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Visit the Baker Creative |
Thank you all, so much, for being here. As Dina said, it is a privilege and a very personal experience to develop our customers’ landscapes, and it means a lot to celebrate with both our customers and our business associates tonight.
Though we are celebrating 20 years, I think that 2008 really is a beginning for Baker Creative.
New technologies and research, in just the last several years, have finally made horticulture a true science, and not just a set of traditions. Which is funny, since I actually thought I was studying a science back in college, but it turns out I was wrong. Here are a couple examples of what we now understand:
It is my role as your landscape designer and horticultural consultant to know of these new discoveries as they develop, understand their possible implications, and then wherever possible bring them to you as innovation, cost savings and environmentally sustainable options that you can use. The result is that I can help guide excellent horticultural and design practices that bring you beauty and convenience and won’t hurt the environment – and in fact will sustain it – and almost always will cost much less than the so-called tried-and-true methods.
Our Carefree Maintenance offering provides a key way that I do this. It’s more than our comprehensive, proprietary, year-round landscape maintenance program. It also is the arm through which I serve as your landscape management consultant, advising you on the long-term planning for your property within the context of the new scientific developments.
One of the building blocks of our Sustainable Drainage offering is the newly available expanded shale, a naturally-based, highly porous and strong substance that provides both structural integrity and tremendous drainage properties. With this and other innovations, some of which use older technologies - such as PVC piping - in new ways, we have developed techniques to engineer drywells and other drainage solutions that work with the contour of your property to sustain it within its natural environment and water flow.
The new possibilities and the science get me excited, but I’ll control myself and mention just one more thing. Look around you at the lighting that is starting to become noticeable as the sun begins to set. This is provided by low-voltage, LED lights that are the basis of our Visionary Lighting offering. We’ve used only 380 watts of energy to light this entire space, from the entrance of the drive, to here in the tent, up through the show gardens. And even while it reduces the environmental footprint, it also gives us more design flexibility because the units are very small and very cool so we can safely and easily place them anywhere. This lets us play with the subtleties of light, shadow and reflection for a better aesthetic result, and provide more security than the blinding glare of traditional lighting.
Twenty years ago, I went out on my own, but now I definitely don’t do this alone. Please help me to thank the entire Baker Creative team, and in particular I want to point out the management team:
And keeping it all together behind the scenes – Jennifer Kroll, our office manager. Most of you talk to her on the phone or by email. Though she’s not at your landscape, she’s the reason the rest of us manage to get there!
Please help me give a hand to this very talented and loyal group of leaders and to the rest of my excellent employees.
Finally, thank you all for being here, and have a great time.
