Stories from the Job Site

It’s early spring, and KT Enterprise’s nursery in Chantilly, Virginia, is bustling. Seven truckloads of trees arrive daily to maintain KT’s $1-million inventory of over 150 varieties of trees. The nursery also supplies landscapers in the area with every imaginable material, from concrete pavers to woodchips.

At the epicenter of the burgeoning enterprise is a John Deere 244J Compact Loader. The machine quickly unloads the truck and drops the trees into neatly arranged rows, slipping effortlessly in and out of the narrow corridors of other trees. Steve Wetzel, department head of the landscaping division, gets on his radio and calls in a John Deere skid steer loader for support as a couple of local landscapers’ trucks roll in.

"With its articulated steering, the 244J can really get into tight spaces," says Wetzel as the skid steer rolls by to load up the trucks. "Until two years ago we were running a JCB, but it was big and bulky, which made it hard to get in and out of the lines of trees. The 244J can handle everything the JCB can, but it’s much more compact and maneuverable."

After the trees are unloaded, the 244J moves a 2,400-pound pallet of pavers followed by a 5,500-pound cherry tree. Then it switches to a bucket to load up another landscaper’s truck with gravel. When another tractor-trailer full of trees arrives, it’s time to switch back to the forks again.

"It’s got enormous lifting capability, so we use it to load some of the heavier materials our skid steers can’t handle," says Wetzel. "And it’s got more reach, so we can easily dump to the center of tandem-axle trucks for quicker and easier loading. They’re incredibly versatile, too. We use it to sweep parking lots and to load salt trucks in the winter."

"I bleed green — or yellow in this case"

One of the leading landscapers in the Washington metropolitan area, KT Enterprises provides full-service landscape-development services, including landscape installation, site-work construction, irrigation, and environmental services. Clients include some of the area’s largest and most prestigious homebuilders, developers, and commercial contractors, as well as local and federal governments.

Since it was founded in 1976, KT had used mainly Bobcat and New Holland — until 1999, that is, when they tested a John Deere skid steer loader against the latest competitor models. Deere outperformed them all.

"We have 50 employees running our equipment every day, so it really came down to which machine they felt most comfortable using," recalls Wetzel. "Our guys just fell in love with the Deere — they liked the controls, the maneuverability, the visibility, the roominess. Since then we’ve added nothing but John Deere to our fleet."

Currently the company’s stable of Deere equipment includes 14 skid steer loaders, three compact track loaders (CTLs), a 35ZTS Compact Excavator, and a 110 Tractor Loader Backhoe (TLB). The irrigation department uses the compact excavator and TLB mainly for putting in drainage pipes and digging out sleeves underneath roads.

"The 110 is very versatile and turf friendly," explains Wetzel. "We like the compact excavator because it can get into tight places and work right up next to houses. With its zero tail swing, you can rotate it completely around and not have to worry about banging into anything."

Wetzel’s landscaping division puts the skid steer loaders and CTLs to work on some of the largest landscape projects in the region. On a recent job, they installed 8,500 yards of sod and 140 trees at a 535-unit retirement development in less than a week.

Three crews of seven laborers were each supported by a skid steer loader and a compact track loader, which unloaded three tractor-trailers carrying 130 trees and eight tractor-trailers carrying 16 pallets of sod. The skid steers worked mostly on asphalt, while the tracked machines worked mainly in dirt and wet conditions, where they excel.

On one particularly steep common area, the CTL demonstrated its extraordinary ability to cling to the side of the hill as it brought rolls of sod down to the crew. "Deere machines are extremely stable," observes Wetzel. "They don’t tip as easily as competitors."

Uptime is also better. "They’re very seldom down," he says. "In fact, other than regular maintenance, I don’t remember them being down at all. And they’re very easy to maintain — everything is wide open and easy to get to. Plus the tracks on the CTL are much easier to clean than on the Bobcat, which really saves time."

Parts and service support has been outstanding. "Parts are always in stock — you seldom have to wait for anything,' says Wetzel. "And I have only great things to say about our dealer. If there’s a problem, they’ll come right out and take care of it, and even give you a loaner machine if you need one."*

Wetzel, who has also owned Deere farm equipment, says he’s always been a Deere man at heart. "I bleed green — or yellow in this case. We’ll continue to use John Deere because it makes us more productive and profitable."

*KT Enterprises is serviced by James River Equipment in Manassas, Virginia.