Lifetime landscaping love becomes thriving busines
By Anthony Gadson
News-Mirror
BOURBON � Coming up on his eighth business anniversary, Clay Carlisle is still in love with the lawn care business.
The chore of mowing the lawn and maintaining the landscape may be a good reason to get outside and dig in the dirt.
But there are those folks who find mowing the grass and trimming the hedges more of a chore than a delight.
Those are the folks Carlisle wants to help.
He also is happy to assist when the call comes for cemetery cleanups or even winter work at his church.
Carlisle started CNH Lawncare in Bourbon. Carlisle decided to start the business because he knew it was what he wanted to do since he was 12.
�I don�t like the work, I love it,� Carlisle said about his passion for landscaping. �If I didn�t love the work, then it would be senseless for me to do it.�
Carlisle estimates he works 16 hours a day, seven days a week. That may seem like a lot, but he worked even more hours, in the early days of the business.
�I used to work full-time at the business, plus full-time at a factory, so I was putting in 60 hours in the business and 40 hours at the factory,� Carlisle said.
Besides putting so many hours in at work, he also finds time to do volunteer work in the towns he serves, lending equipment for spring and fall cleanup at the Bourbon Township Cemetery and donating his snow plow in the winter to a local church.
�I like to be helpful to the community,� he said about his volunteer work.
Carlisle�s duties vary greatly, from mowing and doing yard work to building storage sheds.
�We do everything from A to Z,� Carlisle said. He has two part-time employees in his crew. �We do landscaping, dig ditches, lay sidewalks, and also pour driveways.�
Carlisle does the majority of his outside work during the summer and warmer months, so the weather sometimes dictates what he can and can not do.
�With the snow falling early this year, I have two huge projects scheduled right now,� he explained. �I�m going to be clearing out some woods for housing.�
Carlisle�s business has been thriving ever since he started. It has been growing as the years go by, a trend that he hopes will continue.
�It�s been growing about 20 to 50 percent each year, and it grew by 50 percent last year,� he said.
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