One of the key elements of hydroseeding specialists’ ongoing success is the role that personal initiative plays in resolving the challenges associated with niche enterprises. These experts seem to get the most out of their machines and tend to follow the correct principles associated with hydroseeding, giving Mother Nature just enough help to get the ground cover established and self-supporting with minimum maintenance. After all, the ultimate goal is to have the site survive whatever climatic or geographical conditions might come about. Furthermore, successful operators tend to find answers to unexpected complications to the project. In the last issue, several hydroseeding professionals talked about their machines. In this feature, many of the same people give examples of projects that proved to be more than routine operations.
James Allen, owner of Gulfcoast Hydroseeding in Gulfport, MS, recalls when, as a part-time hydroseeder, he moved from strictly residential work to larger projects utilizing his Bowie 350. “Another firefighter, Joe Martinelli, and I did quite a few homes, then we started picking up commercial and industrial erosion control projects and even did a 5-acre job with the 350.” That’s doesn’t sound like much ground, except rather than a 5-ac. plat, which could be covered relatively simply, that project involved 1.5 miles of ditch embankment. The two were able to hydroseed as quickly as the main contractor had the ditch banks ready for application. Furthermore, they did it on a part-time basis.
“We worked six to seven hours a day on our off days from the fire department and finished the job in two weeks. We were putting down mulch at 2,000 pounds per acre, homogenous triple-13 fertilizer at 750 pounds per acre, and a pound of tackifier per 1,000 square feet and seeding common Bermuda. There was forest on both sides, so wind was not a problem.”
Nor was rain too much of a challenge, even though their last day included rain at an inch per hour. “But the tackifier held, and we got a great initial stand of grass because 94% to 96% of the material stayed in place. We spent maybe a quarter of a day reworking problem areas.”
Allen has taken on a number of other similar projects since then and now utilizes a used Finn T-170 so he can get larger jobs completed more quickly. (His former partner has returned home to New England.) “We like to do it right the first time,” Allen declares. “We try to use the best material out there. Our customers know that everything we’re using is top-of-the-line.”
Army Truck Answers Armyworm Challenge
Jules Schwerin of Jasco & Sons in Mount Pleasant, SC, remarks that all his jobs are challenges. “For example, in late 1999 we were doing a 30-acre site that was a dump for construction debris, and they’d packed it 450 feet high. They covered it with 4 feet of clay and then 3 feet of topsoil. The first time we did it, we got grass about a foot tall all the way around in less than two months. Then one night armyworms came in and ate it all to the ground, so the industrial customer had us come back and redo it. The second time we added a gallon per acre of Durspan [grub control] for the worms.”
Their equipment lineup includes a retired Army 6×6 with tracks. They also have a 2,000-gal. water truck in the fleet of vehicles. Besides a hard-working crew, Schwerin credits those two vehicles with helping Jasco & Sons successfully replant the initial phase and finish all 30 ac. of buried construction debris.
The first phase involved 18 ac., but the customer had hired the company to handle the whole project, so when Schwerin and crew returned to the site seven weeks after treating for armyworms, they tackled all 30 ac. “We used the 2,500-gallon Bowie machine and the Army truck, and we had to go up the side of the mountain, laying down 450 feet of hose. We had to spray starting at the bottom and then work up.” Fortunately, the Army truck can travel anywhere Schwerin needs, including swamps and other wet easements as well as steep manmade slopes.
The armyworms work, he reports, was further complicated by lack of onsite water and the need to finish the redo quickly. “We had to haul every gallon of water to the site. That’s where the 2,000-gallon water truck came in handy. Fortunately, the water was just a mile away. After less than two weeks on the redo, though, my guys were about to shoot me. We have lights on our truck, and for two of those days we worked from sunup until 1 a.m. straight through.” But the extra work yielded another happy customer for Jasco & Sons. Such determination helps them live up to the slogan emblazoned on the sides of their vehicles: “Here Comes the Grass!”
Another challenge for niche operators, such as hydromulchers, is knowing when it’s wiser to hire outside aid rather than invest in a piece of equipment. Jim Dipietro, owner of Massachusetts Hydroseeding in Wilmington, MA, on the northwest side of the Boston metro area, has two full-time workers and a 3300 Bowie seeder. He goes for the bigger machine because he specializes in big projects without a large crew.
One challenge was at the Plymouth Wastewater Treatment Plant in Plymouth, MA. “There the sand is 60 feet deep, and we had to be pulled about the site by a D-8 dozer, so it took three days to do 12 acres.” Enlisting help made it possible for Dipietro to handle that challenge successfully without having to add to his fleet or his permanent staff.
Seeding professionals in New England also have to deal with challenging weather. Brian P. King, owner and founder of North Shore Hydroseeding Inc. in Danvers, MA, recalls an October project. “We were doing a 12.5-acre athletic field complex, and because of time restrictions we had half the field and another company was contracted for the other half. It was cold but dry. Then the day after we had finished seeding 250,000 square feet, we got a huge rainstorm.”
That storm demonstrated why it always pays to follow procedures, to avoid the temptation to take shortcuts. Despite the flat ground and the dry weather, King utilized a tackifier. He also included the recommended wood mulch mix. “After the storm, the project manager found everything the other company did was gone. Everything we did was still in place. We ended up reseeding a lot of that other company’s areas.”
Mark Myrowich, president of Mid Canada Hydroseeding in Winnipeg, MB, also is familiar with hydroseeding in cold weather and keeping his machines warm despite temperature drops. That came into use when, with the aid of 22 temporary local employees, he took on an around-the-clock 8-mi. highway department project north of Tompson, MB, at a latitude of 56º in mid-October 1999, when temperatures dropped from 64ºF during the day to 16ºF at night. Equipment protection included a 5,000-watt generator mounted atop his Finn T-170 and T-60 HydroSeeders.
“We put heat tapes around the pipes and plugged the tapes and lights into the generator. We didn’t have to winterize the machines, but we did drain the smaller machine and put in a gallon of windshield washer fluid to keep the low spots in the pipes open. By running 24 hours a day, we didn’t have to spend a half hour each morning warming up the machines. We ran 500 feet of hose so we could keep the HydroSeeders on pavement. That kept us mobile, because when the soil got wet it was just like soup. We did no hose work at night because it would freeze in 15 minutes, and the water source was up to [2 miles] away, so it took us 22 to 40 minutes to reload. But we did the sides of the road then and were able to hydroseed 50 feet from the truck.” He adds that elevation changes of 100 ft. were fairly typical with the rolling terrain.
Blankets and hydromulching were part of the work. “We put blankets where water wash was a problem. That area is a northern boreal forest, where winters of minus 40º Fahrenheit are not unusual. We lucked out on the weather, getting just a dusting of snow. The soil was a sandy clay with low plasticity. But when it gets wet, there’s just enough sand in the clay, so slides are a challenge.”
Regarding what the workers did for cold-weather protection, Myrowich says, “They worked hard and wore the proper clothing for working outside in the winter.”
The project garnered local attention. “The local radio station called the highway department wondering why we were painting the sides of the slope. But onlookers were no more of a challenge than anywhere else we work. The big challenge was finding enough laborers up there to place the blankets. We used the local native population, and they were phenomenal to work with.”
Myrowich was able to assign the dozen blanket layers to one supervisor. “He taught the laborers on-site, kept them motivated, and supervised the quality of work. That crew worked from 7:30 a.m. until 5:30 to 6:45 p.m. That was all the daylight we had then.” Assembly at 7 a.m. helped ensure on-time starts when it got light enough to begin laying blankets.
This project had other challenges. “I had to find a replacement pickup my first day on that job. We had a half-ton pickup burn to the ground. We were driving down the road and it started on fire.” Fortunately, the occupants escaped unharmed. He was able to find a rental at the local airport. “It made life more expensive but easier,” Myrowich comments.
Then, toward the end of the project, he had a shaft on his larger HydroSeeder break. “We found a welder in Thompson who welded it up, and it was down just four hours. It ran another day, then broke again. But we were toward the end of the project, so we were able to finish the job with the smaller machine.”
Hydroseeding specialists based in the Northwest point out that common weather patterns can be a challenge. But in this land where total sunshine can be less than 60 days in a year, they’re used to working in the rain. “Hydroseeding during a rain depends on the mulch you use, the conditions of the slope, and the quantity of rain,” explains Greg Maurer of Precision Hydroseeding in Aberdeen, WA. He and his partner/son Matthew have hydroseeded in rain and snow in early January. “It was an obnoxious but average storm for the Pacific Northwest. We used a corrugated noduled mulch, and by mid-February the grass had germinated and got a couple inches of growth.”
But hydroseeding during hostile weather conditions can require more time. He recalls a quarter acre in the valley above Aberdeen, a slide area primarily stabilized with riprap. “Those quarter-to-one slopes were nearly vertical, and doing that quarter acre by hose took a half day. Access was difficult, and there was a lot of hose pulling and moving.”
Ground and weather conditions also can combine, making it unreasonable to apply materials at a given time. “A hydroseeder has to be able to determine that,” stresses Maurer, “which is one of the significant differences between a company that hires outside labor from time to time versus a close-knit company operated by experienced personnel.
“Conditions of surface soils affect application rates, especially when you’re combining rainwater and water from the slurry. If you’re going to hydroseed during wet weather, you have to recognize the moisture content of the soil.” This extra care helps keep seed in place, no matter how strong the rainfall.
Headquartered in Smithton, IL, just 23 mi. southeast of the St. Louis Arch, Lee Nollau has been doing highway hydroseeding and related work since 1959. Now mostly retired, Nollau has supervised jobs ranging from backyards to projects that required several companies. “We had a big job for the St. Louis Metrolink that involved stapling straw netting to help hold everything in place until the grass was established.”
There were five companies at the erosion control conference held at the beginning of the project. Nollau pointed out the need to mark where workers were to put in the staples, and the others agreed. “Workers need to see where to put in the staples, especially on hillsides. Marking the spots really helped speed up the stapling, and whether they needed two staples per square yard or one staple per square yard, the workers got the right amount of staples to hold the netting in place.”
Another general practice Nollau has found beneficial is putting down what’s specified when shooting for agencies. “Whatever the customer wants, that’s what we shoot. State agencies have to worry about the seed mix, but when it’s a private job, whether a subdivision or a private lake, that’s when customers might need help from the hydroseeding company with formulations.”
A memorable job for Justin James of James Ranch landscaping in Durango, CO, is a three-year Superfund project in Summitville, with elevations ranging from 11,000 ft. at the base of the mine to more than 12,000 ft. at the summit. “We had just two time windows in which we could work. The first was from June 15 to July 1, and the second was from September 1 to November 1, unless the snow got too deep.”
James reports the project was just 100 mi. from headquarters, but it took three hours to get to the site. “When all is said and done, we’ll have seeded 300 acres. We have 150 acres finished at this time, with slopes mostly three-to-one. The Bureau of Reclamation has specified the seed mix, application rates, and so on. And we either use the dry method to drill seed or, where we can’t get tractors on the ground, hydroseed and hydromulch at doubled seed rates. We’re trying to do everything dry, and we have been able to get 75% of the ground dry-seeded.”
James explains that 16-20 years ago, mine owners stripped off all the topsoil and stockpiled it. “That soil is being amended with a lot of lime to neutralize the acid, and the other contractor is adding a lot of compost and incorporating it with rippers on his dozer. The other operator then spreads the soil a foot deep, and it’s ready for seeding. We’re dry seeding with a New Holland 90-horsepower, four-wheel-drive tractor and an 8-foot Truax drill. Our hydroseeding work is handled by a 1,500-gallon Finn and two 3,000-gallon Bowies for hydromulching.” Naturally, the motorized equipment has been altered to better handle the extreme altitude.
While elevations are much lower in the Dallas area, hydromulchers still find plenty of challenges to keep the work interesting. Sean Grassman, owner of Fairway Greens, recalls in particular a metro-area project that involved a 2-ac. site with a 150-ft. drop-off behind a Wal-Mart superstore. “We had to go in and stabilize it, establish new grass. It had sandy soil, and the slope ranged from three-to-one to four-to-one, so it was pretty much straight up. In fact, it was so steep that we had to spray from above and from below.”
In this case, Grassman used Conwed, a wood fiber mulch. “We added a pound of tackifier per tankload, as well as Conwed’s Futura blanket in some areas. It was late June, and we were on the site three to four days with 15 workers, mainly because of the need to spread erosion control blankets. This was after we first hand-graded the property. It had been left exposed during construction and eroded quite a bit. We brought in several dump truck loads to fill in the ruts and smooth the surface, and we removed the weeds.”
The drainage areas were hydroseeded with a thinner application of mulch, then blanketed and stapled. “We blanketed about a third of the site. After that, we went in and sprayed with the mulcher. The steep slopes made it a challenge getting up far enough and close enough for a good blending of soil and mulch, for good bonding. We had to reduce the pressure on the pump by using a bypass and had to have several workers help drag 400 feet of hose around and repair any footprints or other gouges.”
The applicator had to lean forward to keep from losing his balance. “We would signal whether we wanted the pressure increased or decreased,” Grassman recalls. “After all, we didn’t need the hose pushing us backward as well.”
Once finished, the remaining challenge was coordinating the watering of the site. “The goal was to get enough water on the site to get the grass up but to not bring on any erosion problems. Unattended water can cause an incredible amount of erosion. Rains prompted minor repairs but involved less than 10% of the site. Then, after three to four weeks, the Bermuda growth was solid, ready to mow.”
Whether it’s at home base or distant, at sea level or 12,000 ft., utilizing correct hydroseeding principles generates stories of success. All these challenging projects provided a common benefit for the hydroseeding professionals: perspective. They also helped prove to the customers, private or public, that when they contracted that particular operator, they made the right decision. Furthermore, the next time those individuals or agencies have another hydroseeding need, they know whom to turn to. After all, success builds reputations.
