Landscape companies, as entities that sell (including resale), distribute, or advertise with the intent to sell or distribute nursery stock, must be licensed, and registered annually with the Colorado Department of Agriculture (CDA). CDA is reaching out to those who are not registered.

According to the CDA: Companies that sell or distribute nursery stock for commercial purposes must register as a “nursery” with the CDA. All growing nurseries (including sod farms), retailers that sell nursery stock, landscape contractors, brokers, and collectors must register if selling or distributing nursery stock for commercial purposes.

If you overseed or hydroseed, you will need a retail seed dealer license as well.

The Second Regular Session of the 73rd General Assembly concluded as of May 11th. There were 657 bills introduced this year, 418 by the House and 239 by the Senate. There were 143 bills Postponed Indefinitely or died on the calendar. Throughout the session GreenCO continued to weigh in on multiple pieces of legislation that effect both the industry and the business community as a whole.

GreenCO tracked over 50 bills that covered many different issues including, workforce development, employer mandates, water, and simplification of sales and use tax just to name a few. GreenCO took positions on multiple bills.

Now that the 2022 session is over, the interim looks to be a busy one. It will be filled with interim committees, rulemakings, as well as gearing up for the 2022 elections in November. It is anticipated to be an important election year as it is will be the first election since redistricting and the Republicans are looking to close the gap in the House and in the Senate. As usual, GreenCO will be conducting candidate interviews in August and deciding which candidates to support/endorse.

Below is a list of some of the high-level bills that GreenCO worked on during the session.

When is the right time, you may ask? Zak George, owner of Zak George Landscaping (ZGL), Fort Collins, says “In my opinion, once you cross the 50-employee mark it’s worth having an HR department, if the company has a growth mindset.”

In 2019 he thought it was time for his company to establish a formal HR department. But he took his time. He wanted the right fit. “We want to attract the best possible talent to the company,” George says. “That meant we needed someone who knows the people side of things. It’s a different skill set, one our leadership team thought would complement the rest of the team and help the company grow to the next level.”

At the time, ZGL had around 30 year-round employees with numbers growing to nearly 80 when including seasonal employees—both H-2B and nationals.

In late 2019, ZGL hired David Curtis as the company’s first HR Manager. “People were probably curious to see how it would work out,” Curtis reflects. “I have a degree in psychology, not HR, and this was a new position at the company. Among other factors, I think Zak hired me because of my experience managing a branch within a large corporation where I often handled the HR functions.

The challenge of finding seasonal workers in the landscape industry and other seasonal industries has been an ongoing challenge for at least a couple of decades.

Mari Medrano, human resources director at CoCal Landscape, Denver, has more than 20 years’ experience working with foreign workers on H-2B visas. In spring 2021, Medrano wrote the article, H-2B: An Employer Perspective for Turf magazine and in spring 2022 her article received first place from the Turf and Ornamental Communicators Association.

This editorial/opinion article highlighted her real-life experiences, and subsequent learning, from 20-plus years of working with foreign workers on H-2B visas. She said the process is time-consuming and there are no guarantees a company will be granted workers from the program. “If you think you know what you’re doing, this program—with constantly changing government regulations and attacks from H-2B opponents—will knock you to your knees. It’s anguishing, hair-pulling, frustrating and dumbfounding, but also very fulfilling and rewarding,” she wrote.

In the face of drought and climate change and to ensure Colorado has enough water to meet all the needs of today and the future, Water Education Colorado has spearheaded Water ’22, a year-long water education campaign lead by @watereducationCO that asks Coloradans to make a pledge to reduce their water consumption by 22 gallons (or more) each day.

Simple actions can save at least 22 gallons per person per day. According to the numbers, if every Coloradan saved 22 gallons a day for a year, the savings translate to 150,000 acre-feet or the volume of Horsetooth Reservoir in Fort Collins! Small changes help stretch our scarce water supplies and help preserve our agriculture, parks and open space, fish and wildlife habitat, recreation, drinking water and industrial and commercial sectors.

Water ’22 calls upon all Coloradans to work together to ensure clean water is available to support the state’s water uses.

Beyond each individual, we have a duty within the green industry to be good stewards of water. One of the ways ALCC is helping support this campaign is with its Sustainable Landscape Management (SLM) program, which educates landscape professionals in the public and private sectors about sustainable, water-conserving landscape management principles.

As most in the industry know, the H-2B visa nonimmigrant program permits employers to hire foreign workers to come temporarily to the United States and perform services or labor for a one-time season. The job timeframe must be for less than one year.

As the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) did for last summer, the Department of Labor (DOL) will make available an additional 35,000 H-2B temporary visas for the second half of summer of 2022.

Last week the H-2B rule published by the H-2B Coalition, includes the following conditions:

• Supplemental visas only apply to the second half cap for work April 1 through Sept. 30. DHS will only accept petitions through Sept. 15. Anything pending after Oct. 1 will be denied.
• Any unused Northern Triangle visas—from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras—will not be rolled over to returning worker visas for other countries. 
• Enhanced recruitment for most petitions.

There was a time at the beginning of the millennium, after more than 20 years in business, when Lifescape Colorado focused its passion and creativity on landscape design and construction, its core competencies, and did not continue with ongoing maintenance. For the past three years Lifescape has maintained the “Charm Grows Here” property, a residence for which they completed the design/build work in 2004. Lifescape established a maintenance division in 2011 and the property owners reached out. Lifescape’s efforts were rewarded with ALCC’s Gold ELITE Award for Residential Maintenance.

Colorado Green spoke with Ben Pritchett, garden manager, and Matt Cloud, now director of onboarding and quality assurance, about caring for the property. Cloud likes to say, “Our design/build clients are those we date, but we marry our maintenance clients.”

For 25+ years, Urban Horticulture & Landscape Management at Pickens Technical College, Aurora, has trained young people and older career changers for landscape industry jobs. Rachel Durkan, new instructor in 2021, envisions it as “one of the gems of the Front Range for green industry career training.” Already, many students work in horticulture/landscape jobs outside the classroom.

Durkan is pleased with a new classroom, greenhouse upgrades and help from colleague Donna Nading, who manages greenhouse operations and more. Both bring past training and work experience to their jobs.

Durkan’s career has been varied from growing tropicals in Hawaii to driving a snowplow in Colorado. She went to Virginia Tech, then received a graduate degree from CSU in agriculture extension education, and recently, was maintenance account manager for a local landscape firm.

“I grew up in Oklahoma with family members who were farmers, ranchers, or in construction or general contracting,” says Shane Meyer, owner of Denver Landscapes. “I had a strong work ethic and was business oriented. And I had access to the many tools of various family members and became very handy. I could build most anything and I learned to repair everything we owned.” This skill set would serve him well. When at the University of Oklahoma, his high school mowing business evolved and he taught himself how to repair sprinkler systems.

When a friend moved to Colorado and invited Meyer to visit, he applied for a summer job as an irrigation tech and learned even more. After moving to Colorado in 1994 to work for his former boss, he learned the business was being sold and the new owner planned to replace Meyer with his son.

We, at ALCC, are excited to announce the re-vamp of our “Tip of the Week” emails. Tip of the Week has been a huge success and we are thrilled to offer this revamped member benefit.