While running a small retail nursery business in Mill Park, Port Elizabeth, Bryn Mukheibir, soon realised that there was a gap in the market for professional landscaping and irrigation services. In September 1995, he established the award-winning company, Picket Lane.
Today, Picket Lane, which is BEE-accredited and registered with the Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB), are the go-to-guys for turnkey landscape and irrigation solutions to both the residential and commercial sectors. Their goal is to promote sound gardening and irrigation practices with personalised and professional service and unique, creative designs.
It all happened through sheer hard work, keeping up with the latest trends and consistency says Julia, who also holds a BSc Honours degree in Botany and Zoology.
“The landscaping industry changes constantly. In recent years, we have seen gardens becoming more water-wise, using predominantly indigenous planting palettes in keeping with the water crisis issues we face,” she described.
“We are finding more innovative ways of incorporating gardens into living spaces such as roof gardens and vertical gardens, as people realise the importance of ‘green spaces’ in our home and office environment. We are also now seeing more and more functional ‘food gardens’”.
Julia says working as a husband and wife team brings that extra personal touch to the business and added peace of mind to their many clients, who want a quality job done without stress.
And talking about happy clients, Picket Lane has over the years worked with local architects and landscape architect firms, who include WBHO, Techni Civils, Randcivils, The Workplace Architects, NMC and Basil Read, on many small and high profile projects such as at the Coega IDZ, the Harbour, the NMMU and for the Nelson Mandela Bay Metro.
For their work, the company has received several coveted awards from the Landscape Irrigation Association of South Africa (LIA) and the South African Landscaping Institute (SALI), among other industry bodies.
“Our most recent is a SALI Silver Award of Excellence that we received in June for our work at the NMMU’s New Business School in 2nd Avenue, Summerstrand, PE,” she said.
Aware that they could also make a great contribution to conserving the environment, Picket Lane now has a nursery near Nanaga, just outside PE, where they grow predominantly indigenous plants for use in their projects.
About the future, Julia said; “We aim to still consistently do things correctly and not compromise on quality while serving our clients. That we will do with more indigenous practical solutions rather than quick short-term fixes. We see the company becoming one of the Eastern Cape’s best known!”
Picket Lane can be contacted on 041 379 5005, also visit www.picketlane.co.za.
Article Source www.rnews.co.za
