Model 9427 Chopper Success Story
Fiedorowicz Landscaping
Crivitz, WI
Saves Landscaper Valuable Time and Materials!
George Fiedorowicz started his landscaping business in Crivitz, Wisconsin, back in 1963 with two customers. This year as George turns the business over to his son Kyle, Fiedorowicz Landscaping has four full-time employees and over 600 customers.
According to George, the Fiedorowicz Landscaping team establishes approximately 20 acres of new lawn per year. In 2005, he estimates they will have established about 27 acres of new lawn - that's over one million square feet of lawn!
But the Fiedorowicz team doesn't only cut grass. Kyle says they engineer the entire job for their customers, suggesting tree removal, cutting or planting, and adding concrete retaining walls, in addition to designing landscape, seeding and cutting lawns. They basically do it all, which takes a lot of time and manpower. Additional summer help is hired to handle the routine lawn care.
About seven years ago, George invested in a Patz Model 9427 Chopper with a 3-point hitch to help save time by chopping and spreading straw or hay on newly seeded lawns.
"It used to take us about 5 hours to spread straw by hand," says George. "The chopper takes about 10-15 minutes to do the same job, but better!"
Fiedorowicz Landscaping rely on their Patz 9427 Chopper to provide better ground coverage than doing the job manually. They prefer to use hay instead of straw because it holds the seed better and produces less weeds.
"We use a good quality seed mix," says Kyle. "The chopped hay holds the seed better so that it doesn't blow away. With the blower hose, we can spread the hay quickly and efficiently in a fraction of the time and with half as much hay than doing it manually."
Fiedorowicz Landscaping estimates they have chopped about 6,000 bales in their Patz Model 9427 Chopper and haven't had to do any maintenance on it other than routine oil changes, greasing and replacing belts.
The 9427 Chopper has definitely proven itself a worthy investment for Fiedorowicz Landscaping. This single piece of equipment has more than paid for itself by not only cutting in half the amount of straw or hay used on each job, but most importantly saving hours of time and labor. And that's time well spent on Fiedorowicz Landscaping's 600 customers!
