Ray's Creative Landscaping & Tree Farm

In January 1996, I started a small landscaping company, called Ray’s Creative Landscaping. I did mostly add on installation to existing landscapes. Customers started asking me about irrigation systems, so I decided to take it up a notch, and went to school to learn irrigation design and installation.

After graduating from the Toro irrigation institute, I soon had my first irrigation job secured! During this installation, I thought maybe I should get into new house landscapes , including irrigation systems. So another milestone reached, I began doing turn key new home landscape construction. We did the grading, irrigation, landscaping, sod or seed, complete start to finish. I always included several good size trees in my landscaping and quickly realized buying the trees was one of my biggest expenses, and most time consuming, running the trees down. I was always at the mercy of “what was available”! So another brainstorm happened, and I planted a few trees for me and my landscaping jobs. Guess what happened next?

Other landscaper friends would ask me “where did you get those trees”? “Can you sell me a few?” So I had to plant more. As I began to use more trees, and sell more trees, the need became even more great. This resulted in me having to decide which one I wanted to do, grow trees or landscape? So, in the early 2000’s I began to plant more trees and phase out the landscaping.