Colorado’s landscape industry association, the Associated Landscape Contractors of Colorado (ALCC), announced the recipients of its second annual ELITE – Elevating the Landscape Industry through Excellence awards that honor outstanding achievement within the profession. This year, Colorado Springs-based Timberline Landscaping, Inc. won in the Irrigation Management category for Oracle Landscape and Water Management.
It has truly been a banner year for Timberline, having recently been honored with several awards by the National Association of Landscape Professionals for work on the Manitou Incline, The Broadmoor Hotel West Entrance, and The Olympic Training Center. The award that meant the most to team Timberline was given for having the “Most Certified Individuals on a Team in the United States”, which speaks volumes to the quality of workmanship and level of education held by the company.
As a company, Oracle seeks to remain sustainable and is continually striving to lessen water use on their property and remain as “green” as possible while being a good steward of natural resources in Colorado Spring’s community. Timberline Landscaping has worked together with Oracle, on a series of xeric and irrigation renovation projects to aid them in meeting these goals.
After multiple years of catastrophic fires in the Colorado Springs community, Oracle desired to increase water conservation at its campus. Timberline and Oracle partnered replace turf with xeric options and take advantage of Colorado Springs Utility’s rebate program. With high winds and water loss during watering of bluegrass turf, Timberline recommended removing overhead irrigation and installing point source drip irrigation to a new planting scheme that included low water use native and non-native plants as well as native grass areas.
The expected water use decrease is 205,700 gallons per season for this project. The expected payback on this project is $4,000 in water savings, $3,000 in maintenance savings, and $1,300 in rebate payments. The estimated ROI for this project is 7-8 years at current water rates. In 2015, annual water use was less than half the property’s water use in 2008—the year before Timberline Landscaping started the project.
ELITE awards not only honor quality workmanship, but also a company’s commitment to innovation, environmental stewardship and community service.
“These projects reflect the values of our industry in the 21st Century that focus on creativity, sustainability and environmental stewardship,” said Kristen Fefes, ALCC executive director. “The ELITEs honor a landscape company’s dedication to sound business practices, innovative problem solving, environmental stewardship, community service and having a culture wherein employees can excel.”
