Mulch Cultivation Curb Appeal

With it’s minimal equipment or training investment, Steve Woods, vice president of operations, Five Seasons Landscape Management, Columbus, Ohio, has found mulch cultivation to be an inexpensive add-on service for his large commercial contracts. But he has found the service has helped his company in another way he didn’t expect: Keeping clients with limited budgets.

Most of his clients are condominium associations, homeowners' associations and upscale office and retail spaces, but Woods does some work on apartment properties. In the Columbus area, Woods says rental property owners are struggling to keep tenants because of the low interest rates for houses and condominiums. Because of this, maintenance budgets are cut, and the services most often dropped are the ones most profitable for contractors, such as mulching.