Issue date: 4/15/09 Section: News

Green Tree Garden Center, the new business at the corner of Lincoln Avenue and Douglas Street, is getting ready to open its doors to customers looking for products to satisfy their green thumbs. (Karolina Strack / The Daily Eastern News)

The cars are gone, but the former Baldwin Pontiac dealership at the corner of Lincoln Avenue and Douglas Street is showing new signs of life, with rows of cars replaced by rows of trees, shrubs and rocks.

Local landscapers Jonathon Wills and Tim Butler said they plan to open their new Green Tree Garden Center at the site in the coming months. The center will provide landscaping services, tree and lawn care, trees, shrubs and flowering plants, Wills said.

"We've had a positive response already and we haven't even opened the doors yet," Wills said.

Wills said the men are waiting for cold weather to pass before they open the garden center and begin selling annual and perennial plants.

"We're waiting for the frost to pass," Wills said. "It's still really early in the season."

Wills, a 2002 Eastern graduate in environmental biology, said he and Butler have owned Green Tree landscaping together for nearly four years. Before that, Butler said he worked on projects around the country, including landscape maintenance at Disneyland in California and landscape design at U.S. Cellular Field in Chicago.

Butler said he and Wills design landscapes as eco-friendly "outdoor living spaces."

"We're definitely not your normal kind of landscaper," Butler said. "We look at (landscaping) as more of a work of art."

The company has landscaped over 100 projects in the Charleston area, Wills said, adding that most of the company's business comes from customer referrals.

Butler also said he and Wills identify problems with trees and shrubs.

"We'll actually go out and diagnose problems with everything that's classified as a woody ornamental," Butler said. "We actually look into things deeper ... rather than just putting down more fertilizer."

Wills said the men ran their landscaping service at a shop in Mattoon until they bought the former car dealership last fall. Initially, they planned to use the building and grounds to store their equipment, mulch and plants, Wills said. But, he said, people began asking about buying plants and material from the building.

"So, we'll give the garden center a try," Wills said.


Joe Astrouski can be reached at 581-7942 or at jmastrouski@eiu.edu.

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