It can be frustrating to locate current literature on a topic without bumping into paywalls that prevent free access to information. How can you find the relevant information within the public domain?
Business Tips
When Your Contractor Is Not Familiar with Ecological Design
by Amanda Sloan
You’ve designed an ecological landscape, but the contractor hired to build it is not familiar with ecological practices. What to do? One landscape architect shares strategies for ensuring an ecological design results in an ecological landscape.
Prepare for Success with Subcontractors
Contributors: Lauri Johnson, Nanette Masi, and Trevor Smith
Managing a project with multiple phases and many subcontracts can present scheduling challenges. We asked three ELA members to share their insights into how they screen subcontractors and successfully manage projects with many players and many moving parts.
Ten Reasons To Make Hand Built Three-Dimensional Models
by Bryan Quinn
Showing examples of previous work can get a client to consider other visions. Another option? Build a three-dimensional site model. The author shares ten reasons he advocates for 3-D models and shares how his company incorporates model building into their projects.
Stay Fit this Winter
Winter issues of many magazines are awash with articles suggesting ways to keep active in the cold months when we tend to slow down. Although it might be more enjoyable in the short term to curl up with a cup of hot cocoa and a book from the stack designated “landscape inspiration,”…
Jump-starting the Season
What are you doing to get ready for the season that’s just taking off? ELA asked a few members to share their favorite tips for getting the season off to a good start. From tool repair and website updates to seeking inspiration and education, our members have found a variety of ways to take advantage…
Sharpest Tool in the Shed
How I Avoided Career-ending Back Surgery Through Nutrition by Trevor L. Smith “I know that walk,” joked an industry friend as I stiffly jumped down from my truck and walked toward him. I had just spent forty-five minutes in an air-conditioned truck, and all my joints had seized up. After a dozen strides the oil…
Mobile Apps for Outdoor Work
by Rie Macchiarolo The advances we’ve made in technology, and especially in mobile apps, over the last decade have been huge. Before we relied solely on searching for information in books, asking our colleagues to share experiential knowledge, or using analog and more time-consuming methods to gather information. Now using mobile devices, we have unfathomable…
Leadership Envisions and Defines the Dream
by Laurence Coronis As the end of another busy season draws near, this is an important time to set the course for you and your company’s future. It is my experience that the missing link in many companies is strong, consistent leadership that can create direction, build and coach your team, and hold staff accountable…
Selling the Landscape Industry to the Next Generation
by Emily Goodwin A very vivid memory of mine is missing the bus and having my father drop me off at school in a big, loud, dirty dump truck. In the fourth grade, I just wanted to fit in, fly under the radar of my classmates and be “normal.” Let’s just say my arrival that…
Making the Case with the Client: Why Go Ecological?
by Carolyn Edsell-Vetter 2015 was an important year for A Yard & A Half Landscaping Cooperative. This year marks a decade since we made the leap to transition all of our maintenance clients off of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. In 2005, few contractors were even offering an organic option, so we had to do a…
Hindsight Is 20/20: The Importance of Off-season Planning
by Laurence Coronis Right about now most Green Industry professionals are burnt out. They can’t wait for the end of the busy season and are looking forward to enjoying a break. But the upcoming winter months are the most important time for you to plan and prepare for your future success. The old adage, “hindsight…
