Landscaping & grounds maintenance

1. Measure the property rather than estimating it — turf area, bed area, edge metres, obstacles. Measured area is the only honest basis for a recurring price.
2. Time a trial visit, or price from a measured production rate you have derived from your own crews' logged times.
3. Price the whole season as a contract with a stated number of visits, not per cut. Per-cut pricing transfers all the weather risk to you and makes the revenue unforecastable.
4. Check the property against the route: a property that adds twenty minutes of drive time needs to be priced for thirty, or declined. Route density is the economics of this trade.
5. State clearly what is included — mowing, trimming, edging, blowing, bed care, pruning, leaf cleanup, fertiliser, irrigation start-up and shutdown — and what is extra, with its price.
6. Set the payment method at signing: equal monthly instalments by pre-authorised debit or card, across the whole contract term.

1. Build the route the evening before, grouped geographically, with the day's exceptions — extras, complaints, irrigation checks — already slotted.
2. Pre-trip the truck and trailer: lights, straps, tyres, trailer brakes and the load secured. A detached trailer is the catastrophic risk in this trade, and it is entirely preventable.
3. Crew leader clocks the crew on and off at each property in the system, so property-level labour is real data rather than an allocation.
4. Photograph anything that is a pre-existing problem — a damaged fence, a dead shrub, a sprinkler head already broken — before working. This prevents the most common customer dispute in the trade.
5. Report extras found on site the same day, with a photograph and a price; most upsell in maintenance is found, not sold.
6. Blow down hard surfaces and leave the property cleaner than the lawn. The visible finish is what gets you renewed, more than the cut quality.

1. Only a licensed applicator applies a pesticide commercially, and only a product registered for that use may be applied. Licensing is provincial — Ontario licences applicators and operators under its Pesticides Act, and British Columbia licenses under its integrated pest management regime — while the product itself must be federally registered.
2. Check the product's current label before every application: the label is the law, and it governs rate, timing, protective equipment, re-entry and posting.
3. Confirm what the municipality permits. Cosmetic-pesticide restrictions are local as well as provincial, and the client's expectation is frequently not what is permitted.
4. Notify and post the property as the regulation requires, and keep the record of what was applied, where, at what rate, by whom, with weather conditions.
5. Store and transport products in a secured, labelled, ventilated space, separate from fuel and from anything that will be eaten or worn.
6. Prefer the cultural fix — mowing height, aeration, overseeding, irrigation timing — before the chemical one. It is defensible, often more effective, and it is what a restricted jurisdiction leaves you with anyway.

1. Contract before the season with the trigger defined in writing: at what snow depth you attend, how often during a continuing event, what surfaces, and what the ice-control standard is. An undefined trigger is a dispute waiting for the first storm.
2. Decide the pricing structure deliberately — per event, seasonal fixed, or per hour — and understand which way each one carries the weather risk. Seasonal fixed is predictable revenue and a bad-winter loss; per event is the reverse.
3. Record every attendance: property, arrival and departure time, surfaces treated, material applied and quantity, and the weather at the time. Photograph the finished surface.
4. Keep the material log reconciled: salt and brine purchased against applied. It is both a cost control and part of the record.
5. Apply ice control to a standard, and record the standard you worked to. Over-application is a cost and an environmental problem; under-application is a claim.
6. Retain the whole winter's records for the limitation period for injury claims in your jurisdiction, not for the season. A claim typically arrives long after the snow has gone.

1. Plan the hiring six to eight weeks before the season, not in the first warm week. The whole trade hires simultaneously and the good crews are gone by then.
2. Put the seasonal nature of the work in writing in the employment agreement, including the expected end, and take advice on what notice or pay the jurisdiction requires at layoff — it is specific and it is not optional.
3. Train in the first week on the three things that cause injuries and claims: trailer and equipment safety, string trimmer and mower hazards, and heat illness.
4. Keep a returning-crew list and contact it first each spring; retention of experienced seasonal staff is the cheapest productivity gain in the business.
5. Where you use a temporary foreign worker programme, treat it as a compliance project with lead times measured in months, not weeks.

1. Send renewals before the season starts, with the price increase stated plainly and once. A mid-season increase costs more in goodwill than it earns.
2. Call every commercial account rather than emailing. Commercial maintenance is lost silently, to a tender you were not told about.
3. Use the shoulder weeks for the work that does not need the whole crew: equipment overhaul, spring cleanups quoted in advance, irrigation start-ups booked by appointment.
4. Review every property's actual hours against its contract price before renewing it, and re-price or release the ones that lose money.
5. Ask the properties that left why, and record the answer by category — price, quality, communication, or a change of owner.

Licences and registrations

• Pesticide applicator and operator licence — The province — Ontario under the Pesticides Act, British Columbia under its integrated pest management regime, and equivalents elsewhere
  Commercial application requires a licensed applicator, and in most provinces the business also needs an operator licence. The product must additionally be federally registered for that use.
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• Municipal business licence — Each municipality worked in
  Often several, if you cross municipal lines on a route. Commercial property managers check it.
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• Driver licence class for the vehicle and trailer combination — The provincial licensing authority
  Combined gross weight decides the class, and a loaded dual-axle trailer behind a three-quarter-ton truck gets there faster than most owners expect. An under-licensed driver is an uninsured driver after an incident.
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• Water-use and irrigation permits where applicable — The municipality or the water authority
  Seasonal watering restrictions are municipal and change in drought. Installing irrigation may require a certified installer or a backflow-prevention test in some jurisdictions.
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• Invasive species and soil movement rules — Provincial and federal agencies
  Moving soil, firewood or plant material can be restricted to prevent pest spread. This catches out landscape construction more often than maintenance.
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Insurance

• Commercial general liability, commonly $2M–$5M, with completed-operations — Required by commercial clients and property managers before you set foot on site. Property damage in this trade is frequent and small — stones through windows, damaged irrigation, dead plant material.1
• Snow and ice liability, explicitly confirmed in writing — The single most important insurance question in this trade. Slip-and-fall claims from winter work are severe, arrive late, and some general liability policies exclude or sub-limit snow operations. Confirm the cover and the limit before you sign a single plowing contract.1
• Workers' compensation coverage and clearance letters — Mandatory for employees, and the clearance letter is what commercial clients require.2
• Commercial auto, plus inland marine or equipment floater — Equipment stolen off a trailer is the most common loss in the trade, and a standard auto policy does not cover the mower on the trailer.1