Today we've come to Cheshire to see Mark Marshall and his business 'Lawn Stripes and
Hedges' . Mark's been testing the Stirling product range for us before we go to launch to see whether
it does everything we want it to do and to see whether it's going to last. Hi i'm Mark Marshall
from 'Lawn Stripes and Hedges' I'm an eco-friendly garden maintenance company in Cheshire. Mark
'Lawn Stripes and Hedges' has a really unusual proposition and that is an all-electric machinery
deal for your customers tell us what your customers think about that.
So when i first started out a lot of them were surprised when I first got my electric
tools out they were like oh do you not need an extension lead i know that they're battery powered
and then once it kind of started going i had customers ringing me i had two literally ladies
around the corner from here rang me because i'm eco friendly because i use batteries so
from the customer's perspective good feedback a lot of them were surprised and from like
people in the industry they were very doubtful.They're telling me oh you shouldn't
do that you'd be wasting your time but i've used battery powered stuff for 24 months now and
i don't think i would never go back to like a petrol machine. And Mark i bet your customers
are really enjoying the quietness of the electric products. It was more in the summer
in the summer I used the Liberty quite a lot because i could get out early in the morning
at seven get my day done quite early and then spend time with the family so from a
like a general day-to-day use it worked out very beneficial for me really. And mark you
were talking earlier about your vans and what you're going to be doing about that. My main goal
is to have 10 vans on the road all eco-friendly all doing garden maintenance all doing lawn care
just because there's there's no one really in my industry that's fully eco-friendly so that's kind
of what made me push toward it as well it's great for the environment and with everything going on
in the world at the minute i think it's my time well it's not just mine i think it's everybody's
you know job to kind of strive to be a bit a little better really.
Mark we really agree with you and your vision for your business it's absolutely great to hear
that you've got such a firm idea of what your your vision is for your business going forward.
So what we've done with you Mark is we know that you use machinery really hard you use it for your
living and so we thought you would be absolutely ideal to take one of these electric Liberty
products before we go to launch and you can give it a really good hard time see if you can break it
and also we want to hear from you what sort of ideas you have about how good the product is
and if there's any areas of improvement before we go to launch. When you first asked me to trial it
in regards to like cutting the grass i know its your actual bread and butter so
i had high hopes of going into using the normal general cutting cartridge. What really surprised
me was the different cartridges and the new way of getting them off so quick it made my job so
much easier and it actually changed my perspective of the actual mower itself because i went into it
i should have gone into it with an open head but i've gone into it thinking you know the
scarifying cartridge isn't going to be any good or you know the brush isn't going to be any good or
the dethatcher's not going to be any good but when i actually run it against my other machines
it actually did a little bit better than them to be honest which surprised me. Yea and i really
love the way that these machines collect so well it's just so much less clearing up afterwards.
So obviously when it's old when it's done and it's fully developed I won't need to carry my
scarifier with me so that takes up like a the size of a lawnmower in my van and for how small them
little cartridges are you kind of just need one mower to do the job so it makes it just a lot lot
better for me really. Lawn stripes and hedges are obviously really important to your business you've
included lawn stripes in the name of your business and your customers these are amazing and beautiful
homes that you're maintaining here in Prestbury near Macclesfield but we also want to know
about what you think about the cartridges. The ultra-change cartridge changed so very quickly now
how are you going to be using these? Yes it takes five seconds to swap something over so for me
you literally you can't really put a price on there. Obviously there's going to be a price on
it but for how quick it makes my day go you can't put a price on that because although the machine
might cost a little bit more than what it would a petrol machine in reality you've got five six
machines there for one machine. So my scarifier would cost me fifteen hundred quid to buy
whereas you know if i get the cartridge for this whatever it may be it's still not gonna be that
much so you although yes it may be a little bit more when you add them up it's five machines so if
you bought five separate machines you'd be talking nearly ten thousand pounds so it's good really.
And you've got to fit all these into your van as well? Yes and i mean i've got a few vans but
i'd need 20 for every single machine yeah. And how are you going to fit all these cartridges into
your van? I've already got a set up so when you open my van you can get five cartridges per side
one side because the other side i've got storage so i can get five and two on the other so
you know you're not always going to use them cartridges every day but what i was mentioning
before i went to a job and i thought i could do with giving this a light scarification
and i didn't have the cartridge because i had my other van being sign written so
it annoyed me because i thought well i wish i would have had that cartridge now
it would have been nice to have it there and then. And do you have a favourite cartridge?
Yes the Dethatcher. The reason it's my favourite is because i run it against my petrol scarifier
and it apart from the few little niggly things what i spoke about it's much much better which
surprised me and i thought it would not do not do the task what my other one did but it did really.
And even just talking to you before the interview started you must have given us 10 new ideas for
cartridges so this is really good for us when you're testing products it gives some great
ideas for future products and the scarifier cartridge is the favourite of our customers
did you use that one as well? Yes I've used that i liked it what i really like about it is you know
moss in everybody's garden is a constant battle and i do a lot of my other renovations at the
end of the year or the start of the year but the ones i do like this one at the start of the year
i wouldn't really want to go and run my big petrol scarifier over it so with that scarifier it just
completely eradicates that so i can go over this lawn once a month if i need to just to keep on top
of stuff like the moss and thatch build up so yeah i can certainly see why it is people's favourite.
And the new handlebars Mark what did you think of those? I love the fact how well together it feels
so i use a variety of different of manufacturers and that's the first mower that i felt that feels
like it could last forever and i've got some other expensive brands as well but it just doesn't feel
it feels solid. And I like the rotor shift feature on the handlebars as well where i can change the
speed on the move I like it particularly because i can change the speed and go really slowly when
i'm using the cultivation cartridges. Yeah no i love that as well i love the facts because some
i love it because you scarify and you cut at different kind of speeds so it's just easy the
fact that it's just on the handlebar just to just to change which is really good. And the
HITE RITE system Mark that's the the height of cut adjustment system you'll be adjusting the height
of cut really regularly switching from mowing and back to cultivations now that that's so easy
what do you think of that? Really like it i would probably have it as quick as your
release cartridge so maybe a handle that you can move it but it's much faster than the Liberty
yeah it is really good because when you're scarifying it's quick because if you're too
high you need to drop it it's dead easy to use but if you had like a handle like you did on the other
side it'd make it much quicker than using the roller but i don't know how accurate it would be
in that sense as well. And the grass collector we've gone away from our normal plastic moulded
system what do you think of that and do you think it's going to be durable enough for somebody that
uses the machine as hard as you do. Yes definitely the styling of it is much better it's much more
eco-friendly because it's not plastic so i'm all for that. I would make it a little bit bigger for
someone in my trade but for like a general homeowner it's brilliant really. Mark a lot
of our customers are petrol engine users and they are a little bit reluctant to go over to battery.
You're talking about a vision of 10 vans 10 teams of people that's going to mean a lot of batteries
tell me how you're going to work with that. I had the same kind of opinion when i went into it but
for me the environment although it sounds really corny means a lot more to me than the difficulties
of going forward with battery so right now is petrol better than battery me personally no and
i know you have like difficulties with charging but i have a setup in my van so when i back my
van up to my house plug it in and it charges all my batteries. Batteries yes they're expensive
but when you take into consideration i don't need to service it the engine i'm not gonna
have a problem with if i'm on the job the you know the engine might go or you might have issues with
it spillages on customers lawns if the engine was to go so all the problems that petrol have
it goes away then when you go into the into the battery side of things you know i don't have to
get up in the morning and travel to a petrol station make sure that i've got a jerry can
full of fuel in my van and then if the jerry can spills in my van i've not got all them issues that
i once had has completely gone now so it's not where it needs to be in regards to right
now but i'd rather be in the movement of actually trying and be that person that says you know what
i don't want to have to change in 10 years time because the government are making a change i'd
rather say well i'm already there and let you know people catch up so i'd rather be ahead of the game
than behind it as they say. With my customers i think for them it's a little bit fresh it's very
fresh for the customer because you're not using any any chemicals in the garden. I'm fully like
eco-friendly regarding my tools and my fertilisers i try to keep everything as as organic as possible
so the customers side of things they're just i think they're just happy someone's actually trying
and when you've got a lot of customers like I have whether they're elderly or they're a new customer
if they've got someone in the garden that cares about the environment they're going to care about
the garden and they're going to be a bit more respectable in that sense rather than
turning up flying through everything with a petrol mower or whatever it may be so i think it's just
very fresh for the customer. So we can find you on instagram? Yes I'm on instagram and facebook.
I've just won top three landscapers in cheshire which i got yesterday which is great
again that's just because of the vision that i'm trying to succeed in which is good. That's great
we're really proud to be associated with you Mark your your business and your sustainable vision we
really align on what it is that you want to achieve and thanks so much for giving the
machine a really good try and for giving us all your really candid opinions on the Stirling we
really appreciate it. Yes like say i spoke to you at the start of the year and i wanted this
machine before it had even come out so like in my head i was like well i want the Allett
the Liberty sorry but i want to use it every day and I did try and although the Liberty is
an amazing mower for my own garden i needed something that was a bit more robust and
they didn't make one so the fact that you've picked the thoughts out of my head and
made it it's just brilliant for me. That's really great Mark
thanks ever so much we're going to let you get on now and earn your living and we're gonna watch
you do a bit of grass cutting and scarifying. Thanks again and good luck with the business.