Save the Date!

Congrats to Nieves who is celebrating his 5 year anniversary with Preferred!

Nieves is a Commercial Landscape Estimating, Sales and Design Representative for Preferred Landscape and Lighting, a boutique firm based in San Antonio, Texas. He focuses on growing Preferred’s commercial landscape presence. Nieves’ client list consists of some of the largest General Contracting firms in San Antonio. Although his skill is in landscape design, his interests are in expanding urban green spaces for the San Antonio Community to enjoy, water conservation, and sustainable development. 

Nieves grew up in the Austin, Texas area, received his BA in International Relations from St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, Texas, and is currently an MBA in Sustainable Systems candidate at the Bainbridge Graduate Institute in Seattle, Washington. Nieves is a 2010 graduate of the San Antonio Hispanic Chamber’s Alexander Briseño Leadership Development Program, and currently in Class 38 of Leadership San Antonio.

Compliments for Preferred Tree Care services

We just had our annual tree trimming service completed by your crew and we want to take this opportunity to extend a sincere compliment on the work that they have done.  In spite of occasional rain showers throughout the day, your crew continued with their work (in the rain).  They were very thorough with their work and did not hesitate to make requested adjustments to trimming on certain trees.  Their attention to detail provided a welcome feeling of confidence in the work that they were doing.

As always it is a pleasure to work with you and your crew with our annual tree trimming service.

Thanks for a job well done.

Ken Chorn

Fall Planting brings Spring Beauty

In San Antonio, the fall months September through December are the best months to plant bulbs for spring blooms.  Fall bulb varieties include tulips, daffodils, crocus and hyacinths.  The reward for all your hard work this fall is in the spring when your landscape is bursting with colorful blooms.

Planting bulbs is one of the few jobs where a little bit of work provides such an impressive result. It is fast, easy and almost foolproof.  Here are a few tips:

1.  Plant the pointy side up

2.  Plant big bulbs 8" deep and small bulbs 5" deep
3.  Plant them in clusters - not just one bulb alone or them in a single line. 

The SAWS WaterSaver Landcape Coupon program is back just in time for fall!

After a scorcher of a summer, fall is the perfect time to replace your lackluster, high-maintenance grass with something more vibrant (and less needy).

And just in time, the WaterSaver Landscape Coupon program returns with new fall offerings. The two package options — full sun or full shade — will be available Sept. 15-Nov. 30 to SAWS residential water customers.

To get the $100 coupon, you must replace 200 square feet of grass with a drought-tolerant garden bed made up of 15 low-water plants from a specific package. More ambitious gardeners may apply for two coupons to remove 400 square feet.

Some new and exciting aspects of the fall edition include:

• New plant choices including lavender, shrimp plant, Texas persimmon and tough-yet-beautiful Earth-Kind roses!
• A full shade package will be offered, appropriate for homes where very little sunlight makes it through the tree canopy.
• The mulch purchase is no longer required at the nursery where you buy your plants. However, you still must apply 1 cubic yard (about 14 standard bags) of mulch — organic or crushed granite/rock — to the new bed. You can even make your own using leaves, wood chips or rocks as long as it is 2 inches deep.

Don't forget that if you have an in-ground irrigation system, you will have to cap the spray heads in the bed before planting. By doing this, you may also qualify for our newly streamlined Residential Irrigation Design rebate.

In addition to the 15 drought-tolerant plants, each package will include a garden bed plan and a plant care guide.
 For more information, http://www.saws.org/Conservation/Outdoor/Coupon/

Congratulations to Darryl!

We would like to congratulate Darryl Cook on his recent promotion to Vice President and General Manager of Preferred Landscape and Lighting LLC; part of the Millard Group of companies. Darryl has worked for Preferred for over 16 years and was an owner in the company prior to merging with the Millard Group.  Darryl was the first employee for Preferred, and has done almost every job at the company.  At 26 years old he left the wine business to mow lawns on the weekends and work his way into ownership of the fledgling company.  Now he heads up the 8mm plus a year sales and operations for Preferred Texas.  Most recently Darryl managed the significant growth of the Landscape Lighting and Residential Sales/Design Team. 

“I’m so proud to work with a group of people that are considered the best in the industry.  This group has propelled Preferred through one of the worst recessions in this Nation’s history and has come out the other side stronger and more able than ever.  Our amazing people are the reason we have such great customers and will continue to be the reason for our future success.”

Darryl is very involved in the community and currently serves on the board of the North Chamber Leadership Lab Alumni.  Preferred encourages all of their employees to engage in the community though various business, social, and nonprofit organizational memberships.

Testimonial from Highlands Ranch

The following is a quick email we received from one of our commercial maintenance customers, Highlands Ranch Properties.

Thanks again - it really looks 100% better! 

Overall though, everything is looking great! Thanks!

Carolyn  Bentzinger

Highland Village