A client base that trusts Van Zelst Landscape Development and Management in Wadsworth, Ill., to deliver solutions and is willing to spring for quality has allowed the company to experiment with progressive materials – specifically, vermicompost. The process involves using worms and various microorganisms to create compost, and David Van Zelst learned about a company in Sonoma, Calif., called TerraVesco that is producing a horticultural-grade soil amendment.
“The microbial activity in this compost is just unbelievable and the results in our perennial and groundcover installations is fantastic,” says Van Zelst, who sits on the company’s advisory board.
Van Zelst discovered TerraVesco during a trip to Sonoma with his wife – both are foodies who enjoy traveling out to California’s wine country regularly. He researched it a bit, and then one of his clients mentioned involvement with a company in California – the same one – making vermicompost. “It was very serendipitous,” he says.
“Because of the type of clients we work with, I was able to utilize quite a bit of the compost early on,” Van Zelst says, relating that the compost company is a small and growing outfit, but “our clients trust us and they saw my interest level in it and allows us to try it, and they are all blown away by what it does.”
Farmers, greenhouses and winemakers have long relied on this organic amendment to nourish their plants, Van Zelst notes. Now, the material is part of the Van Zelst company’s “organic solutions,” and the firm markets it with a sell sheet that explains its benefits as an answer for improving the health of a landscape in a sustainable way.
“I think the industry will be hearing more about vermicompost,” he says.