AED Foundation & SkillsUSA Illinois Support Skilled Trades
Jessica Schwartz
Landscape Crew Has A “Field Day”
It’s not uncommon for high-end landscape clients to spend six figures or more on a project. When Corpus Christi Catholic Church in Stone Mountain, GA looked at upgrading its grounds, however, its congregants got a lot for a little. The immigrant parish was the recipient of donated products along with more than 800 manhours of work from four branches of Ruppert Landscape, a Laytonsville, MD-based company, which tied the project in with both its corporate giving campaign and a field day for employees. The result: the 2019 Community Stewardship Judges’ Choice award from the Georgia Urban Ag Council. Amy Snyder, Ruppert’s director of public relations, explains the company has been giving to charitable causes for more than 40 years. As the company grew, that giving has evolved to include large-scale events called “field days,” which at times involved as many as 600 employees. “We’ve renovated numerous parks, 26 District of Columbia public schools in one day, and, in 2015, the Armed Forces Retirement Home in Washington as part of our field day efforts,” Snyder says. ”Our biggest consideration when choosing a site is how we can use our skills to provide a broad help to the community.” Steve Faber, regional manager for Ruppert’s Atlanta area, adds that the company is particularly excited by requests from employees, “because it’s going to have more impact.” In this case, Faber says he had made an announcement during a Wednesday morning meeting that the company was looking for a site that needed both donated ...
Disparate Elements, One French Country Aesthetic
Putting the Architecture In Landscape Design Scott Chatham may be a landscape architect, but one recent award-winning project required he expand his range a bit, opening up a dining room to an outdoor courtyard designed in a bucolic French Country style. The courtyard wasn’t even on the clients’ radar when they brought Chatham, owner of Marietta, GA-based Chatham Landscape Services, in to look at the property. At the time, their greatest desire was for an enclosed, level front yard to provide their two young children and two family dogs a safe area to play ball and run around. Chatham specializes in residential projects of all types. “I design the job, and then we offer full project management and installation,” he says. “We take it from concept all the way to finished project.” A Level Playing Field In this project, Chatham faced several constraints, beginning with the clients’ desire to put the play area in the front of the home. The backyard, he explains, was dominated by a swimming pool which the clients opted to keep. Chatham says on his first visit to the site he recognized a large magnolia tree in the front of the home would have to go. “It blocked the whole front of the house from the street,” he says. “Not only couldn’t we plant grass around it, but the curb-appeal was being totally taken away.” The front lawn also sloped approximately five feet from the front of the house to the street. To solve this problem, ...
