We’ve built our reputation on transforming landscapes into something beautiful and maintaining them to ensure their lasting beauty. But before any of our crew’s shovels hit the ground, there’s a step that matters more than the landscape design itself: making sure it’s safe to dig in the first place.
That’s the whole idea behind 811 Awareness Day. Every year on August 11th, the Common Ground Alliance uses the date itself 8-1-1 as a reminder to call before you dig. It’s a simple habit that saves lives, protects property, and keeps utility service running for entire communities.
The Risk Is Bigger Than Most People Realize
Nearly 40% of homeowners who dig on their own property skip this step, and it doesn’t take a major renovation to cause a problem. Planting a tree, setting a mailbox post, building a fence, or putting in a new flower bed can all be enough to strike a buried line. Gas, water, electric, cable, and internet lines run underground almost everywhere, and there’s no way to know exactly where they sit just by looking at your yard.

Hitting one isn’t just inconvenient – it can mean injury, a neighborhood-wide outage, or a repair bill that dwarfs the cost of the original project. And in South Carolina, it’s not optional. State law requires you to contact 811 before any digging project, regardless of size.
“Not only do you risk personal injury, but hitting a utility line can disrupt critical services throughout your community,” says Rick Sotiropoulos, Construction Business Development Director at The Greenery. “That’s why we want to do our part to spread the word on 811 Day, so the communities we serve can stay safe.”
How It Actually Works
Calling 811 connects you to your state’s one-call center – in South Carolina, that’s SC811 – which handles the entire process for you, and it doesn’t cost a thing.
1. Submit your locate request. Call 811 or head to sc811.com at least three business days before you plan to dig. That window doesn’t count the day you file, weekends, or holidays, so a little planning ahead goes a long way.
2. Wait for the utility companies to respond. Each affected utility company sends someone out to mark their lines with flags or paint, using a standard color code so you know exactly what’s buried where.
3. Check your locate request status. Before you dig, confirm that every utility on your request has actually responded.
4. Dig safely, and dig around the marks. Treat every flag and paint mark as a boundary. Hand-dig near marked lines whenever possible, and give yourself a comfortable buffer.
5. Close out your request. Once the project’s done, you can close the ticket which is helpful for keeping records straight if anything ever needs to be revisited.
Small Habit, Big Impact
At The Greenery, we think about this every time we break ground on a project, and we want to encourage homeowners to think about it too. Whether you’re a professional crew or planting a few shrubs on a Saturday afternoon, the call or online request only takes a couple of minutes and the wait takes a couple of days. This is a small trade-off for protecting yourself, your neighbors, and the infrastructure your whole community depends on.
So before you reach for that shovel, call 811, or submit your request online at sc811.com. It’s free, it’s fast, and it’s one of the easiest ways to make sure your next project starts off on solid ground.























