Tropics North Receives Two PLANET Awards

HOMESTEAD, Fla. – Tropics North recently announced that the Professional Landcare Network (PLANET) has honored the company with two recent awards for landscape excellence. Tropics North received an Environmental Improvement Award for its work at Deering Bay Yacht & Country Club. It was also honored with the Decade Award for its management of the Ocean Reef Club & Community Association over a 10-year period.

“We are honored to be recognized for our perseverance in landscaping excellence,” says Charles Gonzalez, president of Tropics North. “We are proud of the services we provide as well as our tem of professional employees who perform those services.” 

At Deering Bay, Tropics North was recognized for performing comprehensive landscape maintenance, including irrigation management and repair, horticultural nutrition, lawn maintenance, groundcover, flower bed manicuring, and seasonal color design and installation. PLANET’s Environmental Improvement Awards recognize landscape professionals that execute superior projects while utilizing quality materials and workmanship.

At Ocean Reef, Tropics North has spent more than 10 years providing exemplary landscape services, including irrigation, plant health care, lawn maintenance, seasonal color, and more. PLANET’s recognition of this project puts Tropics North in an elite group of only 16 companies that have received the Decade award since 1967.

In speaking with Lawn & Landscape, Gonzalez says the successful management of both properties stems from the company’s hardworking staff and employee retention.

“We’ve been very fortunate in that we’ve had people who have been working at Ocean Reef, for instance, for 15 years,” Gonzalez says. “A big part of performing great work is the consistency behind it. At Ocean Reef, the people that live at the resort own and manage the club in their internal scorecards, landscaping has been the highest-rated amenity for years.”

Tropics North has been the sole provider of landscape and maintenance services at Ocean Reef for 15 years. They’ve also had a longstanding relationship with Deering Bay, a complex of 11 buildings that currently has two property managers. “Deering Bay outsourced their landscaping to us about eight years ago and across the entire property, we’re the only vendor that still remains on all 11 buildings,” Gonzales tells Lawn & Landscape. “Again, being successful here comes down to our staff. We break up the work so that each building gets the proper amount of attention and over the years our employees become as involved in the community as some of the residents are. They really take pride in their properties and have a sense of ownership when they go to work each day.”

While working with two property managers could be a challenge for many companies, Gonzalez says it provides Tropics North with another chance to shine. “It gives us a chance to be the leaders on the work we do,” he says. “We’ll go to them and explain that they want the property to look like one community, not two, so these are the steps we suggest you take. Every year the relationship gets better with consistency in the work and the buying practices.”

Speaking of buying practices, Gonzalez notes that the 2005 hurricanes are beginning to have an effect on how their clients make purchasing decisions because of the hurricanes’ impact on what producers have to sell. “It’s going to be interesting,” he says. “Effective immediately, our suppliers are trying to figure out what they have available to sell and that makes our customers take more of an interest in what’s available. They’re actually thinking more about which variety they want to use because they may have to make some changes from their traditional choices.”

Joking that Tropics North was a member of the “hurricane of the month club,” getting hit every month from July to October last year, Gonzalez adds that there’s still clean-up work to be done, but that the company has worked hard to get its properties back in great shape.

“On Ocean Reef, we had 400 or 500 100-yard trucks of debris that were hauled out and those trucks don’t fill themselves,” Gonzalez says. “We brought in extra resources to handle a lot of the clean up and we’re very proud of how the company reacts during storms. It can be a big part of our business because if you own a shopping mall or resort, the key is to reopen as quickly as you can. That’s an aspect of service that we’ve been able to provide successfully. Even if it means we have to cut back mowing for a week to get caught-up, that’s fine, but many times we work hard enough that the mowings are back on schedule very quickly.”

Gonzales says he’s looking forward to further success for Tropics North in 2006. The company was No. 40 on the 2005 Lawn & Landscape Top 100 list with $23 million in revenue.