Gasoline powered mowers and weed eaters are the 2 most common tools used in landscaping, they both use about the same technology that has been around since the 70's. In the case of gas powered weed eaters, they typically use 2-stroke gas motors and spin at very high speeds. These tiny little motors produce an amazing amount of noise, approximately 115 dB which is about what you would experience at a rock concert.

Often landscaping companies start their days very early in the mornings to beat the Las Vegas heat. So all your neighbors get woken up by this horrendous noise. It's a good way to loose friends.

Gas powered leaf blowers are also a common tool used by landscapers. These too are powered by 2-stroke engines that combine gas and oil to operate. Leaf blowers average a noise-level of about 60dB, and since they burn gas and oil they produce more pollution in a year than 80 cars. That is a huge carbon footprint for such a tiny machine.

So how can you still have a thriving landscape business here in Las Vegas and not make neighbors upset and not produce so much pollution? That's easy, use electric landscaping tools.

Electric mowers, weed eaters and leaf blowers have come a long way. In some cases they are just as powerful as their gasoline powered counterparts, and best of all they are all emissions free. Operating them is just as easy as if you used gas powered equipment.

So what would you need to start an all electric landscape company here in Las Vegas?

First thing would be to calculate how many square feet of grass you intend to cut in a day. Cordless electric mowers all have a certain range. Take for example the Toro 20360 e-Cycler 20-Inch 36-Volt Cordless Electric Lawn Mower, it has a range of up to 10,000 sq ft of mowing on just one charge. Having 2 of these would give you an effective daily range of 20,000 sq. ft.

Now if your daily mowing needs are right on the cusp of this range you could also keep on hand a corded electric mower. I will let you know how that will get powered later in this article. This is good insurance that you will be able to get every job done.

Now we need to look at cordless electric weed eaters or trimmers. I personally like the Ryobi line of cordless tools. Their new Lithium-ion batteries last a very long time, especially when you buy the 2.4 and 3.0 Ah batteries.

The Ryobi ZRP2002 ONE Plus 18V Cordless 12-in String Trimmer is a great weed eater. I have used this before with great results. It is quiet, light weight and has an adjustable handle for using it at multiple angles. With an average size yard in Las Vegas, one battery should last you most of the day.

To help clean up all those grass clippings you will need a leaf blower. Again we look at the Ryobi catalog for their ZRP2102 ONE Plus 18V Cordless Li-ion Blower. I own this blower and yes it is not as powerful as a corded blower or gas powered model, but it is very effective for most residential landscapes. Again for insurance keep a corded leaf blower onboard when you need hurricane force winds. Now that we covered the essentials what other landscaping tools might you need?

You might be asked to trim hedges or prune a tree. For hedge trimming look at the Ryobi ZRP2603 ONE Plus 18V Cordless 18-in Hedge Trimmer. This has received great reviews on Amazon.

For pruning trees you have 2 options. I myself like to use a Cordless Reciprocating Saw. It allows you to trim large branches and can also be used to trim other types of foliage. Have a look at the Ryobi 18V ONE+ Lithium-Ion Cordless Reciprocating Saw P513. Ryobi also offers a 10" chainsaw, the ZRP542 ONE Plus 18V Cordless 10-in Chain Saw. I like the reciprocating saw more because blades are much cheaper than chainsaw blades. Now that you are armed with an arsenal of cordless electric tools we need to look at how to keep them charged during your work day.

Since we are using all Ryobi cordless power tools buy a couple of Ryobi 140501001 18V Lithium-ion 1-Hour Battery Charger so you can charge a few batteries all at once.

To power these chargers you will need to install a power inverter in your vehicle. This will convert the 12VDC your vehicle produces to 110VAC power to plug in your chargers. Power inverters come in a range of sizes for power output. Make sure you buy one large enough to power all your chargers at once if needed.

What about charging the mowers if you need to, or powering that cordless mower we mentioned earlier? This is where you have to reach for your "Inner Geek". We need to construct our own little power station. We are going to do it without having to use a high polluting gas generator.

The first thing we need to look at is our power storage unit, otherwise known as batteries. Just like in motor homes you will need about 2-3 deep-cycle marine batteries. This type of battery holds a lot of power and has the ability to run very low without any adverse affects.

Conventional car batteries do not last long when you run them too low. Deep-cycle batteries also have a larger storage capacity so you can use fewer batteries.

These batteries need to be wired in parallel, so you increase the storage capacity of the unit and not the voltage. To do this you line of the batteries so their + and - posts are together and wire the + (positive) posts together and the - (negative) posts together.

To charge these batteries you will want to get a battery isolator kit. You can find these at any trailer supply shop.

The job of the isolator is to allow you to charge more than one battery on your vehicle. Since it is an isolator you can charge your vehicles main battery (used for starting) as normal and your battery bank at the same time. The other reason for using this is it isolates the different batteries so if your battery bank looses all it power it will not drain your vehicle's main battery.

This will allow your vehicle's alternator to charge your battery bank whenever it is on.

I mentioned earlier about a power inverter. By adding this battery bank for more power storage you will need a larger power inverter to run larger tools.

If you really want to get hi-tech you can add a solar panel to your charging system to add a trickle charge to your battery bank while sitting in the sun. And let's face it we have a lot of that here in Las Vegas.

The last part to this equation is being able to charge the entire system by plugging it into your house at night. This can be done with a car battery charger. After the battery bank is fully charged the chargers go to trickle mode to not over charge the system.

You now have all the tools to start an all electric landscaping company here in Las Vegas. As you can see you have some extra unique purchases to make to create this type of business, but you also don't have to deal with filling up your tools with gasoline throughout the day. I myself do not like keeping gas cans in my truck when it is 110 degrees outside.

Creating an all electric landscaping company gives you an edge on your competition. You can market that your company is quiet and "green". That can be a huge advantage when someone is looking for a new landscaping company here in Las Vegas.