Lawn-Loving homeowners in the Upstate can call on the Grass Nerds for a healthy lawn
Kathy Laughlin
5 min read
If you’re green with envy over the grass on the other side of the fence, the Grass Nerds want you to give them a call.
Grass Nerds technicians – decked out in trademark glasses and suspenders – can fertilize your grass and shrubs, apply weed control, aerate your yard and apply pesticides to control insects ranging from fire ants to mosquitoes.
Just as importantly, the Grass Nerds apply the best-suited products in the optimum amounts at just the right time of year, says company owner Derek Gracely.
“It's super nerdy. But it's pretty fun stuff to me,” he says.
Derek Gracey's Grass Nerds won a 2022 Best of the Upstate Community Choice Award, presented by the Greenville News.
Clients often ask if products are safe. “If you apply them properly, they’re safe. We use teaspoons of chemicals per thousand square feet of your yard,” Gracely says. “It's like aspirin. Aspirin is a chemical. If you take 16 of them, they can hurt you, but if you take the right amount, it will get rid of your headache. If you don’t follow the directions on the label, a chemical can hurt you.”
Grass Nerds’ clients are primarily residential, but the company also has larger commercial clients, like apartment complexes and business parks. If you have been to a Greenville Drive game in the past nine years, you’ve seen the company’s work – the meticulously maintained infield and outfield grass at Fluor Field.
Gracely launched the Grass Nerds brand in Greenville in 2015 as part of Capstone Landscape Management, which he founded in 2007. Earlier this year, he sold Capstone to focus on growing Grass Nerds.
Grass Nerds has grown from 138 clients to about 2,500 and now the company treats more than 13 million square feet of lawns. The company operates seven trucks and has two more on order. The 14 employees service the Greenville, Spartanburg and Anderson areas.
Grass Nerds won a 2022 Best of the Upstate Community Choice Award, presented by the Greenville News.
The average customer spends $550 to $750 a year, Gracely says.
“So, it's not just for the super-wealthy. A typical application is between $50 and $70 per application. Our basic lawn-care program is typically seven applications a year, and we offer other services and packages,” he says.
Gracely, who has a degree in marketing from Clemson, says he calculated the cost of a good spreader, a sprayer, fertilizer and other chemicals, and that it was equal to three years of treatments by Grass Nerds.
Those treatments also come with Grass Nerds’ guaranteed service.
Gracely says he learned from his mentors that a “great client experience” is just as important as a company’s product.
“I don't care if we have 100 customers or 100,000 customers, I want every one of them to feel like they're part of this family, part of this team. That's what we preach to the entire company. What we do best is care about people,” he says.
New customers get a handwritten thank you note; clients in need get care packages – all part of the Grass Nerds approach to service, he says.
Gracely still spends time in the field – “My hands are dirty today,” he said during an interview. “I think it’s important that our clients are getting a great product, and I make sure I always thank customers for their business. We put food on our tables because of our clients choosing us.”
Even so, dirty hands are exactly what Gracely’s parents had hoped he could avoid; they didn’t want him to work as hard as they had. Gracely is a fifth-generation Greenvillian. His four children, with another on the way, will be the sixth generation.
“My dad was a welder at GE for 37 years. He told me, ‘Go to school and learn so you don't have to dig ditches for the rest of your life.’”
After attending Clemson on a scholarship, Gracely returned to Greenville and took a job at a large corporation.
Grass Nerds technicians – decked out in trademark glasses and suspenders – fertilize, apply weed control and pesticides, and aerate their clients' yards.
“For three and a half years, I sat in a cubicle all day and hated every single second of it,” he says. “I remember looking out the window and thinking, ‘I would rather dig ditches.’”
Gracely decided what he really wanted was his own business. Equipped with little more than a well-used truck that once belonged to a pest-control business, he left his cubicle, said goodbye to the corporate world, and began a landscaping business – despite having little experience in the field.
Turf and shrub care were new to Gracely, “but hard work, determination and a willingness to learn were not,” he says. “People ask, ‘How did you grow your business?’ I say, ‘You'll grow it when you're hungry enough.’"
To drum up business, he opened his phone and began calling everyone he knew.
He did research, asked lots of questions and taught himself. “I like to learn,” he says.
Gracely took classes, joined the National Association of Landscape Professionals, attended events and found a mentor. He went to nurseries and stayed for hours, reading labels and asking questions. He did the same at stores that sold lawn-maintenance chemicals.
“I’d pound them with questions – to the point that they asked whether I was ever going to buy anything. I'd tell them I didn't have any money. ‘But one day I'm going to buy something.’”
The company now spends $500,000 a year with chemical suppliers, who are eager for the chance to work with Grass Nerds as it continues to grow, Gracely says.
Gracely’s says his goal for the next three to five years is to attain 5% of the local market, about 8,000 customers.
“We want to grow right here. We don't want to set up branches. We don't want to set up franchises. We want to be the very best lawn care company that Greenville, Spartanburg and Anderson have ever seen.”
