thanks to everyone

[newmoonfarm]

when my wife and i decided to expand our farm/nursery into lawn care/landscaping we didn't know where to start. our sons are out of school and we needed to expand our family business.
we read posts, searched key words, and did a huge amount of our research on this site.
my bids are competitive with our competition, not high or low. i have all my permits, tax numbers, and ins. i went john deere because of an established (3 generations) relationship with our local dealer, but i felt more confident have read others opinions.
we got our first job on our first bid! everybody in town uses one company, they specialize in scalping weeds and going.
we are going to take out and replace the old yard fence, repair all the damage the old guy did rutting up the yard (tractor ruts in a city yard), re-sod, build raised beds, and an arbor. my wife specializes in the plants and is going to do all the plantings in the beds. we are going to trim and prune all the trees and shrubs. this is an older house with established plants and will be beautiful when complete.
besides the money we live in a small town and this will be great advertisement and word of mouth.
thanks to everybody for all the tips and help ( i probaly have read all the posts before i had the nerve to try this).

[lawnlubber]

I wish you the best of luck. Someday I hope to expand my landscaping into a farm/nursery operation. I hope you're still around to give back to the community here. I'm certain I'll have questions.

[Groundcover Solutions]

good luck to you a little research in the beginning pays off in the end. Also thanks for not being like most newbies and not using the search option!! You should be able to succeed with that type of attitude good luck man.

[newmoonfarm]

my family has always been into beef cattle, and thought my wife and i were nuts when we started growing heirloom produce and culinary herbs. we did a ton of research then too.
i'm such a nut i even read mother earth news and watched the home and garden channel so i could see how the "farmer's" dressed so i could fit the image our customers expected.
any small businessman is selling themselves and has to make their customers feel comfortable, it's like performance art to me. your client has to trust you, and image and knowledge go hand in hand.
my wife and i have sort of the non-threatening ben and jerry's hippie thing working. the customers love it and we start off on more friendly terms than the corporate lawn guys do. a lot of little old ladies feel intimidated by the big guys but fell very at ease talking to us.
when we started the lawn business this spring we already had a reputation for our produce, we made home deliveries to our older customers and did a few handyman chores just to help out.
when i started talking about landscaping and lawns we had people telling us to call them before we had started buying the equipment.
taking a few extra minutes with each person we deal with pays off for us big time.
again thanks to you guys for getting me on the right track in this new business. my wife loves getting to actually go to the homes where her plants are and helping to maintan the.

[old dog]

I grew up on a dairy farm in the 50s and 60s.Lawn and landscape service can make you
a decent living with less work than farming.You will have no trouble because you have
an established business and name so people can trust you. Don't write off the younger
professionals either,they can be gold.Do good work,be fair,charge a decent(not low)
price and you will have all the work oyu can handle by the end of the year!The best to
you.