TRI COUNTY LANDSCAPING
Readying for the holidays, growing the business for 20 years
Readying for the holidays, growing the business for 20 years
Chris Baker was that 8-year-old kid pounding on your door asking to mow the grass. Some of us are just made to follow a certain path. Three decades later Baker is the owner of Tri County Landscaping, a Cape Coral firm that not only maintains lawns, but also offers countless other services in commercial and residential work such as outdoor kitchens, garden pergolas, fire pits and outdoor lighting. The company has 65 workers in Southwest Florida and has completed thousands of jobs over 20 years in business. “We care more than you do about your landscaping,” says Baker, meaning he has acquired a professional’s understanding of which trees, shrubs, flowering plants and landscape designs work best in Florida’s subtropical heat and rain.
For many of us, the holiday season is about making our homes and businesses more festive, perhaps a time for renewal. Baker says wintering clients and even natives enjoy dressing their homes in lush tropical colors and palms, particularly to backdrop or highlight the pool and lanai. For the holidays they may add evergreens, better irrigation and other plants that remind the owners of a northern climate. “The holiday season,” says Baker, “is really all year; it’s always summer in Florida.”
Baker is most helpful in educating his clients on which plants go best with one another, then designing those ideas using technology, or “before shovels hit the ground,” he says. Technology also allows a client to play with looks, colors and heights, to judge what best suits the outside, such as screenings to enhance privacy, he says. Stones, rocks and hardscape borders are another option, as are landscape islands, layering, pathways, garden sanctuaries and clean designs. Landscaping can also be used to attract butterflies, hummingbirds and other critters to add joy in the garden.
Optimally, Baker says, most property owners want lowmaintenance landscaping, which is where the professional’s advice on subtropical planting and layout is necessary. “My job is explaining what things will look like down the road,” he says. “That can sometimes be hard to visualize.”
My job is explaining what things will look like down the road.” —Chris Baker