At Jonathan Green we pride ourselves on the amount of training we provide to our retail garden centers, hardware stores and re-wholesale customers.  After all, if their employee’s product knowledge improves, we all win. A more informed employee equals higher sales, a better reputation for the business and an employee that is developing confidence in their sales skills.  Not to mention the safety issues and aspects of what you expect from them.  As a professional landscape company are you doing enough training to your employees?   If you think about it in our business it has to be an on-going process, all year long, but you should take advantage of the winter months to do some type of formal training and February is a perfect month for that.  Be sure to establish a weekly schedule that takes all aspects of your business and forms an outline that teaches your people what they need to know to do a better job for you and your customers.  There are many ways to do this from sending them to different trade shows, seminars, and structured in houses training by senior employees.   Use the expertise of your suppliers, like the Jonathan Green salesman to come in and do a class, after all if you’re buying our products we owe you that much.  We would gladly help you train your employees and help increase your business.  Many of our salesman have years of experience in the industry and are experts in the field of turf management.  You never know, Jonathan Green himself may show up.

With the New Year comes new products and new and better Black Beauty and Blue Panther seed varieties.  We are so very proud of our proprietary Black Beauty Tall Fescue’s, our fine textured Perennial Ryegrass’s and our Blue Panther Kentucky Bluegrasses that are becoming world famous.  Be sure to ask your salesman about some of our newest varieties like Golconda, Dorado, Frontier, Singular and Madison.  They are world class varieties that will set you apart from your competitor’s, and give your customers a lawn that both you and they will be proud of.  Remember word of mouth is always the best and cheapest form of advertisement.

For our newest products we are now offering an Organic Surface Insect Control and a straight Dimension Pre-emergent product, Crabgrass & Weed Control, that not only is registered for use on lawns, but can be applied to your landscape beds also. For lawns that need that split application of Pre-Emergent Crabgrass, you now have a fertilizer free product that is legal to use in March and throughout the spring season (Except on Long Island, sorry) .  Look for our new straw mulch bales for topdressing this spring also.

In the Organic arena, we are very excited to introduce our new Black Beauty Organic Lawn Fertilizer 8-0-3 with Hydretain.  Many have advertised water smart products with little but talk as to what made it a water smart product.  We have actually put some science behind it and are using a product that will save your customers water and keep the lawns greener in drought stress situations.  Hydretain is like a water magnet and molecularly attracts water in the soil profile, pulling water to the plant that would normally be lost.  This is not a wetting agent or superabsorbent polymer, but instead is an all organic product that enhances our non-manure based organic fertilizer.

Of course it’s February and it is time to relax, get equipment ready and above all spend some quality time with your families.  As a family run business, we all at Jonathan Green understand the value of that.  We wish you all the best for the upcoming season and would like to thank you for your business.  We truly appreciate it.

JONATHAN GREEN