Julie LaBarre: The 'best' in lawn care

Citizens Journal-Sun

There’s something special about Julie LaBarre.

It isn’t that she’s 83 and a self-employed lawn care keeper. It isn’t that she works at her job six, almost seven days a week. It’s not that she never misses and takes no medicine. It isn’t that she freely gives her opinion.

It is, rather, that she’s a walking telephone book. Give her your phone number once, and she never forgets. Ask for the number of someone else or business she knows, and instantly it comes up.

It’s a smooth skill, especially today when one’s telephone number is treated like a government secret. But one can ask Julie.

Now on to the reason Julie is truly special. Not long ago she was named runner-up as the best lawn care service in the county. It was a contest sponsored by this newspaper. Julie didn’t agree. She thought she should have been “best.”

For example, Julie bases her claim on her ability to sight down a grass edge to see how straight, clean and considerate it is.

“I must be the only one who uses an edging machine,” Julie says. “Makes a straight line with no mistakes and treats the turf well at the grass’s edge. Others say, ‘Oh, I can hold a weed-eater steady. ‘But they can’t. Just look closely and you’ll see the dips and edgewise cuts every so often. And it bruises and beats up the grass.”

Julie’s edges are straight, with the grass standing up a little higher than the curb.

“What it should look like. Customers like it that way.” Of customers, Julie says she has about 12. Here’s another way she satisfies. She has a special implement for cleaning gutters. It’s a 25-year-old plastic windpipe bent in a special way that allows one to blow out and clean the overhead gutter while standing on the ground below.

As for other basic, professional techniques? Julie’s only been at this 40 years, since 1985. Let her tell it.

“Walk slowly. Use the self-propelled hand-mower in most instances and not a riding mower which can damage the lawn and leave hot spots where cut too low.”

Furthermore, she says, “Go slow to give the blade time to cut the grass clean and smooth. Do it right or not at all.”

Want a bit more advice? Start with the weed-eater, keep it in your hands for two hours or “until it runs out of gas.” This is important, she says, because doing good weeding keeps the mower from having to make a lot of twists and turns. Mowing then is a straight line with no overlapping lanes.

“Don’t let the weed eater go below grass level.” Julie likes to finish each job completely each day, but she will come back at all hours if necessary.

She means “all” hours because she gets up each morning at 4 a.m. You may see her mowing at midnight.

These summer days, she admits, may get a little hot for her, in which case she goes home to take care of her dogs for a while.

She came to Atlanta and Northeast Texas at age 24 in the 1970s from California, which had become too expensive. She came with the late Joseph and Frances Hopkins.

She was first employed in industry and spent 15 years as security guard at International Paper Company.

She started with just four implements in 1985, but they are the same four primary ones today: riding and push mower, edger, weed eater and blower.

She’ll weed plant flower beds, too, if the customer requests, and enjoys adding rye grass to make winter yards green. The same hat and long sleeves. A very rainy day is about all that will stop her. Julie was sick once and spent a couple of days in the hospital.

In 1991, she made a mistake of stopping her truck on a roadway and getting out to pick up trash that had flown out of the bed. A passing car accidentally struck her, breaking both legs.

“The first day the doctor said I could put some weight on those legs, I was gone out mowing. Because that was all I wanted to hear. Been mowing ever since.”

This is Julie LaBarre, Atlanta’s often winner in best lawn care contests. She’s been at it for 40 years. Here she is taking care of St. Catherine of Siena Catholic Church.