The summer time is supposed to be a time of relaxation, chilling out at the lake, spending quality time away from home. Yet with all the lawn maintenance that needs to be accomplished when you own a home your time is spent mowing the lawn, weeding the flower beds and mulching. Times like this I often wonder about getting someone to come in that offers landscape services. I know the expense is always in the for front of my mind but I know that later on when my kids are grown I will not remember all the time spent mowing my lawn but times at the beach I will remember.
So there I went on my quest to find reasonable lawn maintenance. I consider a neighbor buy that was looking to make some extra summer cash but then reconsidered thinking I wanted a professional to come out. They would be able to take care of everything. I did not want to do spring or fall clean up, pull weeds, edge or any of it. I knew the neighbor boy would keep it cut but I wanted to enjoy the space when I was home having weekend bbq’s. I didn’t want to look around and see everything that the landscape services provide still needed to be done in my own yard.
Finding a good landscape services company was not that hard at all. I knew I was looking for someone with reasonable rates, high quality work, references and a service company that would maintain a schedule around mine. I wanted the lawn mowed on Thursday afternoon so that the lawn would be fresh and spruced for us to enjoy over the weekend.
It was important that it was a contractor with references that could vouch for his character. The last thing I wanted was to bring in someone that was not able to work well with the neighborhood. What I mean by this is that he had to be respectful to the community members, be friendly to the children, come to work dressed appropriately and have a general attitude of one that is passionate about their work.
Quality is important to me. I needed a landscape service that noticed the weeds and when the mulch needed a refresher. I wanted someone who would work and be thorough without me standing over their shoulder to tell them what I wanted done. The first time we met for me to interview the landscape company we eventually hired we sat instead of me running the show the gentlemen asked me questions about what was important with regards to his services. He asked about the length I like the lawn kept at. He wanted to know how I like my bushes and trees maintained. It was also important to him that I fir with his style of landscape services.
After I ran a background check on the company and called a bunch of references I liked everything I saw and heard. Many of his clients had been referred to him through word of mouth. I found out he no longer advertised his services because clients were keeping his services year after year because he understood just what his clients wanted and needed. I felt lucky to have found him to care for all of my landscape services. It was a win-win situation for both of us. He can earn a living doing something he loves which is something I don’t desire doing for the time being. Maybe when I am ready to settle down and to use my summer for something other than having fun I will consider going back to maintaining my own yard but somehow I think I could get use to this instead.