David F. Daniell

"It's a play on words," David Daniell, vice president, told Lawn & Landscape magazine.

Dave Daniells of Heads Up Landscape Contractors, Inc., in Albuquerque, New Mexico says they own seven or eight skid loaders during any time period.
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Daniells will also rent trucks on a short-term basis to evaluate whether or not they really need them when things slow down."One program we have implemented within our fleet is our employee truck lease program."

"In this program," explains Daniells, "our employees buy their own vehicle and we pay them a certain amount per month lease payment for use of their vehicle.

Dave DaniellVice President

David F. Daniell, Vice President of Heads Up Landscape Contractors, Inc., has passed the Certified Landscape Professional (CLP) exam given by the Associated Landscape Contractors of America (ALCA).
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Dave Daniell Named to Symbiot BoardSymbiot, a national consortium of 48 landscape maintenance and installation companies, has named Dave Daniell to its advisory board.

According to Dave Daniell, vice president and part owner of Heads Up Landscape Contractors, Albuquerque, New Mexico, "Their goal is a 30-percent reduction in water consumption over 10 years.They launched an education campaign and implemented ordinances restricting the amount of high water-use turf to no more than 15 percent of the net landscape area.That has certainly driven a large part of the low water-use type landscapes here.However, acceptance has been slow."Says Daniell, many of the people living in Albuquerque are transplants from parts of the country where it's a lot greener.Little by little, people are realizing xeriscaping is not only the right thing to do, but it's practical."

As an added incentive, the City of Albuquerque offers property owners up to $500 and commercial property owners up to $750 in credit on their water bills for converting turf-based landscapes to drought-tolerant plants.

"Most of what we do along the line of native landscapes is new installations, but quite often, when a business or commercial entity wants to get a building permit, it requires them to convert the landscaping to low-water use," explained Daniell."Some people think of xeriscape as a bunch of gravel and a couple of weeds.We can certainly offer them a huge variety of trees, shrubs, perennials, and groundcovers."

To create an oasis-like effect, Daniell relies on a lot of native shrubs, such as chamisa (Chrysothamnus nauseosus), Apache plume (Fallugia paradoxa), Clary sage (Salvia sclarea), and blue mist (caryopteris), and junipers (Juniperus communis L.) for evergreens.Some popular, low water-use trees found in his xeriscapes are desert willow (Salix sp.) and the New Mexico olive (Elaeagnus angustifolia, L.), which is native to the watersheds in northern New Mexico and Colorado.
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Daniell designs turf areas in rounded, compact shapes so that they can be watered and mowed more efficiently, and watered separately from other landscape plants.Also he emphasizes the importance of choosing turf that is appropriate for the site.

"Typically, we recommend Buffalo grass (Buchloe dactyloides) and blue grama grass (Bouteloua gracilis ‘Lovington') for low water-use turf.They're native to the area, but they're warm season grasses.It gets a little too cold, and the altitude is too high here, for these grasses to stay green more than four or five months.We use blue grass (Poa annua L.) and fescue (festuca) for high water, but again, that's limited to 15 percent.The rest is typically low-water use shrubs and gravel mulches," says Daniell, adding that a study by the University of New Mexico suggests that two-inch cobblestone does the best job of holding moisture.

As far as soil preparation goes, Daniell sometimes tills a ground bark mulch into the soil for turf areas, and that's it."Very often, we do not do much to improve the soil.Native plants don't need a lot of extra stuff.It doesn't help and, in fact, some suggest it may actually hinder native plant development," says Daniell.

Dave Daniell, vice president, Heads Up Landscape Contractors, Albuquerque, N.M., agreed."Establish your own standard of quality of materials and workmanship and don't compromise them just to be the low bidder," he urged.

USE A HIGH QUALITY DESIGN.
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With constant time constraints, the pressure to get an installation done quickly can prove harmful to a system's quality and ultimately, a contractor's reputation, Daniell noted.

"If you feel you don't have time now, when will you have the time to fix it the second time?"he asked.

In Daniell's experience, the most common mistakes caused by rushing through a job include improperly flushed lines, which can result in clogged nozzles or emitters, and settling around heads from not compacting and tapping the soil properly, Daniell said.

Other frequent errors include using the wrong size nozzle or incorrectly setting up the timer, both of which can result in "dry spots and mad customers," he warned.

Daniell pointed out that the issue of quality control is an ongoing one."This never goes away," he observed, adding that he frequently sits down with his crew to talk about maintaining quality.

"You need to send a strong message that it's important to take extra time," he said, noting that he often asks employees to put themselves in the customer's place and do a job that they themselves would be willing to pay for, since "customers are spending good money and entrusting us with their business."

FIX DAMAGE IMMEDIATELY.

David F. Daniell, CLP, Heads Up Landscape Contractors, Inc., Albuquerque, NM

So, for Dave Danniell of Heads Up Landscape Contractors, Inc., irrigation is an established part of the landscaping job.His company started out as an irrigation company, and later added landscaping.He uses drip irrigation in most areas except for the turf, where pop-ups are used.