Getting older, especially as a business, has many rewards! Probably my favorite is that we have formed many long-term relationships in our community with our customers who have used us over the years for their lawn and landscape needs.
This Landscape Spotlight is a perfect example of what I mean. We first met Mr. and Mrs. T at Big O’ Dad’s in Richardson. This was a local burger spot that served great food, and Mom, Dad, my brother Keith and I would often take a lunch break from mowing and chat with the owners and all the other regulars at this neighborhood hang-out. Big O’ Dad’s was like a burger restaurant version of the bar in the TV show Cheers and where we met Mr. and Mrs. T who were regulars like us and used us to do work for them in the 80’s and 90’s when they lived in Dallas. Sadly, years later Big O’ Dad’s closed, and Mr. and Mrs. T moved out of Dallas but in 2006 they needed help with their lawn they remembered the Hyatt Family and Village Green Lawn & Landscape.
A couple of years ago the couple asked us to create a long-range plan for landscaping their home. Their main priority was the backyard which they wanted to work on first, but they also had the desire to do their front yard at a later time thus wanted a cohesive plan.
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A great feature in their backyard is a large, glass enclosed patio, that allows them to enjoy their outside space year-round. The problem was they didn’t feel there was anything good to look at, and wanted to install something beautiful to enjoy from this patio. We surrounded the area with plants, using taller Savanah hollies in the corners to screen the view of the neighboring roofs, and flowering, medium sized Edward Goucher abelias along the fence line to soften the look of the fence. We added a flagstone patio large enough for a table and chairs and installed a large, stone water feature to create a relaxing feel. We completed that work roughly two years ago.
This is why long-range plans are great. You can do them in phases which allow you to be less concerned with the cost in the planning stage since you are doing it over time. It gives you the freedom to create your dream landscape on paper and then decide how quickly (or slowly) you want to work through the plan. That’s what we did on this project. We installed their backyard two years ago and then last year we worked on the front. The front had a large tree that was shading out the grass underneath. We used a red bud tree underneath the large oak tree. Red buds add great color in the spring and also work well as an under-story tree, a tree that does fine underneath a taller tree. We used plum yews, a medium, fern like plant to give to give texture in the shade and added a dwarf plant called kaleidoscope abelia because it changes colors from yellow to red plus has soft pink blooms. We used some gulf stream nandinas to frame the entry and added some annuals to welcome guests to the front door.
I really enjoy stopping by and checking in on our landscape and visiting with Mr. and Mrs. T. They are a great couple and I really appreciate them letting me single them out and share our story with this spotlight. It’s so much fun to remember the days when I was putting my way through college with Mom and Dad’s help, stopping in at our shared favorite lunch spot, Big O’ Dad’s. That was a lot of years ago now, but life is funny, because that’s how I’m currently putting my own daughter through college pretty much the same way.