Features Profiles
Successfully juggling two landscaping jobs

The Canadian landscaping industry tends to be “a man’s world” in terms of the number of male professionals working in the industry versus females.

Although it’s certainly not foreign to see women mowing, trimming and edging, they are still vastly outnumbered on the overall industry stage. In fact the number of women who own their own landscaping businesses is fewer yet.

Working out of Sharon, Ont., just north of Newmarket, one woman has bucked the trend and has owned and operated her own landscape maintenance firm for the past seven years.

Melissa Baldelli earned her stripes in the industry almost 30 years ago as an employee of G. Edick and Sons Ltd., a Mississauga-based landscape contractor in business since 1949. There she served as an on-site supervisor, managing the company’s work crews by the end of her previous career.

During her tenure with Edick, she developed a reputation for getting the job done, staying on top of everything and triggering few if any customer complaints. She started from the bottom up with Edick—where she was employed for 20 years—learning how to properly operate every tool and piece of machinery before eventually learning how to manage people.

“I learned how to trim with a very old, shaky trimmer,” Baldelli recalled.

Toward the end of her employment with Edick, her then supervisor left the company to found his own hardscaping business, leaving her to fill his position. Some of his new customers were looking for their million-dollar properties to be professionally maintained, prompting Baldelli to strike out on her own after being recommended for the work.

Before beginning on her own, however, Baldelli worked for about eight months as a supervisor/worker for another landscaping company, but it wasn’t the right fit for her as she often found herself covering for the inexplicable absenteeism of some of her co-workers.

“I just wanted to work for myself. I wasn’t being told when or how to do things.”

The acquisition of a core group of million-dollar properties in Mississauga needing ongoing maintenance helped launch Cut & Style by The Lawn Salon.

The business is strictly maintenance in nature, including all mowing, trimming, edging, blowing, pruning, mulching, overseeding, flower bed planting and weeding, and other related tasks. Some fertilizing is done using organic products, but weed control is deferred to outside specialists.

In addition to operating her own business, Baldelli is an employee at Bare Oaks Family Naturist Park in Sharon where she maintains the resort’s common areas seasonally. The maintenance demands at the park and those from her own business are split evenly in terms of time.

“It’s been really bad (at the park) this summer because of the drought. They don’t want me to cut too low this summer because it will just burn out.”

Work at the park not only includes mowing such common areas as the clubhouse lawn, the camp sites, the “Outback,” and “Strawberry Fields,” but clearing trees when necessary and grading the dirt roads in and out of the resort.

“I get to see the whole park in a week.”

Bare Oaks is a promoter of “green” living and does not spray for weeds.

What would typically amount to about 22 hours a week spent on normal park maintenance duties had receded this summer to about half of that due to the extraordinarily dry conditions.

“This summer has been a lot slower—probably about 40 or 44 hours in a month.”

Baldelli said the grounds at the children’s play area at Bare Oaks were so dry this year that mowing was only required bi-weekly.

Such wasn’t the case with her clientele at Cut & Style by The Lawn Salon. The “money” properties she maintains are irrigated, and it was business as usual throughout the summer months, no matter how dry things got.

Although she once maintained as many as 11 high-end residential properties, Baldelli has downsized the quantity over the years to a more manageable number. Various reasons have accounted for the elimination of selected former customers. Those she has kept on keep her busy for upwards of 22 hours a week, and each one is no more than 10 minutes apart from the next, saving her valuable downtime. The handful of high-end properties are each at least two acres in size and are supplemented by a number of smaller “in and out” properties which typically require only “a cut, trim and blow.”

Not only is Baldelli her own boss, but she’s the company’s only employee. It’s a one-woman show that makes her a comfortable living and let’s her live the type of life that suits her best.

“I like the variety,” she said, noting her two jobs are different enough that there is never any monotony. “There are so many different things to do (at Bare Oaks) and noticing stuff for other people to do.”

Baldelli mows with a self-propelled walk-behind to maintain her Cut & Style by The Lawn Salon properties, taking pride in the striping designs she provides her customers. Mowing at Bare Oaks is achieved with a park-owned Walker mower.

Melissa Baldelli not only owns her own landscaping firm, maintaining million-dollar properties in Mississauga, but is also on staff to maintain the grounds at Sharon, Ont.’s Bare Oaks Family Naturist Park.

Using a walk-behind has also proved to be beneficial to her health. The machine delivers a high rate of speed, and she’s able to keep up with the pace. At one time, she said she walked 15 to 20 kilometres daily behind her mower. Baldelli said her work promotes cardio fitness and helps her to burn calories.

Her mower and trimmer are traded out for newer models about every four years, and she will acquire a new blower every five to six years. The equipment that she retires is often given to Bare Oaks for use there by others on staff.

Baldelli is also her own mechanic, having learned how to properly maintain each piece of equipment during her years at Edick. She said she would often “poke around” with the equipment during periods of downtime to learn as much as possible about the tools of her trade.

None of her high-end customers wish winter snow removal services. Consequently, she has worked the past four winters for a friend at Crystal Lawn in Etobicoke, running a snow removal crew for him in Markham. She said two of the past three winters were especially busy.

Snow-removal operations at Bare Oaks are provided by the park staff.

In the fall, Baldelli will blow leaves from the roads at the park. She said the fall and spring seasons tend to be the most challenging.

“Once everything’s tuned up, it’s a matter of cutting the grass, cutting all the sticks off your day lilies or your hostas and making sure there are no weeds.”

In the spring, she will visit the properties under her care and downsize all shrubs, saving her time and effort down the road.

“There will be nothing that has to be crazy done right away…ever.”

Being a one-person landscaping company might, on the surface, be excessively demanding and tiresome, but Baldelli said she would have it no other way. In fact, she said her workload—even without a support staff—is personally manageable.

“It’s been a hard job…until my last seven years.”

Having complete control of the entire operation has its other benefits, she said, adding none of her customers has ever lodged a complaint. None has ever had to contact her with a concern, and she has never missed a week over the years of looking after their properties. Each has been a repeat customer since day one.

Everything Baldelli has learned about the landscaping business has come from on-the-job experience without any formal post-secondary training.