Rick Rasmussen’s lawn care customers in north central Iowa are pretty understanding. They know if Rick’s crew can’t get to their lawns this week, the problem is probably weather related and he will get to them next week.
"They know I’ll take care of them," said the owner of Rasmussen Lawn Care.
Although the Goldfield, Iowa-based company does not offer mowing, it provides just about every other lawn related service. Two years ago, he bought out a nursery in nearby Humbolt, expanding his expertise into landscape design and installation, as well as tree planting and maintenance.
"I was looking for something to fill in during the slow season in lawn care," said Rasmussen, who educated himself through short courses and seminars. "Our basic lawn care program covers only two visits because we try to keep it simple and economical for the customers. But we also offer aerification and insect and disease control to those who want it. We inspect each property regularly and alert the customer if we see problems developing."
With 1,000 customers in a 50-mile radius of Goldfield, Rasmussen services lawns in 10 different towns. Some 85 percent of his customers are residential, while the remaining 15 percent include commercial accounts, farm yards, cemeteries and even a few golf courses. Rasmussen does fall weed treatments for four golf courses because his flotation truck with a 60-foot boom can spray more efficiently than the courses’ smaller units and it doesn’t tear up the turf. "It takes me two hours to do, and it would take them all week," he explained.
BASIC TWO-STEP PROGRAM. Rasmussen’s two-step program includes spring fertilizer treatment with a dry granular product impregnated with preemergence crabgrass control.
"I’m a little old fashioned, but I think granulars do a better job and there’s less chance of stressing the lawn when you get a rain soon after treatment," he noted.
"We have two machines we use for large acreages, but the majority is done by hand on home lawns with our six spreaders. Then, we treate in the fall for broadleaf weeds such as dandelions, clover and creeping Charley," he added.
On irrigated lawns, Ras-mussen puts down a second fertilizer treatment in midsummer and a third in the late fall. He also responds to call-ins if customers have problems. Diseases do not generally frequent the mostly bluegrass lawns unless they are irrigated, but he does encounter grubs occasionally.
"We had to do a lot of reseeding lawns last spring because of bad winter weather," he stated.
Many lawns were killed by intense cold weather, followed by thawing and then refreezing. More grass was killed where snow was piled on areas not already covered with snow. We did thousands of dollars of work using a tractor with a slit-seeding unit. We’re also seeding new roads under construction this fall.
Rasmussen uses Finale® herbicide for nonselective weed and grass control on all his new seeding areas. He likes the product because he can eliminate the existing foliage and immediately reseed afterwards. He also uses Finale for edging, to spray around trees and in spots where weeds come into landscaped areas. For his commercial accounts, he uses the product to spray storage sites, parking lots, sidewalks and other areas companies want to keep weed-free.
FAST RESULTS. "I wanted something that would show quick results," Rasmussen explained.
"We used another product, and I got tired of people wondering if we’d sprayed yet because everything stayed green so long. Once I tried Finale, I switched almost completely. I like the quick burndown and the fact that it lasts a little longer. I also like its non-tracking characteristics. After the spray dries, you can walk through it and not worry about tracking it through the lawn. It does a great job."
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