Gardens of the Wine Country Company Profile

lan Kostelnik, owner and founder of Gardens of the Wine Country, was a former high school English teacher and social worker. In 1974 Alan decided that neither of those professions was well suited for his personality, so back in his late hippie days he left both pursuits and out of shear desperation fell back on some former job skills. In 1974 he returned to school for some formal horticultural training while he also started a landscape service company named ‘Pacific Environments.' That company, with over 100 employees, ended up being one of the largest, most diverse and innovative landscape companies in Sonoma and Napa counties, It remained in existence for 25 years until Alan sold Pacific Environments in 1999 to TruGreen Landcare a subsidiary of the Service Master Corporation.

In 2001 Alan finally realizing he missed the landscaping business and also admitting he was "too young to retire and too old to learn anything new," began "Gardens of the Wine Country." "One of the biggest differences between my former company, Pacific Environments, and my new company, Gardens of the Wine Country, is the client base. The former company served a commercial, industrial and government market, this company is focused solely on the high-end residential, estate and winery market. This new client base is much more personally demanding and requires a hands-on approach and that is what I strive to give them every day. In many ways I actually like it much better than my old company because I can't sit still in an office for very long anymore, I just love being outdoors "communing and creating with nature."

"Our clients are very busy, sophisticated, professional people who want and expect things to look good. They expect their outdoor environment to reflect their taste and match the quality found inside their homes. We involve our clients as much as they desire but recognize that we are hired to manage their project for them so they don't feel compelled to manage us to accomplish their goals. We communicate clearly, complete work on time and on budget, and never declare the job complete until the client tells us they are satisfied."

Alan also states, "I think that what sets us apart from all the other residential companies out there is when people call, 90 percent of the time they are dealing with me. I may not plant every plant, prune every bush and build every stone wall, but I'm the guy. There isn't much middle management between the design and the production so as I say, I'm the guy you deal with, I'm the guy who gets it done. What's the advantage of that? Well it's the direct communication and I'm a heck of a resource! The biggest and most important carry over from me running a large commercial company for 25 years is that there isn't much I haven't done or seen in the landscape and horticultural field. If I can't get it done internally I know where to get it done. I can figure it out for the client; there are no dueling experts confusing things."

"You know after all this time, I still like the business, I still like the creativity. What the heck would I do with myself if I ever fully retired?


---Jim Brumm
Staff Writer
The Prime Buyer's Report