INSTALLATION: Sowing the Seeds

Since implementing seeding services in 2000, Jeff Lowartz says things have never been greener.
 
Lowartz, certified horticultural technician for Ontario, Canada-based Heritage Green, began seeding services because the Canadian government started cracking down on lawn care pesticides. Customers began looking for an alternative method to stamp out weeds. It took a bit of convincing to sell the service because homeowners were concerned a seeded lawn wouldn’t look as appealing as sod. After some persuasion, though, they were hooked.
  
“After starting the service, word-of-mouth led to calls from homeowners who saw their neighbor’s lawn seeded,” Lowartz says. “And they liked what they saw.”
 
Many landscape contractors now offer seeding services. Lawn & Landscape research shows 64 percent of contractors offer seeding services; and 62 percent purchased turf seed in the past 12 months.
 
The seeding service is very profitable for Heritage Green, mostly because the company already owned much of the equipment needed to add the service. Because the company already owned a de-thatcher, he replaced the flail blade with the fixed variety. Once a fixed blade was used to cut the soil, his crews used a drop seeder, then added water. “We were getting pretty good results,” he recalls.
 
It cost Heritage Green about $250 to convert the de-thatcher blade. Now, seeding is the most profitable lawn service Lowartz’s division offers. In fact, the division has grown by 30 percent since 2000. Soon after offering seeding, Heritage Green bought a small walk-behind overseeder to use on residential properties. The overseeders, while not self-propelled, were perfect in size for residential applications.
 
By 2004, Lowartz had three walk-behind overseeders, plus a three-point hitch seeder. One challenge was purchasing larger equipment to do bigger seeding jobs. “It really was overwhelming in the beginning the amount of we were getting just for seeding,” Lowartz says. When more jobs came in, Lowartz borrowed workers from other Heritage Green departments, such as construction. Heritage Green has practically built an entire division around seeding, he says. 
 
Heritage Green performs a good amount of dormant seeding. Seeding for the year generally ends in mid-October. By Nov. 15, Lowartz begins seeding again until snowfall. Once football season ends, all the fields need seeding again. “We put the seed down in the fall, so come springtime, the grass starts to pop up,” he says.

CHALLENGES. Getting clients to buy into the idea of seeding took a bit of work. “The thing was trying to convince them growing grass from seed produces a better quality lawn over the long term, than growing it from sod,” he says. “We reinforce the fact that you’re growing a plant in their lawn, not transplanting one that grew somewhere else.”
 
Many homeowners have tried at some point to plant grass seed and were disappointed with the results.

“They buy the cheapest bag of seed they could find at a big box store, they throw it down, and nothing happens,” he says. “A lot of the seed bought at those stores are of low-quality, which eventually makes the lawn look patchy and uneven and they wonder why.”
 
Once it sells a homeowner on seeding’s benefits, the cost is easy to digest. On average, it costs about 10 cents per square foot to seed, whereas it can cost up to $4 to sod.
 
Heritage Green emphasizes seeding produces high-quality lawns if quality seed is used and the blend is appropriate for the conditions. Lowartz began taking courses on selecting grass seed and seeding methods to improve the business. “People just want to see a little bit of green,” Lowartz says. “We have good quality grasses that will come up in five to seven days. The homeowner starts to see the green and they’re relieved.”
  
The slit-seeding procedure Heritage Green employs practically ensures that customers will soon see green. With slit-seeding, seeds are planted in the same way corn is planted. “It cuts a little groove and drops the seed in there,” Lowartz says. “When you add water, the ground swells back up. The consistency of germination is fantastic.” Without the seed-soil contact, the grass just won’t grow. “We tried broadcast seeding, but slit seeding just gives us the most bang for our time and money,” he says.
 
Heritage Green’s perfect customer turns out to be small municipalities and towns that don’t have large equipment budgets. “When they realize they can hire out seeding services to go out for a day or two, and they can do that for 10 years for the same price as buying the equipment, that’s really where we see our biggest growth,” Lowartz says.