Zach Henry and Waddell Discuss Striving to Make Your Lawn and Your Life the Best It Can Be
Join Host Michael Waddell as he sits down with popular content creator Zachary Henry, who, along with his lovely wife Morgan and young family, stars in the "Southern Lawn Daddy" (SLD) short-form video series on TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and other social media outlets. Zach and Morgan got their "Lawntok" start in the summer of 2024 on TikTok and Instagram with some humorous lawncare content that resonated with viewers and ultimately went viral. Their SLD channel has experienced amazing growth, and today they've got over 700,000 followers and their passionate brand of lawncare, backyard projects and family-oriented lifestyle content has been seen and appreciated by millions. While the Southern Lawn Daddy has plenty of grass mowing and fertilizing tips, and he surely can help turn your yard into a veritable putting green, SLD is about so much more than excelling at yard work, and Zach Henry is our special guest on this episode of The Michael Waddell Podcast, presented by Spandau Arms and in partnership with Folds of Honor, Cigars International and Poncho Outdoors. Born and raised in northern Georgia, the Southern Lawn Daddy specializes in warm-weather grasses like Bermuda grass, but he has plenty of experience with cool-weather varieties, and his nonstop pursuit of lawn perfection went viral on social media from the very start.
"I already had a knack for grass," Zach explained, "just because we built the house – we didn't have two nickels to rub together – and for some reason we ended up with sod. That was around the time of Covid, so I was like, 'What can you do when the world is shut down? Go outside and cut grass!' We were in the midst of, kind of in that weird lull between, it's not hunting season but it's close and you need to be ramping up, and I was like, 'I'm going to start taking a liking to my grass.' We had just had my daughter, and I was like, 'I can't do anything inside other than watch my daughter nap.' She's feeding, nursing and whatnot. I'm just a butt wiper and a babysitter at this point, but in the midst of all that, 'I'm going to go out here and cut grass. I'm going to hone in on that. That's my little release. I've got this little quarter-acre tract – it's mine. I'm going to do the best that I can with it.'"
Recognizing the sense of pride that Zach expresses through his lawncare and lawn mowers, Waddell jokingly suggested that he probably power washes his greens mower and displays it prominently for the neighbors to see. "I've been known to do it," Zach admitted. "It's a weird flex, but yeah, I do it. I've been known to do it. Especially like on a Saturday... That's a big game day, too. I kind of always roll it around like, Saturday is a game day. That's when you turn it on. You can do anything you want until then. It's all practice up until Saturday. But on Saturday, we're getting out there and we're going to cut grass. We're going to put stripes in it. We're going to lay down the law. …It is a pride thing. I take pride in it. You take care of something that you spent your money on. That's what I kind of took from all this. This was my house – I finally had a big boy house. I have a family. I'm spending money on it. It wasn't given to me. We worked our butt off for it. Take pride in it. Enjoy it. Like it. But make it your own. That's what I wanted to do with the grass. I'm just going to make it the best it can possibly be. Even if it isn't the best out the box – it ain't the best you can buy off a sod farm – but I'm going to cultivate it. I'm going to make it. …Something can be as good as what you make it, but you've got to make it. You've got to put in the time and the effort."
"That's what I find is beautiful about it," Zach continued. "Like our page – we could have been a one and done, one-trick pony. But consistency and just being after it all the time [has made it happen]. That's what we wanted to do. We wanted to be raw. We wanted to be uncut, because what you see in our videos and stuff, that's how we are in real life. We're real-life people. We have problems. We have issues. If I don't take the trash out, I get scolded. If she goes out there, she's going to let me know that she took the trash out. It ain't all rainbows and butterflies. But, I mean, it's life, and I think that's what people really truly enjoy seeing – a young couple, I mean, I say I'm young, I'm 35… But with me and her and how we are, we just feed off one another, and I can tell if I'm really excited about something, she's really excited about something. So, when all this started kind of blowing up, we were like, 'Man, this is crazy how all this happened,' off just being authentic, and not being something that's fabricated, that you're just trying to be somebody else. We're like, 'You know what, we're going to run our own race. If people like it; they like it. If they don't; you can scroll on. We want you to stay. We want you to be invested in us and stick with us and stuff like that, but at the end of the day, I think it's all just about being authentic…'"
The Michael Waddell Podcast is produced by Outdoor Sportsman Group and is available widely on Outdoor Channel YouTube, MyOutdoorTV, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and OutdoorChannel.com, to name a few.
When asked about his love of the outdoors, Zach explained: "I grew up outside; I didn't really spend a whole lot of time inside. So, I got to grow a love for things outdoors. Back in the day, we weren't allowed to come back inside. You didn't spend a whole lot of time inside. Go outside and get dirty, cut grass, you got chores, you got things to do. So, that's kind of the backstory [on] my love with just being outside, just being in the outdoors, whether that's hunting and fishing, or riding four-wheelers or just taking a walk to the property line. I grew up doing that, a little Red Ryder BB gun, shooting pinecones or red birds, if my MaMa didn't catch me… It was cool. Nowadays, it's like, everybody is on their phone and on their tablets and stuff, and I just like getting outside, and that's where everything started to come together… I was like, 'Man, you know what, you're meant to be outside.' We need to embrace the outdoors and do all the things that the Lord provided, and I just enjoy all of that, and it drove me to be an outdoorsman and later turned me into an Old Grasshead."
"I did enough to be dangerous," said Zach, when questioned about his hunting and fishing background. "My uncle lived on a lake, so we'd go out there, put an old jon boat out there, so we'd go fishing a pretty good bit, for largemouth bass. It wasn't stocked with F1s or anything like that, but it was pretty jam up. Living on land but growing up not really having a whole lot – we ended up joining a hunting club later in life – but where my love of deer hunting came from was the backyard. We'd see an old nanny doe standing out there eating on a kudzu vine and we'd think, 'Man, it's getting close. We're about to get on one…' I just fell in love with it, and we ended up getting on a hunting lease not far from here… The scale of the deer back in the day, before it was all this urban hunting and stuff, you had to get away from the city to see deer, or what we thought. But nowadays, people are killing 200-inch giants in doggone Buckhead. But, I mean, we got on that little tract of land, some 300 acres and a handful of members, and that's where [I got to see] nature in its fullest… Hunting in the morning [fishing in the afternoon and hunting in the evening], that was always fun to me. That's what really got me into it. I fell in love with watching the woods wake up; watching the woods go to sleep. It was always fun. But then you get into other stuff. I'm big into duck hunting. I'm probably a bigger duck hunter than I am a deer hunter; but I still have a love and appreciation for whitetail deer."
"I'm appreciative of everything, and everything that comes along with this," said Zach when questioned about SLD's popularity and success. "I'm new to it all. I guess you could call it 'fame,' with the following that we've got. It's a lot of people that know the name. I love being able to entertain someone, or having someone stop me at the gas station and be like, 'Hey, Man, Dude, that truck looks good. Or, that grass looks good. Or I enjoyed what you said the other day about something you were feeling convicted of in your video… Man, I love what you said with that Bible verse. You didn't have to say anything, but I felt like you were talking directly to me.' …Well, I feel like that's what the Good Lord does. He puts things in place where they belong. That's where this kind of circles around. We're put in these places, with these people, with situations, and it's by design. I mean, I didn't know it as a six-year-old, you know, playing in a mud puddle, that one day I'd have a couple thousand followers and they were going to be looking to me for grass tips, and wanting to figure out what boat I'm running this year, what wheel and tire setup [I'm running], but I am appreciative of it… It's all blessings from the Good Man Above."
"I really appreciate Zach Henry, the Southern Lawn Daddy, coming to chat with me," said Waddell. "It was an honor to meet him and get to know him a little better, and I look forward to meeting up with him again and hopefully getting to meet his wife Morgan and their beautiful family. We have a lot in common, and I'm hoping we'll be able to get together sometime soon to hunt some ducks and maybe a turkey or two. The Southern Lawn Daddy has certainly taken lawncare to new heights – and it's truly about so much more than cutting grass – but I'm afraid I might have to cut some stripes now at Downton Dixie.
The Michael Waddell Podcast releases new episodes every other week.
Waddell's story began in the backwoods of Booger Bottom, Georgia, where he grew up surrounded by nature, family, and a love for the outdoors. A self-proclaimed "rowdy redneck," his passion for hunting and storytelling led him to win a Realtree turkey-calling contest, which launched his career in the outdoor industry. From guiding and filming hunts to creating hit shows like Realtree Road Trips and Bone Collector, Waddell has become a beloved figure in the outdoor world.
About Outdoor Sportsman Group: Outdoor Sportsman Group is comprised of the world's foremost media and entertainment brands for outdoor adventure enthusiasts. It includes four leading multichannel networks: Outdoor Channel, Sportsman Channel, World Fishing Network, and GAME & FISH TV, a dynamic new Free Ad-Supported Streaming TV (FAST) channel dedicated to sports enthusiasts and outdoor lovers. Additionally, Outdoor Sportsman Group operates Sportsman Channel (Canada) and MOTV, the world's leading subscription streaming platform created for outdoor lifestyle enthusiasts. The Group also consists of numerous established publishing assets, including 14 outdoor magazines such as Guns & Ammo, Game & Fish, Petersen's HUNTING, and In-Fisherman, along with 20 top websites. Outdoor Sportsman Group also includes television production operations through Winnercomm. For more information, visit www.outdoorsg.com.