Del Conte's Landscaping, Inc.

Today in Horticulture Seminar, we heard from Tim Hawkins and Eric Hagburg from Del Conte's Landscaping, Inc. in Freemont, CA. Both Tim and Eric are former students of BYU-Idaho, and it was great to have them back on campus speaking to us.

Serving the San Francisco area, Del Conte's Landscaping, Inc. specializes in any kind of landscaping requests, which include landscape management, design, construction, irrigation, and even organic recycling of green waste. What this means is that their clients get both superior service and unbeatable efficiency. Their firm is large enough to deliver and stand behind any size project, yet because they are locally owned, they are small enough to care about every project they work on.

Tom Del Conte, founded the company in 1972 by providing rototilling services. Since then, his company has grown to over 100 employees, with a 75% growth in sales in 2007 alone. Although they now specialize in providing landscapes and maintainence to residential properties, Del Conte's Landscaping has also done commercial jobs for big names like the San Fransisco Zoo, the San Francisco 49ers, and the Oakland Airport.

Something that makes the Del Conte team so successful, is that they have weekly training sessions, to not only ensure that they are using the most up to date techniques, but also to ensure safety. They have only had one minor injury in the last five years.

Del Conte is also known nation wide as conservation specialists by using a central computerized irrigation management system, SMART controller technology, as well as conventional timer programming management by use of our own proprietary irrigation scheduling software.

For more information about Del Conte's Landscaping, Inc., check out their website at http://www.dclandscaping.com/, or give them a call at 510-353-6030.

Blanchford Landscape Contractors, Inc.

Today in seminar, we heard from Andy Blanchford, of Blanchford Landscape Contractors, Inc. out of Bozeman, Montana. Andy has been in Bozeman since 1994, and started the company in 1997 to, "Create exceptional environments for great experiences!"

Andy and his crew specialize in full-service landscape design, installation, and maintenance--typically working with private residences--and has award winning projects.

His biggest project took four years to complete, and cost 2.5 million dollars, but they also work on smaller projects in landscape design and installation, irrigation and lighting, and garden services and maintenance.

Andy's vision for his company is to make their projects sustainable, and believe that proper planning reduces waste. They use native and drought tolerant plants and grasses where appropriate, and they recycle all of their office waste and most of their construction waste. Andy also has an employee carpool incentive to minimize the miles driven to work.

Because of this conscientious effort to promote sustainability, Blanchford Landscape Contractors has been Ecostar (a pollution prevention program in Montana) winners the last three years, from 2006-2008. They are also graduates of UnCommon Sense, a Yellowstone Business Partnerships two-year leadership program that is helping businesses become more sustainable in all aspects of their operations.

For more information about Blanchford Landscape Contractors, Inc., check out their website at http://www.blanchfordlandscapecontractors.com/, or give them a call at 406-587-3057.

Mountain States Plants

This week in Horticulture Seminar, we heard from Layne Flint, VP of Idaho Operations at Mountain States Plants. Mountain States Plants is a wholesale plant and flower distributor who has been in business for over 50 years. They raise their own plants and flowers in four locations, two in Utah, and two in Idaho which are heated by natural hot spots, with water flowing as hot at 165 degrees, Fahrenheit.

Some of the plant varieties that Mountain States Plants grow are: Shamrocks, African Violets, Cyclamen, Kalanchoe, Begonias, Gerbera Daisies, Chrysanthemums, and of course, Poinsettias. They have also recently begun growing their own foliage plants, instead of purchasing them out of California.

Mountain States Plants customers include supermarkets, retail florists, garden centers, mass marketers, interior decorators and others licensed to re-sell floral products. Their trucks and vans deliver throughout Utah and Idaho.

After the seminar, we were also told that Mountain States Plants has recently been "renting" out their plants and dish gardens to people looking for an extra way to decorate at wedding receptions, parties, or family gatherings. For more information about Mountain States Plants, check out their website, http://www.msplants.com/, or contact their Layton location at, 1-800-326-4490.

Mansion Gardens

This week in seminar, we had the pleasure of hearing from Carole Malia Sneider, of Mansion Gardens in Jackson, Wyoming. Carole Malia and her crew at Mansion Gardens provide design work, installation, and maintenance to private residences in the Jackson Hole area. She began working in the industry as a hobby, growing two veggie gardens in the area, and has expanded her business to having about 20 gardeners on her crew.

Carole Malia attributes the success and growth of Mansion Gardens to a few strokes of good luck. Aside from inheriting clients from a friend who was getting out of the business, she also hired someone to take care of her books, rather than trying to figure all the bookkeeping out by herself, AND getting her hands dirty. She took classes to familiarize herself with the business side of things, but by having someone specifically running the books, she feels like Mansion Gardens was able to grow to the successful business that it is today.

A few things that Carole Malia emphasized were:

• Don't have doubt about what you can do; just get it done
• Do have compost
• Learn from as many sources as possible

Carole Malia was a delight as a speaker, and we wish her well in her upcoming working season. For anyone that would like additional information about Mansion Gardens, you can contact Carole Malia at maliafish@aol.com.