Member Spotlight on CREATION APPRECIATION

With many businesses suffering during the spread of COVID-19—furloughing employees, reducing hours, closing doors temporarily, or sometimes for good—the workplace at Creation Appreciation Landscaping almost seems like an alternate reality.

“I don’t think we’ve ever been so busy,” says owner Jeremy Parker. “We can’t keep up. If we kept to ourselves and our work, we wouldn’t even know there was such a thing as a global pandemic and quarantine.”

It’s taken 18 years to get here. In 2002, Parker, a Virginia Tech horticulture grad, ran a landscaping business on evenings and weekends while he managed production at a large-scale grower in Orange County. He called his new company Creation Appreciation.

Photo 1: The Creation Appreciation team at their new home base: 20 Hedge Lane, Afton, Virginia

One year later, he and his wife and the business moved back to his hometown of Afton, west of Charlottesville in the Rockfish Valley. The company enlarged the next year to a fulltime venture, with its first four employees hired.

Since then, it’s been slow but steady growth for Creation Appreciation, which mainly serves residential homes and associations in Wintergreen Resort and the Stoney Creek village. The biggest leap forward occurred at the end of 2018, when the business moved from the Parkers’ backyard to its new headquarters one mile away, a sizable shop and warehouse with four acres of outbuildings, equipment, and a materials yard.

Photo 2: Patio and lighting for an outdoor fire pit

About the same time, Creation Appreciation’s staff expanded. Parker now leans on the support of a small but powerful management team: Chris Kell, head of sales and development; Adam Ellinger, operations manager and head of maintenance; and Carol Harrison, vice president and accounting manager. Heidi Layton, former office manager, is now out in the field, overseeing a new plant and flower division.

Photo 3: Signature dry creek bed for drainage

The spring of 2020 got off to a slow start, with a nationwide quarantine and a record-breaking late spring freeze. There were days when the team didn’t know where to send certain crews or they resorted to splitting firewood.

Timeline

2002 – Jeremy Parker starts his part-time landscaping business.

2003 — Creation Appreciation moves to Afton, Virginia.

2004 — The first four employees are hired.

2005 — Parker purchases Sunshine LawnCare, and launches the lawn maintenance division.

2009 — The company converts to an LLC.

2009 – 2016 — The list of services expands, including hardscapes, irrigation, tree work, etc., and the company sustains 30–40 employees.

2016 — Parker hires a Vice President and Head of Maintenance.

2017 — A Head of Sales joins the team, and Creation Appreciation moves to its new home: 20 Hedge Lane in Afton, Virginia.

2018 — New Head of Operations and Vice President come on board.

2020 — Creation Appreciation launches Color Creations, a container garden program.

••••••

Yet the mentality was that of “Keep Calm and Carry On.” Parker says there was no alternative. “We figured we would keep on until we couldn’t anymore.”

Photo 4: A custom Color Creations pot at Wintergreen Resort

But soon any cause for worry melted away with the frost, and the typical spring demand has extended into late summer, which is usually when business slows down a bit. Not this year!

The thirty-some employees at Creation Appreciation feel fortunate to have avoided the hardships of their neighbor businesses. The only suffering happening here is due to a heavier-than-usual workload—“a problem that feels petty to complain about,” says Parker, “but that will require some consideration that we don’t have time for right now.”

Photo 5: A fall/winter Color Creations flowerpot arrangement

Vice President of the company, Carol Harrison, confirms that sentiment: “We all are extremely busy, and a 14-hour-day is not unheard of, but we manage with a handful of Oreos and a quick ‘Hey, how are ya?’ Rarely are two days alike, and it is never boring!”

What makes Creation Appreciation stand out in the community is the team’s commitment to quality. Work must be completed with care and attention—the end goal, of course, being the homeowner’s pleasure.

“We almost want it to look like we were never there,” Parker says. “That visitors to the property only see beauty to the point that they don’t think about who did the work—they just feel contentment.”

Photo 6: New paver patio

The latest undertaking is their container garden program, Color Creations. This team designs, constructs, plants, and maintains flower pots, raised beds, and other container gardens— featuring flowers, vegetables, and herbs—for homes and businesses. Professional landscape lighting is another new initiative, headed by Chris Kell.

With so many clients in Wintergreen, view enhancements are a much sought after yet delicate endeavor, which Creation Appreciation tree crews have mastered. They are also seeking to sow wildflower meadows, with native species, to attract pollinators, create low-maintenance beauty, and promote natural sustainability.

Creation Appreciation is most of all a family-oriented workplace. They’ve had parents, spouses, siblings, in-laws, aunts, uncles, and cousins all working together. “Our employees see an opportunity for good, stable work and they want to share with their family members,” Parker explains.

Photo 7 (Left): Dramatic landscape lighting. Photo 8 (Right): Lantern-style flower bed lighting.

“I have never worked for a company where there was so much respect for one another,” Harrison says. “Each member is part of the team and valued as such. That feeling and belief starts from the top and works its way throughout the organization. It is not just a mission statement, it is a reality: our employees and customers are still the most important part of what we do.”

During these unpredictable times, the Creation Appreciation team is grateful to have been able to keep their troop of “essential workers” in consistent jobs, and they in turn have been able to keep food on their tables.

Parker says that’s what he’s most proud of—that it’s a rewarding workplace environment, where employees feel comfortable bringing their families and children. Their head mechanic, Miguel Alonso, now works with his teenage son, Miguelito, and you will often see Heidi Layton tending to flowers around Wintergreen Mountain with her three daughters.

With Parker’s own mother driving a water truck and his 15- year-old son coming on full time this summer, there are three generations of Parkers working at his one-time side hustle. He and his wife look forward to one day seeing the next generation of Creation Appreciation.

“If the future of this business has the same trajectory of the last 18 years, it’s really going to blow our minds,” he says. “We feel very fortunate.”