor/lecturer said he trained them....
  
  but youve heard /my views' !