How Trim Landscaping Built Halifax's Queen's Marque and Argyle Street — The Commercial Landscaping Niche Nobody Else Owns

0:03Welcome back to the Atlantic Construction Podcast. I'm your host Daniel Arsenault. On today's episode we have Brendan Wilton, President and CEO of Trim Landscaping. We'll be chatting about Brendan's entrepreneurial journey and starting Trim Landscaping, some of the milestone projects they've worked on including Queen's Marque, Argyle Street, and many others, and the current progress at Peggy's Cove. Hope you enjoy. All right, welcome back to the Atlantic Construction Podcast. Today I have with me Brendan Wilton from Trim Landscaping, co-owner with Matt Archibald. Brendan's a former Queen's University

0:43Commerce — is that right? That's right. Thanks for being here, Brendan. Thanks for having me, this is gonna be fun. Yeah. Just maybe just start with — just kind of give us a background, how things kind of transpired with Trim and you and Matt. Yeah, sure. It's a while back now, I think. Yeah, thanks for reminding me. Well, I think you reached a milestone — is it 15 years? We did. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we started in 2006 with the usual motivations — basically out of high school, want to earn enough

1:16beer money so that when we go away to university we can have some fun. And so it allowed us to set our own — do our own thing, make a little bit extra. No real plan of making this into a long-term thing, right? So then after four years — we're done university and it's time for us to actually grow up a little bit — and we had this little business that we had started, and so it was a perfect fit for us to start to actually grow that, take it, and still have some fun with it but

1:47actually treat it like a business rather than just a summer job that we made for ourselves. And then over the years we've grown our services and grown what we want to get into and don't want to get into, and sort of figured out who we are as a — gone through brand transitions, buying other competitors, all kinds of different stuff over the years to get to where we are today. Yeah, that's amazing. And so you predominantly started out in residential and then sort of slowly — was it a gradual entry into

2:17commercial? Because I know you guys are doing some like amazing large projects in the city here and elsewhere, but like before we get into that, was it like kind of a gradual process to get into some of the bigger stuff? With definitely — yeah, definitely — to grow some of those relationships, have the safety standards in place, sort of all the things you need to do to become a commercial contractor. It takes quite a while. And so there's some actual barriers to entry in that side of the business. So yeah, we did

2:43a lot of residential work, a lot of mow grass, a lot of planting plants, a lot of really basic stuff that we could do with very limited training. So that was — and that is the natural in that business, right? Yeah, yeah. It's amazing to go from starting out with, you know, residential lawns and planting trees, and then 12 years later you're doing Argyle Street and Queen's Marque — projects like that. Like it's a long way. It is. And for us it was starting to treat it like

3:14a business, right, rather than our summer job — or, you know, just our regular day job. Treating it like a business and producing employees that do incredible work, that are specialized in great crafts people, and they're in their exact trade — that makes all the difference in the world. Yeah, 100. And like I think that's something that — like our listeners on the Atlantic Construction Podcast — for those even in the industry, I think that one of the things about landscaping is the scope is so vast. You know, and I just realized that in

3:45doing some research and chatting with you leading up to this — and you guys got masonry, concrete, carpentry, you're planting trees, there's turf, there's just such a vast amount — so like you're amazed what your customers ask you to do. Anything else they would ask for, unique to each project. So yeah, maybe just take us through that. Like what's your employee base like, how many site workers, and like their backgrounds, and sort of all the, you know, the different skill sets. Sure, yeah. So yeah, like just going

4:15back one step there — like the residential market versus the commercial market is fairly different, but at the same time there was not really a contractor that had that full service that we currently offer. So that was the big sort of strategy for us. So having those specialty people and those individualized crews that do just strictly carpentry, that strictly plant plants, that strictly lay pavers, strictly build retaining walls — allows us to actually produce a quality product but also provide these amazing outdoor spaces. And that's really where we

4:51have found our niche — where it's the whole outdoor space rather than just one piece of it. Yeah. So our current employee base is about 80 people, growing constantly. Shameless plug — we just started a fencing company too, so we'll be introducing chain-link fence and ornamental fence and things like that. Yeah. And that ties in well with your offering, like the whole package. Yeah, exactly. So we — and there's other parts of the business that we contract out as well, to just certain specialty

5:21people that we've brought in to add to our team. If we don't have big enough gear to do it we'll contract it out to either one of our customers or a subcontractor that we have a relationship with, so that we can do that whole package for the customer. Because the landscaping has gotten so complicated — yeah — that there isn't one person that can just do it all. It's so complicated that they're creating new courses at Dalhousie, we can get a degree specific to landscape and horticulture. That's right,

5:45right. And that still only covers one small piece of it. Like, you know, they're an expert in plants and plant material and growing stuff and organic things, but they might not be an expert in how to build a retaining wall and grades and compaction and all this other stuff that comes along with a full landscape project. So it's almost like — as you guys — as you mentioned, 15 years ago, have you noticed it, like adjacent to your journey, like the landscape industry sort of moving

6:13along and transforming and becoming just way more complex? And so you guys probably came in at a good time when you started your growth. I think so. And we tried to at least work with some of the designers to help design more complicated projects. They're happy to work with contractors like us and like to develop these really cool complicated projects for — whether it's a commercial customer, municipality, a residential customer — and try and challenge how cool the project can be built, which is pretty neat. Yeah,

6:49and we kind of just locked into that, to be honest. So you guys — you guys are sometimes involved in the design with the architect, like in those stages? Definitely. And that's not done in-house though? No, I like to keep that separate. I like to focus on construction, focus on building things, help people with their budgets — that type of stuff. So that requires us to be involved a little bit on the design side on the front end, and it's valuable for

7:13the customer as well. Nice. So you mentioned 80 employees — so is that site workers? Like what about the office staff? Like for a landscaping company that size, how's your office staff looking? What's the structure like? Estimators? Yep. So one head estimator and then help of myself, that do mostly all of our construction. Matt, my partner that you mentioned earlier, he does all of our service business, so estimating for our snow and ice, turf/grass maintenance, gardening — those recurring services where we're

7:47going back to the customer constantly. He takes care of the majority of that work there. Nice. So that is — is that a goal, you guys, like when you get a client, you get a project, you want to kind of carry that relationship through with the maintenance? Definitely, yeah. That works well that way. Yeah, no, it's great that way. On the organic side, when you're planting plants and you know laying sod and things like that, the customer wants you to give them a — so they usually sign us up for at least

8:11a year to make sure that it's installed properly, it's going to grow, it's watered, it's cared for — and usually the relationship grows throughout that and we continue to maintain it after the fact, which is great. Nice. So the rest of our office staff would be a controller to manage our finances — I love buying pretty new things and lots of gear, as most, you know, guys do that have — got to have the tools. Yeah, you got to have the toys. So he keeps us in line. An administrator at the front desk who

8:40takes most of and fields most of the phone calls, helps out with our administration. With commercial projects the amount of administration and things like that — it's a key, key role. Our fleet manager takes care of — we do all of our own fleet maintenance in-house, preventative maintenance and repairs and things like that. So he works mainly in the office but also out in the field fixing all the gear, managing all the new equipment we're bringing in, all that sort of stuff. So equipment — equipment's pretty heavy on that side of things with the largest

9:07commercial landscaping company like yours certainly. Yeah, yeah. Whether it's specialized equipment or even just, you know, enough to be able to pick up a 5,000-pound pallet of paver stones. Like, yeah — are you guys renting mostly or do you have — you own some, you have a fleet of some stuff that you own, and then as things come up you'll rent? Yeah, we try and make sure that we have like 90 percent of our capacity covered with our own equipment, right. Just makes the, you know, day-to-day

9:32jobs a lot easier. You don't have to depend on someone else. Yeah. And then as we get sort of over capacity into that other ten percent — and sometimes even more than that, depending on how busy the year is — then we rent the equipment and some of the other specialized stuff. But yeah. So who would you be renting from? Like just, like, a few names? McFarland's, pretty much. Pretty much exclusively, yeah. They've got that market cornered. Yeah. They're great, they're great people. Yeah,

9:57yeah. Graham, one of the owners, and Luke — very good friends of mine and Matt's. And they've — their whole team's treated us really well. That's great. It's such an important part too — like for them to have those machines delivered on time and then when you need them where you need them. And yeah, unless you get jobs like — I'm sure you've had many in the past — that are downtown, and sometimes just delivering equipment and material is one of the hardest parts of it. It can be a project, you know. It

10:22certainly can be, yeah. And some of the projects — like, they require, like Argyle Street required some really specialized stuff. Like we bought the first paver layer — it's a vacuum that actually picks up pavers, so like you can pick up a 200-pound paver with one finger. And we were the first contractor in North America to buy one of those, because of what was spec'd on the street. You could lay it by hand but you'd probably kill a couple people in the process, right? That's not safe, that's

10:47not cool. What's it called again? It's a Unilift. So we actually have two of them now, and they're an awesome product — allow us to do some really cool interesting stuff. So what was it about Argyle Street where you needed one of those as opposed to doing it by hand? The pavers that were specified were just so big, right. To be able to be a roadway — to run a big dump truck down the road full of salt and a plow — it needs to be able to withstand

11:16all that super heavy traffic. Yeah. And then at the Queen's Marque down here, just around the corner from us, some of the granite that was specified — they're 5,000 pounds, they're huge. And how big are the panels? Oh, they're like half the size of this — so like they're eight by eight, or eight by ten — and they weigh that much. And they've got like perfectly chiselled corners. When you put them together, like, you can't grab them with anything like a gravity clamp or anything like that — you have to vacuum them from the

11:46top. So we had to buy some more specialized equipment for these, really. Crazy transition strips between those — they just go right next to each other, tight to each other. Yeah. And if you're really interested, once the Queen's Marque is open you'll be able to see. How thick are they? Oh, they're like four feet thick. Yeah. So where are those located? They're gonna be in the middle of the courtyard, and when it's open it's actually public space — you'll be on the water, on the water side. So as you've

12:14probably seen, the big granite steps that come up out of the water — right as those transition and there's a bench seat — and those are those big pieces, blocks of granite that came from Quebec. Well, that's a pretty special project to be part of. No, it was awesome. You were there for about 18 months? Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was. What are some other memories or some other things that stand out from that? Or some just some other neat products that you might use there?

12:38I know you said you worked with Bird Construction on that. It was a pleasure. It was a really tough job — materials-wise — obviously right on the main street, on Water Street. Like one of the biggest projects in Halifax, probably in Atlantic Canada at that time. Yeah. And the smallest lay-down area — there was nowhere to put anything. So there's, you know, a couple hundred people on that job site any given day. You've got the deliveries, which is one thing, and they had an awesome

13:02— super easy to deal with, great the whole way. But you're competing with, like, tons of other trades for that space to lay your material for any given day. Like, when they want to do drywall they basically take up the whole south road, yeah, with all their material to get it in for the day. And there's a bunch of people inside — it's gone in like two days and they need more. Exactly. So that was — yeah, that provided some like tricky — and working really closely with the

13:30customer, who was awesome to work for — like the Armour Group, their whole team there was just wicked. Yeah. Bird Construction — yeah, same thing, great to work with down there on a tricky site. And during COVID too, right? Like, so did the pandemic happen while you — while you're in process for that? Or was it before? We were like halfway through. You're halfway through your scope. And so they did a great job — like, again, one of the bigger projects with a lot of

13:58coordination happening, trying to get people moved in early summer/late spring, and COVID — so they actually shut the job site down for a day, regroup, figure everything out. And at that point like the level of uncertainty was at full peak, full rate at the top. Yeah, we don't know what's happening, right. No. And then there were some other — like there were some fun challenges, like stories that you wouldn't hear. When we were building the south road we were digging down to put frost footings in

14:29for some of the walls and stuff where all the granite masonry is, right, and the tide — we had to actually figure out the tides so that when we could actually pour concrete, because our hole would fill with water and then be gone. And we're not talking like right at the water — we're talking like at Lower Water Street, right? So like, and that's like a couple hundred feet off the shoreline. Yeah, like the tide goes in underneath Lower Water Street and then you start talking to contractors about that — there's so many

14:54other places like the Maple and some other excavations that were happening that actually had tide, like two blocks in from the water. You would never think of that — well, I wouldn't anyway, because we don't normally do that much site work. Oh man, that's pretty cool. Yeah. It's easy for an estimator to miss that one. Fortunately it didn't — and that would have been me that missed — but fortunately it didn't really have too much of a hindrance on production. There's so much other stuff to do, which is

15:23wait till the water left and then go do our work. And our crew did a wicked job of planning that all out. So how many — how many feet on the ground for your company on a project that size, for landscaping? Like 10 or 20 depending on the day, to be honest. We pretty much always had two managers down. So one big portion of the scope was like laying pavers and hard landscape, and the other portion of the work was a lot of carpentry and specialized

15:51work — weird formwork and concrete pouring and stuff like that. So they sort of split the division of the scope that way because it was big. Yeah. And then on average I'd say we had about 10 people down there, and on big days and big weeks we'd probably have upwards of 20. Yeah, yeah. So just to give people like an idea that are not familiar with landscaping — take that project for example, the Queen's Marque. Like your scope there is, you know, granite, rough carpentry. So like, what are some other

16:21materials that got used on that job, like for the landscaping scope? And just walk us through a little bit about your scope and like how vast it is, all the different things that you need to do. Yeah, I mean hopefully most of the listeners know what I'm talking about when I sort of nerd out and start talking about all the different — feel free to geek out as much as you need to. But there's like the formwork side of

16:41things — really specialized stuff — to build benches that were all covered in metal. And so you needed to figure that out and add lights to it and all that sort of thing. And is the metal in your contract too, that's associated with that? It might be, like — maybe, maybe it's not installed yet. Yeah, but either way, whether it's in our contract or not, dealing with it and trying to figure out how everything's gonna interact with itself, with three other sub-trades that all have one thing coming together in

17:06one spot — that's tricky enough in and of itself. Half of the project that we did — or maybe even more actually — was all on a roof deck. So there's all kinds of waterproofing and we're dealing with the drainage board and the insulation and laying pedestal sleepers and all this decking product — high-grade marine decking products — like all that sort of thing. You're doing the roof — the roof as well? The waterproofing was all done. Yeah, but we just had to figure out how to operate on that. How do you

17:33form on top of a roof deck and pour all kinds of concrete, yeah, where you can't get a pump? Like, it was tricky. So the roof there is a concrete with a rubber roof? Yeah, okay. Yeah, pretty standard roofing setup and membrane. But that's not something normally a landscaper would deal with, right, and really understand how to work around that. So that was definitely a challenge. The Rise Again steps — that was pretty — yeah, those are nice. Yeah. So for anyone

18:03listening — those are the steps that are coming out of the water, right, on the back side? No, we didn't do those. Further up, okay. That was done by Stresscon. That was very impressive — whoever figured that out and did that. Okay, I thought that's what you were getting at. I was like, geez, you did that? Wow. I wish — that would be the equivalent of building granite countertops on toothpicks in the ocean. In the ocean. Yeah, it was super cool. Piece of cake for someone. It might have been for

18:30somebody. And so what are the Rise Again steps? The Rise Again steps are right beside that — it's like this big — not archway, but this sort of big wedge that comes out and goes right up and gives you a huge view of the entire waterfront. And so that was all waterproofed and poured and whatnot. And then we had to figure out how to basically build it from the top down. So instead of building stairs from the bottom and working your way up, you had to build them from the top and

18:57work your way down. And so the difference in the grade and trying to figure that all out — the whole construction method to do that — that was — and was that concrete? They're all — they're all carpentry, they're like timber. Nice, right. Yeah. So working with Bird and Armour to try and figure that all out was pretty fun, and it's a big showpiece of the whole project. Wow. I'm sure some of your carpenters were pretty proud of that one. They are. And you know what's really cool

19:22about that project — and the beer garden that we did that we can see here — is that most times when you do residential projects you never get to go visit them again, right? Like the guys, they can't just show up at someone's house. Yeah, can't just — well, you can, but — can I show my kids? "Your pool, Daddy built this pool" or "Mummy planted this" or whatever — you know, you can't go do that. But with projects like this that are going to be public access, it's

19:46awesome for our employees. Like it makes them really proud of the work that they do, they get to show it off to their families, which is really neat. Yeah, it is. Yeah, it's such a showpiece project. You mentioned Argyle Street earlier. I think — did you mention you guys had some kind of a machine? What's the machine you use? I forget how to say it but I want you to explain because I think it's cool. It is cool, and it's the way

20:10the industry's going. I'm watching my hand right now. Yeah, you know what I'm talking about, I think. So that's the way the industry's going — these machine-operated machines. So we rented this super specialized piece of equipment from Scitec that basically you put on the front of your bobcat and it moves on its own based on the grade. So it sets the grade for the pavers in advance for us and it's millimetre accuracy, right. So you set up this — never seen the survey on the side of the road — and he's got

20:41that thing on a tripod that moves around. Tripod, yeah, yeah — the robot. So that basically told the machine on the front of the skid steer what to do from afar, right? Like it just self-levels the whole time, kept moving. Yeah. Instead of like having to do the super particular — really — and you'll never get it right as the human error is not good enough. You basically set it and drive, grab your coffee, and it goes perfectly to grade. So I love how you threw the coffee part in — it

21:07was the guy doing it, so I'm sitting there having my coffee, hanging out. Yeah. It must have saved Trim some labor with that machine, I'm sure. Definitely. The quality control is amazing, right? Like you don't need to go check it afterwards, your surveyor doesn't have to come in and say, yeah, that's all good. You know it's perfect. Yeah. So there's a lot of other heavy civil contractors that are using specialized equipment like that for building highways and things like that, and it's the way the industry's going. And

21:32it's great. Yeah, it's really cool. I'm curious — like, when you guys — so you said, like, for Argyle you partnered with Dexter's on that one, right? Dexter was the prime contractor, right? They were the one with all the resources that had the equipment to do the whole project, and they hired us as a subcontractor to do that sort of specialized finish work with the pavers. Right. And I'm just curious, like, how many other landscaping companies you guys compete with on these major projects? Because I was checking out — now

22:04these might be interesting numbers to from AKOA — the next numbers: the companies registered as landscaping companies in Halifax is 16, Nova Scotia and Atlantic Canada is 367 landscaping companies. Now, some of those might just be residential, some of them might be new and, you know, might have a two-to-five-man crew. But I only bring that up — it's not like there's 20 other Trim Landscapings with 80 employees that can go and price these major jobs. So I'm just curious, like, how competitive is the

22:39market and like who you're competing against? For those types of projects it's certainly not as competitive. That is sort of our niche that we've built. The best way to explain it for those people that are in the industry is it's kind of too small for a civil contractor to take on — yeah — but it's also a little bit too big for a standard landscaper. And that's what we're into at Peggy's Cove right now — a general contractor could have done it, like one of our customers. So it's

23:04like there's some of these weird projects that just don't quite — I love how you put that too, because it's like you're a contractor in a way. I mean, you're almost there — it's kind of in between. It's kind of in between, yeah. And it provides for some pretty fun, cool, interesting projects. But we don't want to step on their toes — that's, you know, we're not going to compete with them on their business, of really moving earth and laying asphalt. It's a different kind of

23:31stuff. It's a totally different thing. So yeah, great. Like that partnership with Dexter's is something that you guys carry forward and you kind of complement each other. You guys — yeah. That's nothing formalized but everybody's found their spot in it. Yeah, exactly. Oh, you mentioned Peggy's Cove, so that's a current project right that you just started recently? Yeah, yeah, that's pretty neat. It's crazy. Yeah, it's super cool. Tell us a little bit about that. Oh man, it's so — you're having trouble getting through the granite there, you said?

23:56We're through now, yeah. We should be anyway, probably by the end of the day today or first thing next week. And then we actually start drilling and doing some pretty cool — that's real heavy civil stuff, but we contracted all that out to specialists who are really good at that. Right. That was a really interesting project because half of it is like the super heavy industrial — like bridge almost, is probably like the closest thing you can get to it — and then the last bit of it is like super

24:20detailed finish work. It's like super detailed deck with these really cool stainless railings and lighting and photoluminescent strips and planting and all these miscellaneous metals. Like, yeah, it's really cool. But to build the structure to hold all that — that can a potential hundred-year hurricane come up and like knock this thing right out of the rocks — you have to build this really big heavy structure. So that's a big retaining wall around the perimeter? It's actually a big suspended concrete slab, so it's like literally

24:49like a bridge deck. So you like bolt it into the rocks and then you pour this concrete that goes out into the middle of nowhere with nothing underneath of it, and then you build a deck on top of it. Wow. Pretty simple, right? Yeah, sounds easy. It's gonna be fun, man. So you guys just started there — like, what's the schedule? Like you're gonna be there for eight months, a year? For your scope — yeah, who knows at this point. Like all the underground stuff, spring rate restrictions, all the stuff

25:17that we're battling — it's hard to tell the final end of the schedule at this point. But we'd love to have it delivered just in case there's a tourist season in the fall. Like, you know, it would be huge for the Sou'Wester, the restaurant that's down there, to be able to, you know, have that revenue, that tourist revenue. But like, that's pretty short-term thinking in my opinion. Like having that done and having it done right — in the long term it provides accessibility for, you know, the aging population that's

25:46here to be able to go and view and visit and see the lighthouse and see it safely. And I think that that's pretty cool that you're part of that in such a big way, especially with your scope. And just for some context, like for our listeners — like maybe they aren't in the industry but, you know, obviously are really interested in Peggy's Cove. So let's say for a timeline, like the government, the municipality might have come up with

26:14this plan many years ago, and you probably started bidding on it for your scope maybe a year ago? Oh, I wish — we had like three weeks to put it together. Oh really? Yeah, it was awesome. It's always — what happens? Oh yeah, it was a total surprise, got a rally — it was awesome. Yeah. And I think our team — and I personally love that, like when it's a little chaotic and challenging. Yeah, yeah. That's fun. And that's when your experience shows up, right? Because other

26:37— you know, if you don't have that experience and you're not, you know, detailed in all the different parts of your scope and that, you're able — you know, you can make that happen. You can see the job happening from start to finish with all the different — experience is part of it, but process is a bigger part of it, probably. Yeah. And sticking to that process and having that in place, so that when the opportunity comes knocking you've got a process in place so you can actually take advantage of it,

26:58right. So with Peggy's Cove, yeah, we were given probably about three weeks to decide — to figure out if we want to bid it, how to price it, how to put it together, who you're bidding it to. Develop Nova Scotia, right. And it's funded by a variety of different partners that have come together, and it's part of the province's overall accessibility plan to provide accessibility for the whole province, right. You know, obviously building decks is a big part of what you do. You've got some, I'm sure,

27:27amazing carpenters. Like some of the decks I've seen on your website are phenomenal. A lot of those are at houses, but you've built a deck just out the window here. Yeah, the big deck down at the brewery, right on the waterfront. Yeah, yeah. No, we've done quite a few. Don't do too many residential decks anymore — it just hasn't been really a fit for us. Yeah. The bigger, heavier stuff seems to be a little bit better fit for us — like the deck at Queen's Marque,

27:51the deck that we built for Legendary Hospitality at the Stubborn Goat Beer Garden. That's a big, big one. And usually — especially products like that one — that one's on a metal frame, the Queen's Marque is on a rooftop. Materials — is it pressure-treated lumber or is there anything like Trex decking, different types of materials, any of that sort of stuff? Right. The composite decking is a great product. There's also some specialty that would compete with that — that lasts like super, super long.

28:21What kind of hardwoods are you seeing being spec'd for decks? Our favourite — and the one that the designers should spec if they're listing — is epay. It's a great product. It's a Brazilian hardwood, it lasts like forever — 25 years plus. You can't even put a screw through it, it's so dense and hard, and you have to drill. Some of those exotic woods are like steel. Awesome. Yeah. So Fathom Studio — we did a project that they had designed over Channel Park, big cantilever deck all in epay, sort of

28:51fanned out. I can't remember how many saw blades we went through — it was like 100 a week, let's say — just trying to cut and rip all this stuff to fan the whole deck. And, you know, it's in a hard spot to get to, but it's going to last forever. Yeah, like literally forever. It's going to be such a great project for people to be able to access and go see Halifax and, you know, go see the bridge from a cool different perspective. Trying to picture — what's that

29:16species called again? Epay. And it's Brazilian. So what can you compare it to? Like, the wood grain aesthetics — is it similar to, like, oak? It's probably like mahogany. It's like deep, dark, rich. But it does grey out really over time. Nice grain too, probably. Yeah, yeah — super smooth. Like, if you were to pick up a piece you'd feel it and you wouldn't think it was a wood product. And do you expect to clear-coat that stuff all the time on those decks,

29:41or a lot of it you can just leave? Just leave it as it is, really. Because it's so dense, like, you can't even burn it — it would just smoulder and burn. Yeah. And there's some other products — there's one out of New Brunswick called thermal wood and they actually like bake it. So they put it in a kiln and they bake all the organics out of it, so again it will not rot, ants can't get into it, termites — all that sort of stuff. It's a really cool,

30:05great product. Yeah. And the moisture level on these products is like zero — it's like dust. That's like, yeah, it doesn't move. No. That's really neat. And what about lighting? Lighting seems to me like it must be a big part of the landscaping trade sometimes too. Yeah, it is definitely a big part on the residential side. We find that we get a lot more requests for it there. But on the commercial side it's usually the lighting — the electrical — that's dealing with that. You don't cross into that usually on the commercial side?

30:38Not usually, yeah. Like we're contracting it out on the Peggy's Cove project as well — it's just so expansive. We don't have electricians on staff, so if it's line voltage, yeah, we're not gonna mess around with that and get someone killed. But are you supplying some of the actual fixtures and stuff like that on your contract? Like that's part of — yeah, yeah, exactly. So any LED stuff we'll do in-house — we have a couple people trained that can set that up and do that, and know enough about the

31:04products to help people through it. But usually it's spec'd by the designer anyway, so we're just kind of following suit. But that can be a huge make-or-break on a project. Yeah, I'm sure. Most people are busy and they're not there until, you know, it's dark anyway. Put some lights in your landscaping. Yeah, it makes a difference, make it look good in the evening as well. Well, and make it functional in the evening — something that you can actually use and see. And you get twice as much time out of

31:30the landscaping that you've invested in, for like not that much more to put together. Like, what do you guys have down here at the Stubborn Goat Beer Garden where you built the deck? There must be — did you guys do all that lighting down there too? Walkways? No, because that's all line voltage, so we let the electrician do that, put a big pole in the middle, which is pretty cool. And they did all kinds of string lights. Oh, so that's — okay, right. Yeah, that's part of you there. Yeah. So it's pretty cool, so

31:54we helped them with kind of the design of that, but they had most of the design done themselves. Man, like they're a really well-run organization — like they make it. Yeah. And that's good for you and the client — like they know exactly what they want. Sure. That's not always the case. No, you have to do a lot of guessing and things like that. What else do you guys have, like currently — other than Peggy's Cove — like what are there some other big ones that you guys are working on right

32:17now? Or is it kind of spread out with a lot of different things? It's kind of spread out. It's a little bit early in our season right now. Fingers crossed — we're hoping to be part of the Spring Garden Road project. They're going to do a revitalization similar to Argyle Street. So we would love to be a part of that. That was tendered last week so really looking forward to that project. By the time this airs I think we'll actually know who the

32:41contractor is. So is that — would that be like a straight bid, low cost? Or will you be able to — okay, right. So again, like Argyle Street, we will bid to any of the contractors that are going to take it on. Yeah. There's so much pipe they're bringing, all the electrical — it's gonna be amazing. Yeah, but it's too much scope for us to deal with. We have a lot of specialized people but we don't have that many, right. So that's exciting. Yeah. So your fingers crossed for that one.

33:07So for a project like that, like for you as an estimator — and obviously you have another estimator in the office — like what's that process like? Is that a month or so of looking at that, or more, less? If they gave us a month — often you don't have that long. But it's — you've got to have like a couple weeks to get that one sort of marinate in your head and do all your different materials and labour. Yeah. So fortunately we've done one of these

33:29before, so we have a little bit of an idea of what it takes and how much time it's going to take us to do it. But there's a lot of other specialty products that we didn't see on Argyle Street or weren't as prevalent. Right. Some of the underground stuff that we'll have to deal with to get the trees to grow — called like tree vaults or soil cells. Right, they're basically like plastic that you plant the tree in and put soil in, and it provides a structure so you can

33:53bring the hard landscaping right up to the tree without it falling apart. If it was just soil, the hard landscaping would just fall — the soil would just compact and, you know, wouldn't look good. So that's something that we're gonna have to work out. We've done quite a few of them over the last bit with the Queen's Marque out on Lower Water Street. It's pretty common on these downtown projects, becoming more common. Yeah, it provides the tree with a lot more soil so that it

34:20can put up bigger roots, so that in the event of a storm or hurricane or things like that the tree is much more stable and won't blow over. So it's a great product — they've been using it all across the northeastern United States, things like that. I have a question — it might be silly — but if you're working on these downtown projects and let's say within the civil work, as they're, you know, digging the holes for these large buildings, if there was blasting involved, does that affect your work when

34:46it comes to your scope? Like does it affect anything at all, or would you even know that they had blasting? If we were pouring concrete it'd be a problem, because the concrete would be jiggling and flying everywhere and you wouldn't be able to finish it and get it all, you know, nice and pretty. But generally, no, not too big of an issue. I mean, it'll shake and wake you up a little bit. It'll wake you up if you're not — if you don't hear the

35:08horn, right — the three seconds prior to the — that's right — to Bob pressing the button. And like the other big project that's going to be amazing for the city and our sector of the industry will be the Cogswell Interchange, once that comes down. 100 percent. And it's getting a lot of attention right now — it's going to be awesome. So we're just starting to dig into the plans for that. It's a pre-qualified bid list of just a few bidders, okay, because it's so expansive. And there's three or four different

35:37parks with hard landscaping, soft — a lot of these soil cells spec'd. It's a great product, so they're trying to push it and use it as sort of their standard product for longevity of all the trees that they're investing in. And it's just gonna totally change — sounds like you're busy on the estimating side. Yeah, a couple more hours of the day would be nice. Tell me about it, right. So are you ever like — ever bidding against any central Canadian companies that would come this way to sort of take on your

36:05scope on some of this big stuff? Does that happen? I haven't seen them, right. Probably the most common thing would be like really specialized pool contractors — we don't actually bid against them, right? They come down and do some of your scope? Yeah, do some pools and stuff that we end up working around. But COVID has really put a stop to that. Like we used to do a couple jobs in New Brunswick every year, and although we still could — I mean, there's more than enough work going on

36:30here in Halifax now. But yeah, previously we were looking at different spaces that we could go into. PEI's had a huge boom — I mean, you know that, yeah, being from the island. But there's definitely — we thought there was opportunity, but it's definitely slowing things down because of the pandemic, crossing borders and things, right. And so now that we're on that topic, what was that like, just sort of managing things as a landscaping company? And, you know, your materials and some of the

36:59specialty stuff that you guys, you know, need to get in some of these contracts and stuff? I mean, I'm sure — I think we all rallied and weathered the storm as contractors, and a lot of people did a great job with just, you know, the uncertainty and just kind of carried it through, like just kind of staying solid. But there must have been lots of challenges — I'm sure you could like talk forever about it. Yeah, man. Like, landscaping aside, just being a business — it was hard. Like there was the unknown

37:25that you had to deal with personally. I'm like, are people gonna be safe? How are my parents gonna fare? How are your grandparents gonna fare? Like all those types of things that you're trying to deal with. And then you've got your employees that are looking to you to lead them through this and keep them safe on the job site. So that was really, really tricky. Even as you can see, you've got 20 employees and everyone's going to react differently in a time like that. I

37:49mean everybody kind of takes their own opinion of that — wives and children at home, and like not sure if they want to — at that time, you know, what does it mean for me to go to work and come home? And so yeah, different people are at different risks and things like that. And yeah — are they going to be supported by the government if they have to leave their work? Like, how do we keep them safe and change their duties? And like, it was a lot. And our team

38:14responded unbelievably well to it, to be honest. Made the whole thing a lot easier for me and for Matt, just in the way that they were able to change and be trained on new processes and all that sort of stuff. It was pretty cool, actually. Yeah. In the end I think people's true character kind of shows up when you have something like that happen. It's nice. There's some amazing stories out there. And obviously yourself, being a business owner — just the stress is exponentially higher. And anything particularly to landscaping

38:42though that you might say, like, during the pandemic, just as a landscaping company, that might have been different from, you know, the same thing that we're all — subcontractors are dealing with? What I want to say is, I wish that we just laid sod, because that's manufactured and made here — you were sort of alluding here in Nova Scotia, yeah, okay. So there's some great suppliers — Elmsdale Landscaping and Tasbo and some other suppliers of topsoil and sod. That's all made here, right? It's got to be cut and in 24 hours it's

39:11got to be delivered on there. So we're not bringing it in from Ontario. That's great. There's a few products you can, but we don't really mess with that too much. So that's why I say it would have been nice, because lead times that would normally be two to four weeks — especially for products like a bike rack or a bench or something very simple that should be available right away — all this miscellaneous stuff, they shut their production down. And so then what happened was production was shut down, there's no

39:37inventory, they're not building inventory for the upcoming season. So that was pavers, benches, retaining walls — all the stuff that's manufactured out of province. And so right after that there's this whole DIY boom because everybody's stuck at home — I want to fix this up and that, whatever. So demand goes through the roof and there's no inventory available because all the production facilities got shut down due to COVID. So your two-or-four-week lead time became eight to ten weeks. Yeah. And so all you can do is depend on

40:05your suppliers that you've been a good customer of, and you've got a good relationship with them, you stuck with them through thick and thin, hope the GC understands and then the lengthy lead time. They did though, yeah. Of course. Yeah, there was — in most cases they were great, yeah. And it was throughout the whole industry with specialized stuff. So you just roll with the punches, to be honest. That's all you really could do. That's awesome. You know, and then the other part of it was that you had to build up your inventory.

40:30So once you realize that lead times have doubled, you basically have to figure out — where are you? There's no just-in-time. Stock up as soon as you can — start buying stuff right now. And that was — that puts this financial stress on your business. So it's just challenge after challenge. And like I said, roll with the punches. How do you feel now currently, like with the situation — you know, COVID and the vaccine and stuff like that — is there — and like your company, just

40:58the way things are, like moving forward, is it in a good place? And that sort of really stressful period — is it behind you? Definitely. Yeah. Like the biggest thing for us was how do we keep our employees safe? How do we make sure that COVID doesn't run rampant through our business? How do we make sure that we keep our sub-trades safe that are there close to us — all those types of, you know, that whole sort of ecosystem that is Trim — how do we keep everybody safe? I think

41:24everyone's safety committee deserves a pat on the back for — and not just, I'm not just meaning the GCs and the owners, and, you know, JOSH committees, but like subcontractors and all the way through. Everybody rallied. So depending on them — that was a big key to success getting through that whole thing. And then moving forward, there's just a lot less that's like unknown. Like the vaccine's great — I don't quite know what the impact of that's truly going to be, whether it's going to be great or not, so

41:53much. And how well it's going to roll out and all that sort of stuff. But generally speaking, I would say that we're in a really good place because the JOSH community that we have has been amazing. Our safety rep that manages all of our safety has been amazing, and just the ability for that team to pivot and work on new stuff. Yeah, like they're totally different than they were 12 months ago, thanks to COVID. And I mean yeah, truly — thankfully and gratefully. So I think we're in a pretty good spot.

42:23That's awesome, man. Procurement still sucks though. Yeah, man. Anything else that we haven't mentioned that you kind of want to just get out there, as far as, you know, Trim Landscaping as a company and just with the platform here — that we didn't sort of touch on? Or is anything kind of coming to mind? No, I mean, like you guys did an awesome job of sort of, you know, telling the world about who we are and what we do. I was

42:52just excited to be here and sort of shoot the breeze with you and chat about what's going on in construction generally. You know, it's a pretty fun process. Yeah. And you know, I wasn't here just to market the business but more to talk about like what's going on in the industry. Yeah. You know, what changes are being made around town — like, you know, Halifax has gotten such a facelift over the past few years, it's freaking cool. Yeah, it's awesome, it's exciting. You

43:18know, if you're thinking about it and you're not part of the industry — join it. It's pretty cool, there's a lot more opportunity than you think. It's not, you know, your regular blue-collar type stuff — there's so much stuff. Yeah. And I mean, like you and Matt — your story, you know, resonates with a lot of people out of high school just, you know, doing something fun that you like to do in the summers, and then obviously you had to get serious about it, and then look where you guys are at

43:41today. I mean, that story is going to resonate with a lot of young people like, you know, that are thinking about getting into construction. And I hope so — I certainly hope so. Yeah, yeah, man. No, it's been great having you on. As you talk, like I can just tell your passion for the landscaping, construction — like that's what we need on the show. It's all about the guests, it's all about you. And so it means a lot to have you on. It's been amazing just to sit and chat with you

44:05about all this. And where can people find Trim Landscaping online? You guys have — you guys are all over the place, right? So people are going to be able to — yeah, whether it's social media, just on Google. Where's your head office? We're in Harrietsfield, but we're moving. Okay. We're just building a new office. It's being built on Blue Water Road by Bird Construction — it's been a great process throughout the whole thing. Tilt-up building, pretty simple industrial style, just to give our employees more

44:36resources and a little bit better — yeah — and be in a more central location for some of our other services that we didn't talk about today that depend on geography, like snow removal, for example. Okay, a little bit closer to our customers. Has it been a busy winter for that? Not really, not really. We did have that one big storm, right, and that — yeah, that monster — that was a busy couple weeks after that and it just fell off. Yeah. And so like a lot of your scope is seasonal in a sense, right? In a sense,

45:06but not as much as it has been. Right, yeah. Well, I think there's that — there's that gap where a lot of people even outside the industry might think, well, construction — that's seasonal. That's not seasonal at all for your commercial — but I might even think, if I'm familiar with landscape, yeah, it sounds like that's really seasonal. But I don't know — the way the weather's going these days and like the volatility of it, and the way our winters are changing, there's construction — like if you're an interior contractor it just

45:30happens all the time. If you're an exterior contractor like us, like we're laying pavers today on a roof deck in Brunello. So like our construction crews are still firing like full tilt, they haven't really stopped. We were building retaining walls — we were, you know, last year near the golf course or at the golf course? Yeah, right, the apartment building right by the golf course there. Great spot, beautiful. Oh my gosh, that's amazing. Yeah, nice, man. Yeah. So yeah, it's not as seasonal as it used to be. Like when we

45:59started this business it was basically, "We're done for the season, we'll put the plows on the trucks," you know, take a — yeah, we don't get that anymore, right. Still a couple construction crews always going all the way through. Yeah, yeah. Well, that's amazing, man. Yeah, that's been fun. Yeah, thanks a ton for coming on and doing this. Yeah, thanks for having me. I'd love to do it again. Yeah, we'll definitely have you back, maybe make it an annual thing. Yeah, that'd be great. Yeah, appreciate it. We'll get Matt out here next

46:25time. Yeah. How fast this is growing, man — I don't know if I'm gonna get another spot. I know, we're gonna have too many guests. We're filling up with guests but, no, it's great when they're reaching out to us. And I guess that means we're doing something right. You are. This is really cool. I think the industry needed this — it needed sort of an outlet for like what's going on. Yeah. And I think, you know, like you said, coming out of COVID, just being a little bit isolated, and

46:47it's a celebration of, you know, all the skilled, passionate tradespeople like yourself that just do all the amazing work to build Atlantic Canada. It's great. Yeah, no, I think you guys are gonna have a lot of fun with this. Yeah, I'm happy to be here. Thanks a lot, man. All right, cheers. Sweet.