Local lawn-care businesses have bucked bad economy

The wet, hot start to the summer has been a boon for local lawn care companies.

Cameron Venters, who co-owns Venters Bros Lawn Pros Lawn & Landscaping LLC with his brother, Caleb, said this season has been their busiest in the five years since they founded the company. The business, which started with just 10 customers, has grown to include about 250 regular clients.

Last year, Venters Bros employed five workers. Increased business at the start of this season allowed them to take on five more employees, which split up into crews of two or three for each mowing or landscaping job. Each of the mowing crews cut grass at between 15 and 20 yards each day, because about 70 percent of their lots require maintenance on a weekly basis.

“We’ve had to hire on more guys,” Venters said. “People say the economy is bad, but everyone is still busy ... so we’ve seen an increase in customers calling.”

Venters said most of the increase has come from residential customers, who account for nearly half of the company’s clientele. He said the business has reached the point where it is turning down one-time jobs from individual property owners.

“I never thought we’d get to the point where we’d be turning down work,” Venters said. “But our main priority is taking care of what we have and focusing on our current customers.”

Stephanie Elwood, co-owner of GLS Lawncare of Sedalia, also has been surprised at how busy the company has become this season. She could not attribute a specific reason for the uptick in service requests this year, but all aspects of the business are booming.

“We are picking up in landscaping and mowing,” Elwood said. “We didn’t think it would be that busy with the economy, but it hasn’t slowed us down.”

Elwood said their four employees split into two crews to mow about 14 yards per day. She said the 20-year-old company has about 120 regular customers, most of whom have the crews out once a week.

Although the wet and hot weather early this year has probably contributed to more business for the company, Elwood said frequent rainy days have the mowers doing more work to keep up with demand.

“We’ve been way behind because of the rain,” Elwood said.

Steve Cox, Elwood’s father who has started working on the mowing crew since retiring, said their plans change with the rain.

“Whenever it rains we won’t mow as low, otherwise you get balled-up clumps of grass across the yard,” Cox said. “Instead, we’ll just do it twice in one day.”

As one of the GLS Lawncare crews mowed a yard on East 16th Street, property owner Mary Stephens observed their work from her porch. She said she has hired the crew to manicure her yard for the past 15 years, and she has always been pleased with the results.

Despite the wet weather, she said the mowers never let her lawn grow too long and always work to get in before the rain when it is forecast.

“In my younger days, I could go sit on that mower, but it starts to take its toll, so we just let the young ones take care of it,” Stephens said.