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Landscaping

Useful Details About the Top 5 Landscape Contractors and Firms in the US

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Landscape contractors are licensed professionals who are trained in performing techniques and designs onto a piece of land. This is whether it is a small or a large scale project. Landscape design comprises mainly of landscape management, landscape planning, landscape detailing, landscape assessment, landscape urbanism and garden design innovations. The skills of a landscape contractor, together with their certifications and experiences, has varying factors that can affect you selection and criteria of who is the best these days.

Landscape contractors are licensed professionals who are trained in performing techniques and designs onto a piece of land. This is whether it is a small or a large scale project. Landscape design comprises mainly of landscape management, landscape planning, landscape detailing, landscape assessment, landscape urbanism and garden design innovations.

People behind these, would be contractors that are also regarded as landscape designers. They are also the ones who convert a simple yard into great outdoor scenery, using renovation and decorative processes. Aside from this, they are also equipped in managing landscape renovations such as:

1. Disposing existing:

• Pests
• Plants, and
• Unused things

2. Building new infrastructure features

3. Installing drainage and irrigation systems

4. Sculpting:

• Themes
• Designs, and
• Walkways

5. Installing:

• Gazebos
• Fences, and
• Patios

6. Assuring the flowering of garden plants.

Hence, landscapers will present and even plot advisable themes but they also follow your chosen design. They can arrange maintenance services and provide follow ups, for future care. Contractors or design firms are also rest assured that their people had undergone training and expertise. This is with regards to landscaping at its best.

Moreover, many firms enjoy the market’s growth, especially in the landscaping industry nowadays. There was an increase both abroad and domestically. With this, top designing firms and contractors in US have reached billions of revenues. Reaping the subsidy, design firms became strong, particularly in the design market of the U.S.

Thus, changes and challenges in the industry such as new client demands, work loads, additional staffs and new design models has been a long standing problem because of the strong market.

According to the 2007 Electronic Edition of the ENR Top 500 Design Firms, they surveyed and published the top firms according to their revenues. The top 5 from the top 100 pure designers are as follows:

Type of Firm 2006 Revenue

1. AECOM TECHNOLOGY CORP. EA $2,831.9

Los Angeles, California

2. THE LOUIS BERGER GROUP EA $865.5

East orange, New Jersey

3. CDI BUSINESS SOLUTIONS EC $630.6

Philadelphia

4. PBS&J EA $546.1

Tampa, Florida

5. MUSTANG ENGINEERING EC $540.0

Houston, Texas

These top 5 rankings were judged according to their award winning plans, strategies, applications and extensive experience. Furthermore, here is the Top 5 for the Best Architectural Firms, which focused on landscaping:

1. FRCH Design Worldwide

Cincinnati, Ohio
Web Address: http://www.frch.com

FRCH Design Worldwide is a design and architectural firm that serves hospitality markets, restaurant, offices, entertainment and retail markets internationally. The firm got this slot in the year 2006. In fact, it is the first place winner of ZweigWhite’s national for the “Best Firms to Work for Award”. Thus, FRCH offers new strategies for architecture designs, promoting customer satisfaction.

2. Little Diversified Architectural Consulting

Headquarters:

• Charlotte, NC
• Dallas, TX
• Irvine, CA
• Detroit, MI
• Orlando, FL
• Washington D.C
• Irvine, CA
• Los Angeles, CA, and
• Research Triangle Park, NC

This firm was formerly Little & Associates Architects. Hence, this firm specializes in:

• Universities and Colleges
• Interiors
• Facilities Management
• Offices
• Civic
• Retail industries, and
• Financial industries

Thus, this company comes in an array of architectural consulting services such as:

• Land Development Services
• Space Management Consulting, and
• Architecture

3. BSB Design

Headquarters:
• Costa Mesa
• Denver
• Atlanta
• Chicago
• Dallas
• Las Vegas
• Sacramento
• Boston
• Jacksonville
• Chicago Loop
• Phoenix
• Tampa
• Orlando, and
• Fresno

BSB was founded in the year 1966. They specialize in architecture for residential areas. Where in, they have even expanded to commercial architecture such as:

• Community land planning
• Hospitality, and
• Resorts

Thus, BSB Designs offers unique design solutions, along with award winning plans. This firm is a veteran for 40 years, having 300 architects, staffs and designers.

4. Sasaki Associates, Inc.

Offices:

• Watertown, MA
• Boston
• San Francisco

Founded by Hideo Sasaki in 1953, Sasaki Associates became a respected international landscape firm. With 270 professionals, interdisciplinary measures are being implemented in their offices.

5. EDSA

Address: Fort Lauderdale

Offices:

• Florida
• California
• China
• Maryland
• Orlando
• Los Angeles, and
• Baltimore

EDSA was established in the year 1960. They actually guarantee an extensive experience in:

• Cultural and campus planning
• Environmental and community planning
• Hotels and resorts
• Ecotourism
• Entertainment and urban design

With over 220 employees, EDSA is a landscape architectural, planning, graphic and urban design specialist. Lastly, it is an internationally renowned firm.

Thus, with the vast number of landscaping firms and contractors, how can one find the best should you decide to build your own area, into an outdoor paradise? Here are the some tips:

• A big ad is not important, what is important is taking time to present and match your own designs to the landscaper. A good contractor actually listens to his clients.
• Visiting stores that offer listings of firms. With this list, you can do some research about the entire company profile and the designer itself.
• Get estimates from the contractor and other prospects as well.
• Don’t rush things. A good contractor lays down the design plot and its features before signing up.
• Seek for a firm that has a superior service and facilitates excellent customer care. They should be able to value their client’s opinions.

There are many excellent landscaping contractors and landscape designers nowadays. A vast progress of the landscaping industry inherits these contractors to upgrade their specialization with other competent companies.

Local landscapers can arrange special maintenance services in lieu with their customer satisfaction rate and performance. This may help in bringing them to become one amongst the top contractors and firms in the U.S. today.

Now that new computer design software is in demand, it has become an added variety of service for one firm to possess. Due to the advent of computer generated landscaping designs, more professionals must be trained and knowledgeable enough to implement this kind of progress.

Prospects in choosing contractors and firms to be on the top list must follow certain researches and surveys to the best of their services.

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Gardening Advice

Gardening Book – A Great Source Of Useful Gardening Tips

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You needn’t catch hold of your aunt who wins the neighborhood best garden ribbon or read up loads of thick books on gardening to come up with the best blooms; you can do all this on your own without bribing or even threatening to poison beautiful flowers in your neighbor’s garden if they don’t let you in on their secret for floral blooms every year. Yes, you can – with the help of some useful and practical gardening tips you can easily have access to when you pick up a good gardening book!

It’s true: gardening books are a great source of useful tips by experienced gardeners about the varieties of plants, including flowering kinds, veggies, fruit and herbs, that a beginner can start laying their garden down with besides telling them about the kind of precautions needed to ensure the garden grows each season and what kind of tools to use for the care of the plants and the upkeep of the garden. A good gardening book is also a great resource center for beginner gardeners who are on the look-out to gain knowledge about the various seasons to grow different kinds of plants in, the kind of soil each type requires, how big they will grow with the right effort, what kind of containers to use and how much water and sunlight they need to direct to the plant to ensure its health.

Since gardening books can sometimes be an expensive proposition also, especially the glossy, hard-bound collector’s edition ones, you can start off with purchasing a magazine for the same purpose or buy a starter’s guide, which is not too costly and serves well-enough as an initial guide to gardening. Or else, you can borrow one of these good gardening books from a good friend or the library. You can also read tips online.

Now, that we have covered ground for finding gardening books, you can move to the next step i.e. reading the book. Do not skip parts as you will need to read, remember and follow all the directions to plant a garden, how to break up the dirt and the quantity of water, manure mix, sun protection or energy the chosen plants will need. For every variety of plant, all these factors are different as are the season for sowing their seeds, frequency of watering them and nutrient values deemed fit for them, so read with care and follow to the T.

It is not important whether your gardening book is a mere pamphlet or a manual with over 100 pages; what is vital for your knowledge of gardening is that it should provide reliable and adequate information on sowing, protecting and growing a beautiful, insect-free garden, fighting plant diseases, keeping the garden free of weeds and ensuring you have the healthiest blooms every year!

Abhishek is an avid Gardening enthusiast and he has got some great Gardening Secrets up his sleeves! Download his FREE 57 Pages Ebook, “Your Garden – Neighbor’s Envy, Owner’s Pride!” from his website http://www.Gardening-Master.com/762/index.htm . Only limited Free Copies available.