L&L Insider

Community Goals

The Columbus Crew and Davey Tree teamed up to rehab a local garden.

By Brian Horn

COLUMBUS, OHIO – Before April’s United States versus Mexico World Cup soccer qualifier in Arizona, the Columbus Crew did some work of its own with a green industry company.

The Major League Soccer franchise teamed with Davey Tree’s Columbus East CLS branch to rehab a garden part of the Greater Linden Garden Community. The food members grow help feed low income families.

Bob Klein, branch manager, said there was an ambitious scope of work that needed to be done, so Davey came in and started working days prior to the scheduled day of service, which also involved many of the Columbus Crew’s corporate partners.

“All of the work that needed to be done with heavy machinery was done in those days prior to ensure the safety of the other volunteers on the day of service,” he says.

Davey erected a fence, brought in a skid-steer to ready the area, built an arbor, planted trees, perennials and various vegetables, constructed a brick paver patio and donated woodchips to be used for mulch. Davey brought eight employees donating 10 hours each on the day of service, with about 75 hours prior to the day of service for preparation reasons as well, Klein said. There was one large community garden with different areas within. The entire garden was completed in one day.

Arica Kress, senior director of marketing and promotions with the Columbus Crew, said the team chose Linden Community Garden because the Linden neighborhood is adjacent to Columbus Crew Stadium and, “We feel it is important to give back and participate in the communities around the stadium,” she says.

“We partnered with Davey Tree last year. They provided expertise, staff, equipment and product to make this project come to life. Without their support and assistance it would not have been possible.”

Kress says the partnership worked out well, and if you are interested in similar projects, a sports team might be an organization to contact.

“If you are passionate about giving back to your community, many sports teams are also passionate about being good community partners,” she says. “One of the pillars of our Dare to Care communities initiatives here with the Columbus Crew is Keep Columbus Beautiful. This project fit in perfectly with one of our focus areas. It was vital to have a partnership with experts to make the vision come to life.”

Have you completed a charity project you are proud of or helped out your community in another way? Email Managing Editor Brian Horn at bhorn@gie.net to be considered for coverage in a future issue of Lawn & Landscape.
 

Bayer opens North American Bee Care Center

By Dan Moreland

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. – In April, Bayer CropScience opened its North American Bee Care Center in Research Triangle Park, N.C. The 6,000-square-foot, $2.4-million center will support scientific research, product stewardship and sustainable agriculture to protect and improve honey bee health, as well as educate stakeholders and the general public about the beneficial insects.

The center has a laboratory with a teaching and research apiary, a honey extraction and hive maintenance space, an interactive learning center, meeting and training facilities for beekeepers, farmers and educators, office space for staff and graduate students, on-site honey bee colonies, pollinator-friendly gardens and a screened hive observation area.

The North American Bee Care Center, part of the company’s $12 million corporate-wide investment in bee health in 2014, brings together experts in agriculture and apiology to develop comprehensive solutions for bee health, including entomologists and apiarists, graduate researchers and more.

The facility complements Bayer’s Eastern Bee Care Technology Station, a 1,200-square-foot field station that opened in November in nearby Clayton, N.C. Bayer’s first Bee Care Center opened in 2012 at the company’s global headquarters in Monheim, Germany.
 

L&L On the road

Tried&true

RALEIGH, N.C. – At a John Deere event in mid-June, contractors said communication was one of the biggest challenges they were facing while operating their businesses.

A contractor from Cleveland said workers would wait two weeks to tell him they needed string for their string trimmers.

One of the solutions presented for his problem during a roundtable discussion, which was part of John Deere’s 2014 Quality FIRST Factory Tour, was to have one person check the vehicles before roll call every morning.

A New Jersey-based contractor had one employee come in at 4 a.m. and make sure all the trucks were fueled up and stocked for the day. For example, if one crew was weed whacking, he had to make sure they had the equipment they would need for the day.

He said having one person in charge of it all made it easier to keep track of everything, and basically eliminated the chance a crew would get out to a site and realize they needed something.
 

Research

A look inside staffing

We surveyed between 500 and 600 contractors about hiring and found referrals are still king when finding employees, and the second most popular, Craigslist, wasn’t even close. The numbers also show the industry isn’t utilizing nearby colleges or job fairs enough.

When they are looking for non-production employees, foreman topped the list. More than 20 percent said they weren’t having trouble finding any non-production-level position.
 

Source: Lawn & Landscape research