Lots of people ask me if I started Klausing Group. I did. But my love for lawn care and landscaping began long ago.
I couldn't have been more than ten years old when I realized how much I loved mowing grass. That’s really where this romance began.
I grew up in a small house. Our front yard had no more than 2,000 square feet of lawn and modest landscaping. There were three trees in the yard; a large Tulip Poplar, a small Oak, and a Sour Pie Cherry.
One fall evening, the lawn was covered with leaves and the lawn needed cut. My father’s Sears Craftsman mower was not equipped with a bagger, and it did not mulch clippings and return them to the earth like today’s mowers. This mower discharged all clippings out the right-hand side of the deck.
I mowed the lawn three or four times that evening, traveling back and forth, always discharging debris in the same direction. Each time, chopping the debris into smaller and smaller pieces. I did this until all of the leaves had been ground to smithereens. Most of them anyhow. I had directed the rest neatly underneath the neighbor’s car which was sitting in their driveway. Remember, I was only ten.
I remember standing beneath the Cherry tree, looking back at my work. Our lawn was leafless, green, uniform, and so perfect. I knew then how much I loved lawn care.
This fall, Klausing Group will collect more leaves than could ever be stashed beneath my neighbor’s Oldsmobile. Instead the leaves will be recycled and donated to community gardens and nurseries. But the lawns… the lawns will look as great as they did that day more than a quarter century ago. That’s when the love affair began.
