For residents of Munfordville and Rowletts and those living in the country around these two small Kentucky towns, the Quality Landscaping and Garden Center is the place to go for flowers, shrubs, trees, garden tools, and most any landscape and gardening need.
Customers plant their purchases themselves, have a crew from the center do the preparation and planting, or have owner Gary Puckett create a landscape design and have company personnel construct the perfect custom landscape.

Quality Landscape ended 2008 with its best year ever, and Puckett looks forward to continued growth in 2009.

Puckett and his wife, Tina, started their business after Puckett discovered he had a passion for landscaping.

In 1994, the Pucketts bought a new home, and the grounds around it needed to be landscaped.

Puckett, who was working in a manufacturing plant, had no experience in establishing a lawn or making plants grow, but he decided he would do the job himself.

"I went to the library and gathered all the books I could find on landscaping, got a table, and started reading," he remembers. "The next thing I knew, I was being asked to leave—it was closing time."

Puckett continued to read about plants and landscape designing and proceeded to landscape the half-acre of land around his family's new home, putting in the lawn, planting shade and flowering trees, and beds with flowers and shrubbery around the house.

The Pucketts were pleased with the result, and friends complimented them on their landscaping.

One day after work, Tina mentioned she had seen several cars stopped in front of their house with the occupants appearing to be looking at their home.

"That happened several more times," says Puckett. "Different cars, but everyone seemed to be looking at the house. My wife was concerned. Were we being targeted for a robbery?"

Puckett was home one day, and he spotted a car parked with people looking toward the house.

"I went out and asked the people if I could help them," he says. "And the driver said: 'Oh, we're just admiring your lawn and the way it's been done. We wish ours looked so good.'"

And Gary Puckett realized that he wanted to start a landscaping business.

"I went to a yard sale and bought $20 worth of 'equipment,'" he continues. "I got a wheel barrow, shovel, rake, and post hole digger. I'm a farm boy, and I thought anything that needed to go in the ground, you just dug a hole and put the plant in it. I still had a lot to learn."

But Puckett's landscape business was born.

"It started just with me in 1995 working out of our house," he says. "I stayed on my regular job and did landscape work on days off and weekends."

As demand for his services grew, Puckett added an employee, then another. But all their tree and shrub planting continued to be done by hand, and it was hard, slow work. Puckett continued to work his factory job as demands of his landscaping business increased, and it became difficult to find enough time to serve his customers.

"One day Tina showed me a three-page list of people who had called wanting to schedule work. 'How are you going to get all this done?' she asked. There was no way."

So the Pucketts made the decision to devote all their time to landscaping.

In 2000, the Pucketts purchased four acres of land, and began doing business from the new location, offering flowers, shrubs, and trees in addition to landscaping services.

"The business had grown, says Puckett. "There was now me and three employees, but we still were doing everything by hand, and it became clear we were going to have to invest in equipment in order to keep up with our workload and grow."

The first piece of power equipment purchased was a Ditch Witch SK650 mini skid-steer loader. The machine can be equipped with work attachments to fit specific needs, and with a loader bucket and auger attachment, Puckett's crews could move material around work sites and dig holes to plant shrubs and trees.

"The first week we had the new machine, we set out 52 four-inch autumn blaze maples, and did it in four hours," says Puckett.

Next, Puckett purchased a Ditch Witch XT850 tool carrier, a machine that has the ability to dig in any position within a 260-degree arch with the excavator end, plus the ability to utilize the same attachments as the skid-steer machine on the tool carrier end of the machine. A feature that sets the XT850 apart from conventional backhoes is its ability to operate in confined spaces, specializing in offset digging next to buildings, fences, drives, and other surface improvements.

"These two machines have made our company more profitable and are taking us to new levels of productivity," explains Puckett. "For example, it takes 30 minutes to an hour to hand-dig a hole to plant a four-inch tree. Using either machine with an auger attachment, we dig it in 30 to 35 seconds. Utilizing these two pieces of equipment has enabled us to double our income."

Puckett is passionate about the Ditch Witch organization. "I really think they're the Cadillac," he says about the Ditch Witch equipment line.

The compact SK650 is small enough to go through yard gates and moves over varied terrain and paved surfaces on rubber tracks. The operator stands on a platform at the rear of the machine. It is powered by a 31-horsepower liquid-cooled diesel engine. The machine weighs 2,630 pounds and its width, including tracks, is 42 inches; in the narrow configuration, the width, including tracks, is 36. Operating capacity is 650.

Puckett says the XT850 tool carrier is unlike any other machine on the market.

This rubber-track model is about the same size as popular mini-excavator models, with the excavator boom and bucket extending from the rear of the machine. Twin lift arms extend from the tool-carrier end where interchangeable attachments can be mounted to do specialized tasks.

What sets XT equipment apart from other equipment is a dual-pivot design that enables offset excavating. As with mini-excavators, the boom's pivot point is at the front of the machine where the boom is connected to the tractor, allowing the boom to be positioned offset left or right of center. A second pivot is near the center of the machine beneath the floor of the operator's station which rotates the boom assembly, including the boom swing pivot, for the maximum combined excavator swing of 260 degrees while the cab remains stationary.

To offset dig, the assembly is rotated in one direction by the center pivot, and the boom is swung at the front pivot point in the opposite direction. This ability allows users a number of positions to dig and remove spoils without ever having to move the machine.

The XT850 is powered by a liquid-cooled diesel engine rated at 26 gross horsepower. Maximum digging depth of the excavator is 83 inches with a loading height of 72 inches. Reach from the swing post is 103 inches.

Dual attachment arms have an operating height of 104 inches. Reach at grade is 34 inches. Equipped with a standard loader bucket, dump height is 69 inches, dump angle is 25 degrees, and reach with a fully raised bucket is 21 inches.

There are more than 70 attachments available that fit both the SK650 and XT850.

Quality Landscaping has several augers in different sizes for digging holes for fence posts, shrubs, and trees. The 30-inch auger is most often used for tree planting. Other attachments include a power rake, buckets, and pallet forks.

The company also invested in a Ditch Witch trailer that can transport either machine and has compartments to store attachments.

Puckett has expanded his knowledge in the landscape design program at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, has been certified as a Kentucky Master Gardener through the University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension Services, and is completing requirements for certification by the Association of Professional Landscape Designers (APLD).

With 10 employees, the retail center is thriving and Quality crews are busy on residential, commercial, and industrial landscaping projects. A recent commercial project included planting more than 200 trees and 300 shrubs.

In addition to putting in lawns and flower beds and planting shrubs and trees, Quality crews build patios, outdoor kitchens, retaining walls, and stone drives and walkways. The two Ditch Witch machines speed distribution of sand, dirt, turf, gravel, and rock to where the materials are needed on work locations.

The company also donates its services to community and charity projects.

"Munfordville is a historic Civil War town, and after a tornado destroyed many of the city's trees, we replaced more than 100 in the downtown area," Puckett says. "Every one of these trees was planted with our SK650."

One of the fund-raising programs of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis is the St. Jude Dream Home Giveaway, in which participants purchase tickets to win a house valued between $300,000 and $700,000. In 2008, Puckett's company did landscaping for a dream home in Bowling Green.

The business still is located on the four acres purchased in 2000, but the nursery has been moved to a different part of the property and the garden center expanded.

"We also added a public garden," says Puckett. "This area has a rich Civil War history, and the garden has become very popular with visitors."

Reflecting on his company's success and growth, Puckett says a key has been the commitment to build long-lasting relationships.

"Customer satisfaction is the top priority," Puckett says. "When we finish a project, we don't look at it as being the end of a job—we want every customer to call us back for years to come.

"My first customer is still our customer," he adds proudly. "We planted a shrub for her the other day. And that shrub was just as important as a large commercial project. If you do a good job and treat people right, business will thrive."