AS A LANDSCAPE CONTRACTOR, AS IN ANY BUSINESS, YOU’RE constantly looking for ways to increase your client base. Of course you provide the very best in design/build and maintenance services, or just maintenance itself, but so does your competition.

While much of the country is still digging out from under mountains of snow, it’s hard to imagine that spring is just around the corner.

THE RESIDENTS OF CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA, typically take pride in what their town has to of fer—gorgeous mountain scenery, numerous swimming and fishing spots, a rich and vibrant array of wildlife—but when fall cankerworms began devouring the town’s local trees in record numbers several years ago, that pride began to wane.

Crabgrass, Johnson grass, dandelions—such weeds can overcrowd lawns and pilfer air, water and nutrients that desirable plants need to survive and maintain a healthy appearance. Unchecked, weeds can completely dominate these plants, turning what could be a beautiful and verdant lawn into a wasteland of unsightly weeds.

If you ask a group of landscape professionals why they practice Integrated Pest Management, you’ll get a variety of answers. Some are driven primarily by a concern for the environment. Others do it to protect themselves and their clients from unnecessary exposure to chemicals.

Spring is here, at least in some parts of the country. Soon little green things will be sprouting up all over. As usual, the sprouts will include not only the plants we want but some of the others, too . . . the good, the bad, and the ugly. For landscape contractors this means finding ways to protect the good while getting rid of the bad and the ugly. In other words, weeds.

Up until about five years ago, you probably never heard of the West Nile Virus (WNV), let alone worried about it; but all that changed in 1999.

The battleground is the front lawn that you?re doing your best to maintain. The enemy is those pesky weeds that attempt to thwart you at every turn.

Suppose you had the opportunity to create a perfect landscape. The grass would always be green, the color beds would always look neat and the trees would...