About Me

Steve Mann - The Chipper and Shredder Guy

Hello everyone, I am Steve and welcome to my website where I review gardening equipment and try and offer some general horticultural advice. I hope it is of some use to you avid gardeners out there.


My Big Secret


But before I tell you a bit about me, I have to confess something, I have not always been interested in gardening and tending the yard. In fact I would go to every length to avoid doing it for many years…

When I was a kid we had a big backyard and my old man was forever outside tending to it and taking care of it. It was his pride and joy. He often used to ask me if I wanted to come outside and give him a hand, but I always declined, there were always more exciting things to do – be out riding my bike, catching up with friends, playing soccer, watching TV, basically anything but gardening…


Something Changed


Then all of a sudden things changed when I was 19. Why? I went to university and moved into a student house. It was big house and it had a big garden, but it was a complete mess – gardens are not the priority of many students. One Sunday myself and one of my housemates decide to set about clearing it up. Armed with the only the most rudimentary of gardening tools we spent a good six hours mowing the lawn, pulling out weeds, cutting back the trees, trimming the bushes, clearing the rubbish and we even created a little stone pathway through it!

Seeing the improvements we had made was very rewarding and we made sure that over the next two years it was kept in tip top condition –  I guess that was when I became hooked.


Why I Created Suave Yards


So why this website and why now? Due to the aligning of the stars! Well not quite, but basically I bought a new house, with a big backyard and a couple of months later started a class at evening school on programming and website creation.

One of the modules was to design, create and populate a website on a subject of our choosing. After much thought, I decided I should create something related to my garden as I planned to be doing a lot of work on it over the next few months (and years probably). One night, over a beer, I ran the idea past a good friend of mine who works at a well-known home improvement store.

Not only did he think it was a great idea, he came back to me with a proposition – how about he supplies me with equipment the store has in, I can have it for a couple of weeks and test it at home and then I can write a proper review for my website and share it with the store so they can pass on this expert advice to their customers – a win-win situation for all (thanks Rich!).

I’ve since gone on to take a series of horticultural qualifications as well, and am now expanding my gardening services outside of using them merely as a hobby and to keep my garden looking tidy.

So that is what lead to me creating the Suave Yards website – I hope you find it of some use and…

Happy Gardening!

Steve

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