Lawn care in the drought

OREGON, Wis. – Lawn care companies have been through a rollercoaster this summer because of the drought.

Kevin Milestone said he loves what he does. He owns Cutting Edge Lawn Care & Snow Removal.

“I love being outdoors,” he said with a big smile. “The only problem is depending on the weather.”

After storms moved through late last week, some grass seemed to shoot up overnight. It’s the kind of growth we’re used to having in a Wisconsin summer. We haven’t had much of it this year, though.

“Summer started out great, real busy, and then no rain,” Milestone said. “There was lawns that we didn’t mow for a month, month-and-a-half.”

For a while, he didn’t even need his normal staffing.

“I have three crews that mow, and at that time, we were just down to one crew mowing,” Milestone said. “It was basically just the lawns that people were watering.”

Wills Mahoney is the co-founder of Plows & Mows, an app that people can use to request snow removal or lawn care on-demand.

“One of the things that we’ve seen in Madison is that we have more customers, but customers are placing less orders,” Mahoney said. “We account that to the drought that you guys have had.”

They’ve also had more people sign up on the service side because they’ve got extra time.

“Most of these guys have their own work, so we’ve had a lot more interest in landscapers trying to fill up their route. Just because the demand for lawn mowing and outdoor services has been less,” Mahoney said.

Luckily, the Cutting Edge crew is back at it.

“And now it’s busy again … I know I have something to do when I wake up in the morning,” Milestone said with a smile.

The drought monitor comes out each Thursday. For current conditions, click here.