Just trying to save whatever plants made it through the storm was my top priority. Focusing on any newly planted trees, palm trees, um, then working to shrubs and then lower level plants, um, many of which, uh, the lower level plants, unless they were inundated with storm surge, didn’t really seem to be affected nearly as much as some of the newly planted trees.
Welcome to the Landscape Cafe, brought to you with support from Fort Myers’s Garden Service, maintaining and protecting business and residential landscapes. Visit Fort Myers garden service.com or call 239 990 7494. All right. Hey guys. Um, today I’m with Eric and he is representing Fort Myers Garden Service, which is our maintenance company that specializes in high-end landscape maintenance.
Most of the times they’ll follow up our peer landscaping crew. That’s where we do our high-end landscape design and install. And, um, Eric’s and his team will come behind us, do the scouting package, assess the quality of the install, give us a reporting, and, uh, helps keep us accountable and also make sure things go really smooth between the installation and the transition into the maintenance and so forth.
With all that here is Eric, our garden service manager. How you doing today, Bailey? Doing good, man. Had a good day today, but I’m worried about this, other storm, the tropical storm that they have off the coast. I hope it doesn’t hit us right after, like Ian did. That was a nightmare.
Have you seen anything on it yet? Yeah, I’ve been keeping an eye on it. Looks like we might get a little bit of wind and some rain, so, okay. Nothing like that. It’s nothing too much. No, nothing at all like that. That was the storm of the century, I think. Yeah, I sure hope so, man. That hurricane works still has me exhausted.
So Eric, I want to talk a little bit, we’ll get into, you know, some of the maintenance and the day-to-day things that, that you guys do on your operations, but I wanna talk a little bit about the hurricane. You know, just after, you know, personally, what did you have to do personally, and then also, um, with work, what did you have to, what were the first few jobs that you had and how did you catch a grip on everything?
After this, everything settled. I was able to assess the damage. Luckily I fared well compared to many of the people in our community, so I’m very grateful for that. My home didn’t suffer any structural damage. I did have to cut the vehicle, my work truck out from underneath the carport that was collapsed on top of it.
But besides that, everything else was pretty good. No big scratches on the new paint job. And when it got out, when I got out into the field and I started going from client to client to assess the damage and meet with people and see how everyone did, I was able to get a better understanding of really the, the sheer size and strength of the storm.
You see trees that are, you know, 40, 50 feet tall, just laying over. Nothing ever, they never stood a chance. It really gives you, uh, it’s a very humbling feeling to know that as a measly human, we wouldn’t stand any, any type of weather like that. Yeah, that was pretty intense. What were some of your, um, biggest challenges you felt?
Going into the storm work, going into the cleanup, because it hits a lot different when you’re a storm chaser versus when you’re doing it at your home, um, and doing it for your reoccurring clients. What was your biggest challenge, do you think? Was it mentally, physically, or, um, were there any just weird or hard jobs?
Uh, well, I will say we were very blessed after this storm with some very pleasant weather. Mm. Unlike after Hurricane Irma where it was very humid immediately after the storm with no electricity, uh, I ended up severely dehydrated. So luckily the nice weather that Ian brought was, I think about the only thing that was good that Ian brought or had to do with Southwest Florida.
Right? But the, uh, the overall safety was my biggest concern. Uh, immediately after the storm power lines, uh, hanging tree branches, miscellaneous sharp debris everywhere. Um, there’s all kinds of things that can be harmful or if not more serious. So safety is always a first concern or priority, and once we address the situation and conclude that it is safe to work.
Just trying to save whatever plants made it through the storm was my top priority. Focusing on any newly planted trees, palm trees, um, then working to shrubs and then lower level plants, um, many of which, uh, lower level plants, unless they were inundated with storm surge, didn’t really seem to be affected nearly as much as some of the newly planted.
So it was important to get those trees back upright, keep their roots wet, and get, get ’em covered out of the sun. That’s what I focused on. That’s awesome. And I feel like, um, I know for Pier and many of o the other companies, a lot of what we’re doing was, you know, the big work, the big bulk, getting trees out of driveways, getting them out of the roads, getting big, big trees out of the yards.
All the, the really big stuff. I got a lot of. For the small stuff too. But the small stuff is very important too because that stuff adds up. Like you’re saying, like these new trees, um, whether they’re ornamentals or trees or palm trees, all these trees that have been installed, I mean, those were expensive and there was, I mean, pier couldn’t do it because just our overhead was too high, it’s too expensive, and the opportunity cost was too extreme for us not to.
To do the big jobs. And so there wasn’t really many people doing these very important tasks of going around, picking up the palm trees, the new stuff, um, and fixing it because that stuff needs to be fixed fairly quickly. And um, man, it made me super proud to. Be able to tell those customers, Hey, unfortunately I cannot service you.
I cannot, cannot take this job and make your house right. But we do have our garden service company, um, and I was able to connect you and that customer, um, quite a few times so they could get their newly installed landscape or even if it had been installed for quite a while, and to get these ornamental trees, whether they’re TFAs, oli.
Uh, get those things, stake back up plan and get some soil around them. Um, that stuff’s really important and nobody was giving it attention. Um, and so I feel super proud to, uh, to have this company and you as a manager that went around and, and took care of those details. Um, and I think a lot of our customers that we did previous installations for, and we do our regular maintenance as well, that you service.
When you reached out to them directly and said, Hey, how are you doing? Can I help you with your landscaping? And we were able to do those small detail things to help bring their lives back to normal, give them some normalcy. Um, they were extremely appreciative of that. And I, that, that went a long way for me because we’re out there doing big stuff, cleanup and, you know, we get praise and, and stuff for that.
But when we. Take time to do the little things and do ’em right. Um, with, with Garden serviceman, it made me super proud so that, that was awesome to, uh, to witness all that getting taken care of. Absolutely. I agree 100%. Uh, it was a little funny at first when I would express to customer or clients that we could be out there helping rake or we could be taking the time.
To prop up the trees properly and to, to fix what can be saved mm-hmm. , and to let anybody else, the, the kids in the family come out to rake and clean up the debris, if you will, because Right, the specialty, like, it’s not just where you, you can’t just pull up every tree and it’s just gonna be okay. There’s a lot.
Work involved. The physical environment has to be changed in order to get that tree back into a position where it can be given a chance to reestablish. Because if it’s not going to be safe, once it reestablishes, then you have to decide if it’s actually even worth saving. So there’s a lot that comes into play when you’re deciding to save a tree, not to save a tree.
And. How to actually go about saving. For sure. I think that’s where a lot of our value comes from, is just the educated portion of landscaping. Um, and that was awesome. You were able to provide that value. Um, most, most customers are like, wait, why don’t you just take care of it all? It’s like, I hope we don’t have time to take care of it all.
Like we’ll take care of the most important, most educated stuff, the stuff that you can have your teenagers. You know, have them take care of, um, because there’s a window, there’s a time window. Same thing with Pierre, with our big jobs to take care of, get our clients taken care of, and there’s a time window that things need to be done within.
And if they’re not, then things die or you lose out on, on jobs that needed to be taken care of. That could have been big for your company. I mean, there’s just a, a time window that is restrained and you have to have to beat it. So, Was there anybody who you feel like was maybe frustrated or did most people understand, um, that you were there just to do the most important stuff and move on to the next?
Yeah. Um, all of our customer clients were very appreciative of the time and the priorities that I was able to set for each one, given each circumstance. Right. That’s cool. That’s awesome. That’s very cool. Um, what do you think the biggest growth opportunity, whether it was you personally or you professionally, what do you think your biggest growth opportunity coming out of that whole situation is or will be?
Um, having a better plan. Before the storm, right? Having necessary resources set aside. Um, everybody thinks about hurricane food, hurricane water, hurricane gas, but when it comes to the plants, we need lodge poles, we need rope, we need soil, we need shade, cloth, right? Having those items on hand in order to be able to.
Set up small shade structures because in this, in a situation where a canopy tree has been blown over, but 80% of the understory is salvageable, that 80% is now going to slowly dwindle because all of the shade is gone. Mm-hmm. , if some sort of shade structure or uh, step isn’t taken to protect the plants, To relocate them into a shadier area or as soon as possible, replant, whatever the case may be.
And if those lower story plants start to die, well then everything in the landscape is gonna be completely dead. And that’s not beautiful, and that’s not what we want to be able to provide. So being able to have that quick response and know how, and. Provide that to the clients. That’s really, that’s awesome.
A really awesome and just a great time to grow. Yeah, for sure. That’s, uh, that’s something I, I love about Eric is Eric is a, he’s our boy scout of the company. He’s, uh, very much a planner, very much a forward thinker. Thanks a lot. And, uh, in, in a good way. And, um, Man that has, I feel like, impacted your professional, um, stance with our company very well.
You’re a very good pre cleaner in the position that you hold with our company. Um, that’s very important. Um, you’re very proactive and you’re almost always prepared. I haven’t caught you unprepared, I don’t think yet. . Um, tell me a little bit and I think my opinion, I think maybe that had a lot to do with the Boy Scouts.
Is that, is that where a lot of that came from? Always being prepared? Yeah, absolutely. Um, I, I’ve been an Eagle Scout for over 15 years and it was definitely a huge part of my, uh, growing up and my childhood and into young adulthood. And they have always give, credited my time in the scouts to. Wanting to be outside and work in nature and be a little bit more environmentally oriented.
So, and of course, boy Scout slogan is to be prepared, so. Right. I’m always prepared. That’s awesome. And I wanted to dive a little bit deeper into that if you, if you don’t mind. I feel like that is something that I always kind of wish that I was a part of. Um, I feel like it’s, it’s. Impactful for, for people that grow up and want a career and like, it just sets really good foundations.
What did that look like when it was Boy Scouts? Did you, on trips, did you hike? What, and, and how did that look like for you? Yeah. I went, uh, my, the troop I was in, I’m was very lucky to be in a very active trou. Uh, okay. We went on a camp, like a camp. Outing once a month. Mm-hmm. sometimes locally, sometimes three hours on a Friday night, and we’re setting up in the tents and camp in the middle of the darkness.
But hey, we were out there for that month and yeah, it was, I took a couple summer trips. Uh, one of my most memorable experiences was at the centennial. Boy Scout, Jambo up in Virginia. So when they celebrated being a hundred years old, I was there. Nice. Really awesome. Um, what did you get to do? Yeah, what did you get to do when you went on these trips?
Is it like camp and hanging out or did you guys have like a regimen that you followed? We were usually working on a merit badge of different sorts, so, It, it, it was never boring, I’ll tell you that much. Right, right. They kept you active, huh? Mm-hmm. , what do you feel like your, um, most exciting adventure was with the Boy Scouts?
I did some whitewater rafting, um, in the little two person duckies. Oh, the younger boy that was riding in front, uh, fell out of the ducky in the rapids, so that was pretty exciting. Oh my gosh. That, that’s awesome. That’s awesome. Um, leaving, this is probably the last question I have for you on the Boy Scouts.
I’m really super interested. Um, what do you feel like the biggest takeaway from the Boy Scouts was for you personally? Uh, leadership was definitely a big part of it. But also commitment and follow through. Yeah. Um, it’s not something you just get overnight. Well, that being Eagle, the award of being Eagle Scout.
Um, I was also in the order of the era, which is the National Honor Society of Scouting, which can have you’re elected into by your fellow scouts. I made it to the highest, uh, position in within that society. Um, but just when you get into something to just stick with it, no matter how awful it is, because you’re gonna have a good time.
There’s always an up to a down, so mm-hmm. sticking with it, following, seeing things through to the end. Will always pay off. That’s awesome. That’s very cool. And you did that. How many years did you do the Boy Scouts for? Um, I did it from Tiger Cub, which is the earliest that you can start, which is first grade.
Mm-hmm. , um, till I was just about 18. So that was a long, that was a long, good career for you in there. Thank you for listening in. Stay tuned for the next part in this conversation. You can find us anywhere you listen to podcasts. And don’t forget the best place to rate or follow the show is@thelandscapecafe.com.
The Landscape Cafe is a production of Pure Landscaping and the Niche Podcast Network. Learn more about Bailey, Katie, and the team by visiting Peerlandscaping.com.
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