Discover how switching to battery-powered hardscape equipment can enhance sustainability, reduce operating costs, and boost your business performance.

Learn how to grow your sustainable landscape construction business with eco-friendly practices that benefit both the environment and your profitability.

Learn about the relevance of a product's carbon footprint to the environment, and how Unilock is utilizing the information from their Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs).

Working hard to keep their businesses running smoothly, landscape contractors are often forced to balance many roles throughout each day. When the heat is on and the season is at its busiest, the landscape construction industry can be demanding to say the least. Unilock Territory Managers help keep business operations moving smoothly. Let’s have a look at some of the contractor support services that Unilock offers day in and day out.

Shortly after Unilock began manufacturing concrete paving stones and retaining wall systems nearly 50 years ago, we determined that offering contractor training was essential. Our Contractor Advantage Seminars were born from the deep respect we have for the manufacturer/installer partnership that is part of our DNA. So each and every year, we work hard to produce seminars that bring real value to our customers, as well as drive the overall industry forward. It’s not just something we do each year; it’s something we are determined to do better each year.

Owners of landscaping businesses across the U.S. and Canada are often on the lookout for growth opportunities. But ambitious small-business owners can easily find themselves spending days (and nights) working to grow their business, taking precious hours away from day-to-day business operations and even personal and family time. Finding new ways to increase sales in the landscape industry with minimal additional work is not an easy task, but it may not be impossible.

There’s no more efficient or productive machine than a crew that’s worked well together on multiple jobs. There’s a mutual understanding that forms — of work styles and of each individual’s strengths and weakness. A common language develops, making every subsequent job run more smoothly.

If you feel like “optimizing your business” just sounds like more make-work, you may not be alone. Skilled landscape craftsmen, those who have built successful businesses and are ready to grow again, inevitably find themselves doing less of the work they love and more of the business tasks they don’t.

Non-billable time is one of those things that almost every company gets far too comfortable accepting as a necessary evil. It happens every single day, it’s easy to hide, and it’s necessary to the everyday mechanics of a business. It’s particularly insidious because it isn’t just limited to overhead staff. The time you spend estimating, accounting, fixing equipment, selling new work—none of it is passed to the customer. Unfortunately, that’s not even the worst of it.

While a pocket notebook and an Excel spreadsheet may provide enough organization for the first few customers, the average landscape design/build business often gets overwhelmed with pools of data faster than is humanly manageable. Enter the CRM, or Customer Relationship Management system. This is a digital software system that is crucial for any successful landscape contracting company.

This video provides a comprehensive walkthrough of how to layout a jobsite by transferring measurements from the design to the ground on the actual site.

For decades, experts in the hardscape industry have recommended a particular process for the installation of interlocking concrete pavers. Specifically, it has been recommended that contractors use a compacted base conforming to ASTM D 2940. The terminology for this product — a mix of fines and angular stone up to +/- .75” in size — varies across regions and ranges from ‘Item 4’ to Crusher Run. Regardless of the name, for quite some time, this is how contractors performed the base installation.

Weather – it can make or break the progress of a job. The effects of weather can completely alter the course of a landscape construction project. It can impact employee management, material costs, equipment repair expenses, client relations – basically, anything involved in the construction process.

Many landscaping companies schedule their winter seasons with snow removal operations as a way to ensure a year-round revenue stream. But what about all the days in between snow events or those businesses that choose not to offer snow and ice services? Regardless of how you choose to operate, there are a number of ways to utilize the winter months to better prepare your business for the fast approaching spring.