June 15, 2010 - Winner of The GrassCutters Photo Contest

Winner of TheGrassCutters "How Green are You" photo contest

We are thrilled to announce the winner of our “How Green are You” photo contest we ran in April/May with Lenzr photo contests. Lenzr did a great job putting together a successful campaign and we are very grateful. Slimmswitch (I hope this is his nickname) won the Neuton CE6 battery powered lawnmower that we gave away for the best example of green. He’s pictured here enjoying his new battery powered mower courtesy of The GrassCutters. Maybe we should offer him a job?

Slimmswitch reports that the high technology lawnmower is flawless. It’s good, fast and really quiet. He’s been tweeting about it @LOCOHIPPO.

May 27, 2010 - The GrassCutters join Canada Green Building Council

The GrassCutters are proud to be a member of the Canada Green Building Council. As a company that strives to be green in all of our endeavors, we felt it was only natural that we join like-minded organizations and professionals at the CaGBC. The CaGBC’s mission is to ‘lead and accelerate the transformation to high-performing, healthy green buildings, homes and communities throughout Canada’. A big part of their objectives is to administer the LEED Canada Initiative.

The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System™ encourages and accelerates global adoption of sustainable green building and development practices through the creation and implementation of universally understood and accepted tools and performance criteria.

LEED is a third-party certification program and an internationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction and operation of high performance green buildings. It provides building owners and operators the tools they need to have an immediate and measurable impact on their buildings’ performance.

LEED promotes a whole-building approach to sustainability by recognizing performance in five key areas of human and environmental health:

• sustainable site development
• water efficiency
• energy efficiency
• materials selection
• indoor environmental quality

The GrassCutters would like to reach out to property owners and/or managers of LEED certified buildings that might be seeking a landscaping service that operates in a sustainable manner, like they do. All of our equipment is electric and uses only solar generated power captured and stored on our portable solar generator. For more information please contact us by email or by calling 416-364-7378.

May 14, 2010 - Our portable solar generator gets a good wrap

Keep an eye out for our portable solar generator this summer as it gets wrapped with our graphics on May 19, 2010. This beauty will be traveling through the communities of Toronto, Ajax, Pickering, Whitby, Oshawa & Markham promoting the benefits of a sustainable organic lawn care solution, powered by solar energy.

May 1, 2010 - Free Spring Organic Fertilizer

Now’s the time to prepare your lawn for the summer growing season with an organic fertilizer treatment from the GrassCutters. For a limited time, we are offering a free spring fertilizer when you purchase a weekly or bi-weekly grass cutting contract for the 2010 season.

The GrassCutters use a 100% natural spring turf fertilizer made from corn gluten. The nitrogen in this fertilizer is found in the form of proteins, as opposed to the urea found in chemical fertilizers. This organic nitrogen is naturally time-released in the soil as these proteins break down, reducing the risk of burning. Corn gluten has the added benefit of suppressing seed germination in your lawn’s soil. When applied in mid-spring, corn gluten fertilizer will act as a pre-emergent control of crabgrass and other annual weeds. Order now.

The small yellow pellets deliver nitrogen to your lawn

April 29, 2010 - A New Green Standard for a Dirty Old Industry – Lawn Care

GTA dwellers who want a perfect garden, but not all the enviro-nastiness that too often goes along with it, now have a sustainable, affordable alternative.

Canada’s first clean-air lawn care company

The GrassCutters offers full-service clean, green, organic lawn & garden care using equipment powered exclusively by renewable, solar-power, biodiesel and human musclepower. The GrassCutters’ unique fleet is able to charge its electric equipment on-the-fly via solar panels mounted on its truck-trailers.

Existing offerings were dirty and noisy

The GrassCutters was founded by two brothers, David and Dan Shephard of Toronto. As Dan Shephard, the company’s Operations Manager explains: “Most people probably never think of how much air pollution and carbon are produced in the conventional weekly maintenance of their lawns and gardens. Typical gasoline mowers have no pollution abatement technology, meaning they pump out up to forty times more waste than a late-model 8-cylinder SUV. Add to that the emissions produced by screaming two-stroke weed cutters and hedge trimmers, the trucks to transport crew and tools, and multiply it all by thousands of lawns in the city, and we’re talking about a very significant quantity of carbon emissions, air and noise pollution – just to have a nice lawn.”

Opportunity seized

The GrassCutters saw opportunity in a marketplace dominated by landscaping companies all offering more or less the same thing. Given consumers’ ever-increasing demand for sustainable products and services, the time was right to make the investment in the necessary technology and see if homeowners were buying.

Consumers react – with bookings

And buy they did. Bookings for spring are already strong and the company has barely begun promoting itself. Says Dan, “Once people hear things like ‘sustainable garden service’ and ‘competitive pricing’ the concept has pretty much sold itself.”

Breaking brand new ground

The brains, brawn & cunning of Jim, David, Dan & Mike

The GrassCutters’ decision to be green was not one taken lightly. The Shephard brothers had to source rechargeable electric mowers and other garden equipment. They had to source solar panels and trailers, then have them engineered and built to their specifications. And find willing participants to help with prototyping, wiring, and battery hook-up. The lawn mowers are the award-winning Neuton brand from Vermont. They are powerful, energy-efficient, quiet, quick to recharge and manufactured from 90% recyclable materials. Even their Duracell rechargeable batteries are fully recyclable.

Canada’s first clean-air lawn care company

Emissions produced by the company’s biodiesel equipment and trucks are offset with verified vehicle emissions carbon credits purchased from Planetair, a respected carbon offset vendor. This makes The GrassCutters Canada’s first clean-air lawn care company.

One green thing led to another

So impressed was Dan’s brother, David, by the concept of solar-powered trailers serving as base stations for electric equipment, that he has founded an enterprise to manufacture them called SolarLine Power. Using current solar panel and battery technologies, one of his trailers can produce in one day enough electricity to power an entire house for a week.

Scope of services

The GrassCutters lawn services include weekly / bi-weekly grass cutting, trimming, blowing, and bagging of grass clippings for yard waste pickup, as well as organic pest and weed control. On the gardening side, they offer tree pruning, shrub & hedge trimming, edging, spring & fall cleanup, soil inspection, fertilization and maintenance. Service is available in Scarborough, Markham, Pickering, Ajax, Whitby and Oshawa. “It’s a bit of a revolution,” says Dan. “Torontonians can finally have lawns and gardens that give pleasure and beauty without all the negative environmental ramifications. I hope that helps people enjoy their gardens more and sleep a little better at night.”

April 12, 2010 - Coffee inspired lawn care

A special thanks to Tim Hortons for providing the late night and early morning inspiration on this project.

which led to this:

Which ultimately led to the wired (pun intended) look on Dan’s face:

April 11, 2010 - Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-04-11

• We were out till midnight last night putting the rear legs on. They look mean! #
• Down at the shop this morning checking on the rack. It will be delivered today! Another all nighter in the barn #
• The solar panels have been attached to the rank. The rack is being lifted into place tonight! #
• The solar rack is on top of the trailer. Testing begins this weekend. It looks neat! #

April 8, 2010 - A lunar landing for grass cutting

Well we have finally received the solar rack from the metal fabricators after 2 weeks of delays. I have to say that Bryan is a welding genius. His work is very clean and incredibly precise. He even installed a deflector plate on the front of the rack to prevent wind from potentially getting trapped under the rack when the trailer is traveling. The deflector even matches the stone plate on the front of the trailer. It is an impressive sight. Seeing the rack next to the trailer makes me think of a lunar rover collecting and analyzing soil samples to determine PH levels so that we can prescribe the ideal organic lawn care solution, I mean lunar land care solution.

Anyway, it was a late night for Dan & Mike installing it. Testing begins today.

April 4, 2010 - Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-04-04

• E-panel is wired in. Inverter is set up. Just waiting for the solar panel rack to be done. #
• Outside on the deck enjoying the night. Waiting for the parts to put the trailer together #
• Happy Easter to everyone http://yfrog.com/5g1lutj #

April 1, 2010 - Kick-ass grass without gas

Make your lawn happy with zero emission grass cutting from The GrassCutters.