As our 26th year in business comes to a close, we thought we would share many of the highlights from 2024 and what to look forward to in 2025.

Some fun numbers from 2024:

• We used 3,939 cubic yards of Custom Hardwood mulch.
  

• We completed 193 landscape and enhancement projects.
  

• Mowed 120 properties and cleaned up 230.
  

• Our service demographic has changed over the years. When we started, we were mostly small commercial, with a lot of Wendy’s and Tim Horton’s restaurants. Today we are 90% single family residential properties.

• Molly and Amanda helped create 721 custom summer flower containers. Our summer flowers consisted of 1,200 6” pots, 1,000 4” pots, 64 ferns, 125 Elephant Ears, 125 Cordyline, and 50 Banana plants, plus various other tropical plants. In the fall we planted 974 mums and cabbages and utilize about 550 pumpkins and gourds. We planted almost 1,000 trees, 2,500 shrubs and double that in perennials.

  
  

• We serviced almost 400 clients and our team members worked 52,862 hours.

We did have record amounts of rain in the spring and then went to severe drought by late summer. We are still a few inches below normal rainfall for Central Ohio. We probably won’t see the full ramifications until next summer and even possibly 2 years from now.

Plants are definitely going to be impacted. The dry weather kept some disease and insects at bay, but with stressed plants, they could be at risk next season. Just like us, if our immune systems are down, we are more likely to be affected by a cold or flu.

The extreme heat continues to worry us. On the bright side, we continue to see new plants that can now live in Central Ohio due to the increased length of our summers and rise in consistent summer temperatures. One of our favorite new uses is Crape Myrtles. Cincinnati used to be the northern limit for this plant. Now our neighbor has one 12-15’ tall in his front yard! On the flip side we worry about our beloved Sugar Maples. Without cold enough winters, we are seeing widespread decline and death of Sugar Maples. They need those cooler temperatures to sustain themselves. Every plant is different, and we will continue to monitor how each adapts to the changes in our climate.

One other thing we have noticed and discussed with many colleagues across the Midwest is the changes in our growing season. It was normal to mow lawns for roughly 28-32 weeks. We are now seeing it change by about 2-3 weeks. We started mowing grass just after St. Patrick’s Day this year. That is two weeks earlier than any previous year. At the other end of the season, it too is very similar. Regularly mowing ends about the last week of October. We were mowing grass in November, not just to chop up leaves, but because it was long and still growing. Plants and perennials are all staying greener longer. We even saw Clematis, Hydrangeas and Iris blooming in November. The plants are really confused. 

We are proud that we won three national awards from NALP (National Association of Landscape Professionals) and two from OGIA (Ohio Green Industry Association). They were in different categories from Use of Seasonal Color, Residential Landscape Maintenance to Landscape Installation projects. Great job team and fun to share the awards with them!

2024 brought on various educational opportunities for our team members, with trips to Iowa and Charolette along with local plant identification, insect & disease, and pruning clinics. We held our quad-annual M.J. Olympics at Homestead Park in Hilliard. We divided into four teams, competing in various events followed by great food from Mexican and ice cream trucks. As a team, we enjoyed many cookouts, pizza days and numerous trips to Five Guys. We try to reward our team for all their hard work. We certainly couldn’t do it without them!

Molly continued her lobbying for our Legal Seasonal Workforce. As most of you know, these gentlemen are the lifeblood of our workforce. She made trips to Washington D.C., in addition to various meetings with our Congressmen back in the district. Fingers crossed for a good H2B Visa lottery position in early January and hopeful for some positive changes to the program in the coming year. On top of that, five of our guy’s celebrated 18+ years with us in 2024 and four others have been with us for 9+ years. We are wishing them much rest and quality time with their families back in Mexico the next two months.

We have already began prepping for 2025 – cleaning, servicing equipment and getting our continuing education for the winter lined up.

We appreciate all the support from our Friends and Family and very much appreciate all our wonderful clients for their continued business. We wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy & Healthy New Year!

See you in 2025!

Molly & Joel