When winter rolls around, landscaping and lawn mowing businesses have to find creative ways to keep busy.
Some switch gears and focus on snow and ice removal, or hanging Christmas lights. Others survive by selling chainsaws and generators when ice knocks down power lines.
Without cold weather business, landscaping companies say they couldn't survive summer to summer, and neither could their employees.
"(With) hourly labor, you might lose them in the winter," said Daniel Calvert, general manager of the landscaping firm Earth Water Fire in Oklahoma City. "It would be difficult to get them back."
Plans for slow days Calvert said the business has multiple elements to keep business year-round. In the off-season, workers hang Christmas lights in November and December and take them down in January.
In February and March, workers start spraying for weeds. And throughout the winter, the company removes snow and ice after winter storms.
Cold-weather business is slow when you sell lawnmowers as Mike Astani, general manager of Metro Turf Outdoor Power Equipment in Norman, Okla., does. He encourages customers to bring in their lawn equipment for maintenance during the winter, which gives employees some work.
If the area is hit by an ice storm, that also helps business because Metro Turf sells chainsaws and generators, he said.
But most landscaping businesses continue planning new projects when it's cold outside.
Unless it's too cold to pour concrete, many projects such as swimming pools and waterfalls can be constructed year-round, some say.
But for all landscaping companies, customers really start calling when spring rolls around.
"We pray for a wet spring," Astani said. "A busy spring and summer keeps us going."