From the ground up

For the healthiest, greenest lawns, you’ve got to start at the beginning. Without the proper foundation of healthy roots and good soil, turf isn’t set up for success. Shawn Karn, agronomic manager of Nutri-Lawn Corp. in Toronto always tells people, “It all starts from the ground up.”

“If you’ve got poor soil conditions for the roots themselves to grow in, you’re going to be limited in how good you can make that turf look,” he says. “Root health is where it all starts and if you don’t have that, you’re never going to have healthy turf. What we can’t see is essentially more important than what we can see because it’s going to determine the finished product.”

Communication is key.

Most of Nutri-Lawn’s customers are responsible for their own irrigation and mowing, so communication and education are key to a healthy lawn.

When technicians can talk to customers one-on-one, they’ll talk about the benefits of services like aeration or dethatching and even show the customers a soil probe to explain the problem. This works particularly well in situations like new housing developments where there’s a thin layer of topsoil over rough grade materials like bricks, plywood and cement.

“We say ‘Hey look you’ve only got an inch or two of soil; we can barely even get the probe in the ground. This is something you’ve got to do,’” Karn says.

But if folks aren’t at home, technicians will leave notes on what they’ve found so that Nutri-Lawn can follow up. In the last two years, they’ve moved away from phone calls and now use pre- and post- treatment emails to communicate problems or issues to their customers. And people are responding better to emails than they did to calls or voicemails, according to Karn.

And it’s not just marketing. The emails include educational pieces and tips on proper watering and mowing. They even include short video tutorials to show their customers how to take care of their lawns. “We’ve noticed that when we put video content in the email, it gets viewed very heavily as opposed to a paragraph of mowing tips. They’d rather just watch a video,” Karn says.

For example, if a technician finds compacted soil and poor root growth, Nutri-Lawn will send out a follow-up email with information about aeration and what it does so that the customer will understand why it’s necessary. The constant communication helps customers understand, and care for, their lawns.