Franchisee Profile: Shane Morrell

Shane Morrell, 41, is bringing the nationally acclaimed franchise Monster Tree Service to the Dallas region, and will also be the first franchisee to enter Texas. Morrell first started working in landscaping while he was in high school, doing summer work for various greenhouses, landscaping and irrigation companies. Eventually, after many summers working full-time, his landscaping jobs allowed him to pay his way through college as he attended the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

After graduating with his Bachelor’s degree, Morrell made the decision to move to Houston, Texas to take a position in sales with a major property development company, but a year and a half into the position, he realized the indoors, inactive shirt-and-tie atmosphere was not for him. At that point, Morrell returned to school in Dallas to receive his associate’s degree in applied science in the automotive field, training to become a automotive technician.

In 1998, with degree in hand, Morrell launched his career working with major automotive dealerships, most recently working with the prestigious Park Place Lexus dealership—the only automotive dealership to receive the presidential Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, the nation’s highest Presidential honor for quality and organization performance excellence, which resulted in a congratulatory call from then-President Bush.

“Park Place was big into taking care of clients, quality control, acting with integrity and doing great work,” said Morrell. “I had over 10 years of experience learning the importance of these values, so now that I’m on my own, all of these things are going to help me to build both my business and the Monster Tree brand.”

How did you learn about the brand?

I went through a local franchise broker/coach who thoroughly vets both franchisors and franchisees. He matched my interests and skills and presented me with a handful of 6-7 choices — Monster Tree ended up being one of those. After talking with Mark, Josh, and current franchisees, doing my due diligence, and making a visit to Pennsylvania, it was a no brainer for me.

What are your expansion/development plans? Number of units? Timeframe? What is your end goal?

I started with 2 turfs, so I want to develop brand name recognition before I start expanding. I’m hoping to make Monster Tree strongly known as a leading tree service in the Dallas area. 

How to Grow Oxalis Shamrock Plant

In honor of the upcoming St. Patricks Day we have found a great article on ehow.com titled, "How to Grow Oxalis Shamrock Plant". The article looks at the Oxalis plant itself who has been given the nickname of a Shamrock plant because of it's distinguishable features and takes us through the process of how to prepare and grow our very own Oxalis shamrock plant. Click here to check out the article or begin reading below.

"How to Grow Oxalis Shamrock Plant"



Oxalis is often called a Shamrock Plant because it has three leaves like a shamrock. There are many different species of a plant, and the green plant with white or pink flowers grows well in Zone 8 or Central Texas.
Oxalis is reasonably easy to grow and multiplies on its own for care-free propagation of this great perennial flowering plant. If you like gardening or growing perennial flowers, Oxalis is a good choice in most climates.

Click here to read the entire article.

What’s really killing Texas trees?

In an article for AgriLife Today, Dr. Eric Taylor, Texas AgriLife Extension Service forestry specialist, says that there are many factors that have been killing trees in Texas lately, beyond drought. Read more to see how preventative maintenance can stop many of these problems!

What's Really Killing Texas Trees?
By Robert Burns

Although drought is often the cause, trees can die for other reasons besides lack of soil moisture, said Dr. Eric Taylor, Texas AgriLife Extension Service forestry specialist, Overton.

“Drought is the primary contributor to tree kill, but it may not be exactly the way you might be thinking,” Taylor said. “You may find this hard to believe, but relatively few trees likely died directly from dehydration in 2011. Instead, the 2011 drought severely weakened mature trees, making them susceptible to opportunistic pathogens like hypoxylon canker and insects like pine bark engraver beetles.”

He said that in most instances, the trees that died in 2011 were already stressed from a number of pre-existing environmental factors such as overcrowding, growing on the wrong site, age, soil compaction, trenching or inappropriate use of herbicides. If not for these factors, a large proportion of the trees that died might have recovered from the drought.

“This is an important concept to remember because our best defense against drought is to promote a tree’s health and vigor through proper care and management,” Taylor said.

(Read More)