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For the researching visitor there's a wealth of landscaping ideas, garden design ideas, lawn advice tips and advice about garden maintenance.
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Keeping a dairy is a very wise move.
Gone from manic to manageable which is good and long may it continue.
My maintenance schedule is full and I am trying to find ways of making it more efficient. I stopped one job as chasing the client for payment was a real hassle (hotel/restaurant) but got the space filled instantly.
Working hard to get contracts with factors so next year I can start off with an employee hopefully full time.
excellent start to the year (i mainly landscape) diary was looking aweful when i landed a big project which i start next tuesday and will run through till the end of august...
normal stream of little jobs being quoted, these seem to be harder to turn into work this year think there is more compotition for this work.
the diary has a whopping gap in it for september, but then oct and nov are looking really good...
as far as i'm conserned this is a good year so far!!!!
We only started trading in February 2011, running the plant supply for Landscape and Garden Designers through the South and South West at the South West Landscapers Centre as a Member of Somerstock.
The good news is, that in just under 6 months, we have doubled sales to this part of the industry for Somerstock, as against last year. Yippee!!!!
Yes a 100% increase in sales!
Oh yes, and the contract to supply plants to 77 houses at Portland to house Olympic athletes next Summer, starting in August.
Word of mouth, old friends, new people, nice people. Been in the business 30+ years, must have a few contacts?
An average year, lots of hard work still to do, but hopefully on the right track.
I looked after a few hotels in London for a maintenance firm based in Manchester. Payment got a bit tricky there too. Seven months had gone by without payment. He said his company was rebranding but I found out it was a different company altogether. He kept changing his registered address which were just PO boxes with flash addresses. Googled the company and his name, turns out I wasn't the only one chasing money from him.
Dan Frazer Gardening said:
things are 'tight' ............. only 3 regular lawns this yr as just picked one up.
- waiting on a new small commercial fortnightly here and a domestic in london.
had some projects : pateo, gravel/decking, decking & path , plus another pateo extension im putting off.
3 days free next week at the moment ......................... it may get filled but ill do my own if not !
weather doesnt help last 2 weeks ............
ever hopeful , but im looking at other income-streams
There is one lawn i cut yesterday for the first time in two months. Crazy. They dont want to spend on aeration and scarifying but will happily chuck bag after bag of feed, weed and moskiller (from macro) on which has little to no effect. I find myself banging my head against a brick wall sometimes especially with people who are'nt gardeners and think they know better than me.
On the flip side, someone wanted me to scarify and aerate now (middle of summer) ! I had to run through the reasons why not and they eventually agreed to wait until september.
At an office grounds i do in Leeds somebody knicked the panels out of a fence i put there last year. Cheeky barstewards. At least i got the job replacing them.
I started the year slow as my good lady wife was still working 12 hr night shifts and a lot of my time was taken up by the 2 wee children i have , she changed her job to a day job which freed up a lot more time for me and i started advertising in our local free paper im now booked solid until mid october and im still adding work , ive also taken on a full time member of staff + my eldest who is at 6th form helps out when he can .
My work is 50% recomendations and 50% new business from the paper and is not showing any signs of slowing down so overall i belive im having a very very good year , what i do find strange is that im the only garden service provider in the local paper (which covers a large area) so that may be the reason im so busy ...
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