I was born and raised in New Hampshire. I moved to Bedford with my wife, Christine, and son, Jacob, in 2009. Jacob is a junior at BHS and a member of the National Honor Society. We also have a 7-year-old Akita named Cub. I started in the turf business in 1998, working as a sales rep for TruGreen, and over the course of 15 years worked my way up to general manager of Boston North. In 2011, I left TruGreen for a regional sales manager position at Scott's Lawn Service. In 2013, I met Todd Bahan, owner of Groundhog Landscaping, and we decided to start Groundhog Turf Care to offer a premium service to southern New Hampshire.

Groundhog Turf Care offers the best possible turf and tree care, as well as the best tick and mosquito control service available. We started this company in 2013 because there was a void between do-it-yourself and the national brands that offer a lower-quality alternative. We wanted to provide a nutrition-based, environmentally conscious alternative. There is no other company that offers our level of service, array of products used, or results achieved. While we will not be the cheapest service available, we are the highest quality and the best stewards of our environment.

People often think that fertilizer is fertilizer and that all companies are the same, which couldn't be further from the truth. Homeowners can only buy what is on the shelf at Home Depot or Agway, but turf companies can have the mineral content adjusted to suit the needs of New Hampshire's soil makeup because we buy in tractor-trailer loads. Lawns are a lot like us in that the better nutrition turf receives, the healthier it will be, thus requiring fewer pesticides.

The secret that the national brands don't want you to know is that the pesticides are cheap compared to the nutrients. Eighty-five percent of turf companies' products' cost is the fertilizer, and only 15% of the cost is the controls, herbicide, insecticide, and fungicides. So, to make a program more affordable, they cut the nutrient content and spray more pesticides. In fact, most companies have cut back to the point where they only deliver nitrogen, potassium, and lime at the bare minimum amounts. Our standard program includes nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, iron, calcium, and biological metabolites. Our premium programs with composting receive more. Understanding what each of these minerals does for your lawn and the time of year the turf needs them is critical to achieving the best lawn.

One of the most frequently asked questions we get is about organic options. When it comes to fertilizer, there isn't much difference between organic and synthetic. Remember that synthetic fertilizers are just minerals like nitrogen mined and encapsulated for delivery. The real homeowner concern is in the controls for weeds or insects. We often hear "organic" and think that equates to being safe for the environment, people and pets. Well, arsenic and cyanide are both organic and not too safe. When it comes to killing weeds and insects like ticks and mosquitoes, the organic controls are often magnitudes more toxic to people and pets. We work directly with universities like UMass and UNH, and the professors there that test these products in the lab have found that they can cause respiratory issues and kidney problems, especially in kids and small pets. Most people don't know that synthetic controls are tested by the EPA and have to pass rigorous efficacy and safety standards, but organics don't. The organic companies can put whatever they want into their spray and never have to prove it works or that it is safe. 

When it comes to landscape pesticides, most of the new advanced controls are designed with the environment in mind and are, in fact, very benign. Another caveat to organics is that since they are not considered a pesticide, the applicator doesn't need to be licensed by the state and may have no formal training. Because of that, we do not let our team use these organic control types of products. Every single application done by Groundhog Turf Care is made by a state-licensed pesticide applicator who has gone through our rigorous training program designed to provide the best possible results with the lowest environmental impact.

Groundhog Turf Care

603-505-8587