[peteg]

work here is very slow due to drought. Its normal for things to slow down this time of year, but this is much more then expected. Anyone else having this problem or is it jst me?

[Matt Kulp]

Maintenance seems to be slowing down a bit, but the install and construction teams are going strong.

[Greensmith]

Ditto with Maint., we got some lucky breaks on two yard re-do's and its making up its fair share of the profits this month.

[NCSULandscaper]

the landscaping side of the biz is slow, but we made it slow with temps in the 100s, we are not planting anything right now, waiting for the end of the month to start all of our seeding work and installs. So to make up for that we are working alot on the nursery side of the business building new growing beds, weeding and getting the greenhouses prepped for the winter coverings

[Stonehenge]

We're in what I'd call a kind of unusual situation this year, in that we have work coming out our ears. It didn't start that way in spring, but right now, depending on the outcome of a project or two in the next week or two, we may be booked until next May or June of '08. Very unusual for us, as we're usually 4-6 weeks out on work.

FYI we don't do maintenance - just installs, and mainly hardscapes. Drought works in our favor for those.

[cutntrim]

Maintenance is at almost a standstill here but everyone's on seasonal contracts. Throw a match on the lawns before today and they'd catch fire. It's actually raining right now. A steady rain for the first time in probably two months.

I'll be caught up on construction by week's end, so I need some of the quotes given (and yet to give) to pan out.

[mrusk]

Right now i am about to finsh 2 large jobs then i have two more 3 week each jobs ready to go.

I am currently talking to 6 other clients all for decent jobs in the 30-50k range then i have 2 large quater million that are in the early stages of discussion.

Regardlesss of the out come of those jobs it looks like i have 4 months of work booked for 08'.


But overall it seems most landscapers i talk to are slow. It seems like the market for 5-15k landscape jobs is shot. Seems like there are more guys capable of performing those jobs then acctual availabe jobs. Once you get to the larger jobs there are less competitors.

[Pelican]

We're going steady, not setting the world on fire, but always booked out a job or two ahead. Many of my competitors are out of work, I count my blessings. Most years I'm booked out a couple months at least, last August that changed and it has been slower since.

[Mark Oomkes]

We have work, not a lot, but some. Install as well as maintenance.

Not sure what's going to happen long term as the economy sucks (to put it mildly) here in MI and it isn't looking to pickup for probably another year at least.

[peteg]

Good luck,

[Stonehenge]

Mark, is GR affected by the automotive industry's destiny? I used to live near Detroit, and would have thought GR was far enough away to not really be affected. Or are there other economic problems there?

[Dale Wiley]

Landscape is terrible... we have one installatino job going now, for a lady who has family money.

Her son is a plant /fgacility manager for a resource extration company, (rock / gravel etc) and he siad it is as slow as he's seen it in years. He sent most of his worker to other plants to work, they are working off stockpiles, no extraction right now.

19 housing permits issued in our county last month.

Sports turf is fair...we are putting together our plan for exit from residential landscape in 2008.

[RHayden]

New residential landscape is as slow as its been around here in a long time.

Residential renovation and irrigation is up slightly. New commercial is also up. Been an average year for us, but one "competitor" has vanished and a couple others are whining pretty loudly.

A slow year or two every now and then isn't necessarily a bad thing.

[natural12]

Work is going strong here in Raleigh, NC. I am probably having the best year of my seven years of business. Booked for about 3 months with several prospects in the pipe. I would have to say it is partly due to getting more referrals and getting a lot of response from my website which is advertised on google adwords. The economy seems strong here. All the suppliers are still going strong as well. New homes have slowed but are still going up.
Sorry to here things are slowing elsewhere. I have a friend in Cleveland and things have dramatically slowed down this year for him. He is in the gutter business so he is closely tied to new home construction.

Best of luck,
Mike

[Mark Oomkes]

Jeff, it is better to an extent. GR\West MI is doing better than the rest of the state, but as a whole we are pretty much in a 1 state recession. Our tax structure as well as the business regulations are really creating problems, on top of that, we have a governor who doesn't have a clue how to lead or get anything accomplished without raising taxes. Never mind all the other states with budget surpluses that have not raised taxes. There is still a lot of automotive suppliers in GR that did not diversify quickly enough, we work for one. They're having a tough time, but said it will be next year before it picks up--if they can hang on. They are or were are largest winter customer, but they want to try to get by without a very, very limited amount of salt. we'll see what happens there.

I don't remember the exact stats, but they did a poll not too long ago that showed a huge number of people who planned on moving out of the state within the next 5 years.

Housing market other than $1M and upwards or under $150K is in the tank, huge glut of commercial real estate out there. Most of the construction is occuring downtown, very little to no landscape needed. Excavator's are dropping pretty quickly so far, I expect quite a few more to go by next spring, and sooner or later the landscape contractors will start falling by the wayside as well.

Then to top it off, we have a couple landscape and maintenance contractors that have taken it upon themselves to let the bottom fall out of pricing and life is just grand. These aren't even the illegals yet, supposedly reputable companies. Dale knows 2 of them personally.

So there's my woe is me story, time to get some work accomplished and not let it get to me.