Work Together, Make It Better

“They also talk about working with us as a positive experience where they’re not talked down to and are treated with respect,” she says. “Certainly the men in our company go on sales calls and they’re great and respectful, but I think having women in leadership roles sets a different tone in terms of creating relationships with our customers for the long term.”

Click photo to enlargeAnd, with 25 years of company history, Edsell-Vetter says it’s not uncommon to have customers for whom A Yard & A Half did the owner’s first home, provided maintenance over the years, and then followed them as they moved into a second home.

“We also do a lot of referral work, so those relationships are key,” Edsell-Vetter says. “And, it does have something to do with having a woman at the helm.”

A Yard & A Half also focuses on making its projects organic and sustainable. For instance, while Edsell-Vetter says retaining walls and patios are the most-popular hardscape items the company installs, it’s doing more with permeable paving – particularly for driveways.

“Cities are having a lot more restrictions on development using impervious space,” she says. “Especially where we’re looking at eating up a bigger area of a lot, we do permeable.”

Not only does that play into creating sustainable projects, but Edsell-Vetter notes the area has several paver manufacturers, as well as good sources of natural stone for landscaping, including New Hampshire granite and something called Goshen stone, a micaschist flatstone quarried in western Massachusetts.

“We use a lot of locally sourced materials,” says Edsell-Vetter. “We also think about how it goes together and the impact it’s going to have on the surrounding area.”

And, she adds the company also tries to be organic in its planting practices. Edsell-Vetter is one of two A Yard & A Half employees to have taken an intensive program on organic landscaping, including caring for the soil and using the correct plant types for it.

“We really bring a whole systems approach to every project,” she says. “We’ve done a number of projects abutting wetlands or where there’s a wetland on the property, which brings a lot of restrictions, and we’re able to help the homeowner navigate that process.”

DESIGNED FOR SUCCESS

That ability to help people navigate the intricacies of a job is also part of A Yard & A Half’s success with designers.

“We have a number of designers we started working with when they were pretty early in their careers,” she says. “Because we have a set of specifications that we follow for all our installations, it’s particularly helpful for new designers because they don’t have to do all the construction details.”