You know a company is serious about its landscape when it has 100 acres of lawn to mow, maintains 25 acres of mulched planting beds, and has planted more than 15,000 trees and shrubs since the mid 1980s.
If this isn't proof enough, consider this: Heritage Insurance has dressed up its corporate headquarters in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, with 15,000 perennials over the last three years, and each year it installs approximately 2,000 annuals and at least 1,000 bulbs. There is enough gardening and landscaping to bring in 12 to 15 semi truck loads of wood chips each year and enough dormant pruning in the off season to fill up 30 dump trucks (packed down loads) with debris.
All of this... and more is the responsibility of Jack Woodland, full-time horticulturist for Heritage. In addition to the above, he is in charge of snow removal and the maintenance of interior plantscaping, and oversees landscape maintenance and installation at seven of the company's remote sites. Whew! That's a full schedule, and Jack accomplishes it with two full-time and two part-time employees. He also does landscape design and has written maintenance manuals to assist off-site personnel with their maintenance and installation duties.
"The landscaping is more than aesthetics." explains Jack. "An expansive landscaped environment was part of the original design package 10 years ago when the new office building was built And company president John Holden has taken a personal interest in ensuring the property is constantly being upgraded." Of course. good first impressions are important whether you're an insurance company or a resort But there's another driving force behind the greenery. Located strategically off of heavily trafficked I-43 and state route 28, the property occupies one of the major entrance points to the Sheboygan area. The company wanted to put not only its best foot forward, but that of the community, as well.
Speed and Versatility
The maintenance crew is challenged by a wide range of landscape elements, from huge expanses of wide-open turf to mowing around a variety of trees, shrubs and beds. The open mowing is left to a Jacobsen HR-15 wide area mower, and two Walkers, each with 42-inch side-discharge decks, do the trimming. As Jack explains the procedure, the "Jake" makes a pass by the office area, swooping in close to the shrubs, but not too close. A Walker will follow picking up the trimming.
"Our charge is to work smarter,'' says Jack, a graduate of UW - Madison with a B.S. in horticulture. "If we can find a way to reduce the amount we have to trim, we save that much more time and money." A typically "smart" approach would involve grouping or transforming three or four free-standing trees into a landscaped element or island that could be trimmed with one pass instead of several. Another would be to use an attachment wherever possible.
And the availability of attachments for the Walker mower was one of its key selling points. Operators use the rotary brush for spring cleanups, windrowing debris for easy pickup, and for keeping sidewalks tidy. The brush comes in handy in the winter, too, for dispatching snow on the same walks. Jack says it will handle accumulations up to 2 inches, but really works best for keeping the light glaze off and precluding the excessive use of melting agents which can be destructive to nearby plantings.
The brush is also ideal for cleaning up winter damage, tells Jack. "By lowering the electric power ram just enough so the bristles touch the lawn, the brush does a great job removing dead grass, stones and other leftover debris. It's not like a serious de-thatching, but it still leaves the lawn fluffed up."
Passing the Test
Most of the Heritage Insurance property is comprised of undulating hills and long stretches of Oat areas. But there are still a few steep hills that require mowing. "The Walker had to pass the hill test before we bought it," emphasizes Jack. "We found it had a low center of gravity, much lower than the other mowers we tried."
The fact the machine is compact, able to be transported in a pickup, was important, too, to the buying process. Jack maintains four other properties in the city, all belonging to Heritage. He used to drag around a trailer, a process complicated by a lack of storage for tile trailer right on site. Now, he just drives the mower up the ramps and off he goes... and goes.
To be sure, this is not your ordinary in-house grounds maintenance person. There's not a large tree on the property planted since his arrival three years ago that Jack hasn't handpicked at a nursery. Which means he has traveled extensively to Illinois, alI parts of Wisconsin and Minnesota, to name but a few states, looking for tile right plant material. Four times a year, Jack saddles up again, this time to visit the company's remote facilities in the Midwest Although the maintenance work is left to custodians at each site, the headquarters plans and contracts all other landscape work. And Jack is always available to answer questions via the phone or fax. He recently completed a landscape design project for one of tile company's subsidiaries in the state, as well.
Bigger design projects go to landscape architect Daniel Wienbach, Wienbach & Associates, Chicago. Still, Heritage personnel stay keenly involved by submitting a list of plant material suitable to the area's hardiness zone and soil conditions.
The Heritage property is truly something special, combining expansive areas of turf with a grand selection of trees, shrubs and color. From a passersby perspective, the landscape gives the appearance of a garden paradise. For horticulturist Jack, the paradise is a challenge he surmounts by working smart and taking advantage of "smart" working tools.
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