Sustainability?

Due to a lack of material from Tom & Tom, this blog will feature a guest blogger - me, Julie, Tom's daughter and Tom's sister. I figured I might as well post myself, rather than ghost write for them because as anyone who knows them both would have to admit, you can tell the difference.

Sustainability is a big buzz word in our industry this year. You are going to be hearing a lot about sustainability, and I have to speak on behalf of most of us here: we are a little confused.

Personally, my husband works from home, with no commute, and I didnt even buy my first car until I was practically 30 years old. Professionally, I feel at least partly responsible for the fact that the Barn sells about 10K trees and shrubs per year - and what is more sustainable than that? Unfortunately, I am guessing many of our customers are claiming those trees towards minimizing their own carbon footprints, so I suppose my green self-esteem is a little exaggerated.

But back to our confusion. Can we be more "sustainable"?

In order to get our heads wrapped around this thing, we are dedicating our winter, our educational classes, training and time to make sure we can be as sustainable as possible. As a company, we know we should lead the green movement - not lag behind, because we do this job out of love and with passion and that love is a job benefit that not many people get to experience.

Some of this is simple and you will see it at the garden center. Look for plant labeling to include drought tolerance, notes on natives and more. Check out our organic selection of fertilizers and pesticides. Our landscape team is ready to design your rain gardens and outdoor living areas to work with nature, not against.

We have two upcoming projects in our Sustainability initiative. First, an all day sustainability conference, including classes, as part of the Illinois Landscape Contractors Association's annual winter conference. The second is joining MELA - the Midwest Ecological Landscaping Association. We are all very excited about both and I look forward to sharing what we learn with our customers in 2010.

JJ