Environmental Insights

While outside temperatures in Georgia may still be sweltering at the end of summer, before long most business owners’ thoughts will turn to planning and budgeting for next season. As a commercial property owner or manager, you’re concerned with making every budget dollar count.

It's inevitable. Every summer, the central Georgia heat and humidity promote out-of-control grass (and weed) growth. It really seems like an impossible task to keep your property looking well-maintained during the summer months. Even if you do manage to keep up with the growth, you still have to deal with the mountains of clippings that pile up and drift across your sidewalks and driveways. Plus, you often feel guilty about inflating your carbon footprint with all the constant mowing.

Whether it’s to do right by the environment or to protect the health of people and pets, more and more people in Georgia and elsewhere are becoming interested in living a less toxic lifestyle. It’s a choice that can impact just about every aspect of life—including lawn care.  

Here at T.Lake, we get it.  We’re outside people.  We like to go barefoot with the children and roll around in the grass with the dog. Their health, and ours, matters to us—a lot. So we certainly want to avoid unnecessary chemical use. But “Can you do organic lawn care?” is not a simple question for us to answer.

Of course, the easy reply is, “of course we can.” But the truth is, a 100% organic approach may not make you 100% happy. Here’s why.

“What does tree trimming cost?”

Like many pricing questions, this one has no simple answer. Instead, let me give you the lowdown on what goes into tree trimming cost estimation, so you can better understand the bids you receive.

Here’s a question that comes up a lot: “Will my landscape project qualify as a capital improvement?”

Whether the improvements are made to a home or business, all capital improvement projects are tax deductible. However, repair and maintenance projects are not. For larger projects especially, it’s a good idea to determine in advance whether or not a landscape project is a capital improvement.

We’ll be the first to admit it: T. Lake is not the biggest guy on the block. We’re a local company with local roots and local values. We like it that way.

But, that doesn’t mean we can’t play nice with the giants.

In a recent post, we discussed 5 compelling reasons for commercial real estate developers to feel comfortable working with T.Lake. But not all developers play in the same ballpark. When you start talking the biggest of the big, you’ve got to up the ante.

Very large, national and international contracting companies have unique concerns as well as a more corporate approach to doing business that doesn’t always mesh with the way small business operates. Does T. Lake have what it takes to work successfully with them?

As a matter of fact, we do.

A commercial landscape should look beautiful and inviting. However its benefits go deeper than mere aesthetics. A well-designed commercial landscape also offers many benefits related to safety and security,  cost control, sustainability, compliance with government regulations, and other areas.

In the same way, a good commercial landscape provider is one whose expertise encompasses far more than simply the ability to create an aesthetically pleasing landscape. When choosing a commercial landscaper to work with, it pays to look deeper into the company in question and find out what else they’re made of.

If you are a commercial landscape developer, here are a few reasons to consider working with T.Lake:

I was asked recently to define T. Lake’s core values. And the best I can say is that our values are derived first and foremost from the land.

Both of my grandfathers and theirs before them and theirs before them were farmers and timbermen. They loved the land. They made a living from the land. They appreciated and valued it. It took care of them, and they took care of it. That’s the attitude I grew up with.

I consider myself part of the lineage of the first job God gave a human being, and that's to tend the garden. Humankind’s first job was to get our hands in the dirt. We’re here to be good stewards.

Starting a new relationship—whether personal or in business—always involves a certain amount of risk. In our private lives, we’re on our own. But in the commercial landscape business, it’s standard to create a built-in risk containment device: the contract.

A good commercial landscape maintenance contract not only protects both parties, it can also be an invaluable communication tool to ensure that both you and your landscape contractor are—and remain—on the same page, and that you actually receive the service you want and expect.

However, a contract is only as good as what you put in it. Here are a few things we highly suggest including in your bid request the next time you hire a commercial landscape maintenance company.

What’s wrong with bahiagrass? Depends who you ask.

Bahiagrass is a coarse grass that was introduced into the U.S. in the 1930’s as a forage grass for cattle. It’s drought tolerant and does well in poor and even hard-packed soils, so some people use it as turf grass. It’s also used for roadside erosion control in some areas. So it has its uses.

But boy, is it ugly.

The stuff is coarse and weedy-looking, it has an open canopy and does not fill in well as turf, and it grows about two feet in a week so it’s a devil to keep mowed if you do choose—for whatever reason—to grow a bahiagrass lawn. Plus, it has a strange and unappealing Y-shaped seed head that stands out like a sore thumb in a lawn.