Wise before his years. That’s one way to describe Scott Snider, president and owner of M&S Connection Landscaping in Strongsville, Ohio. In business for less than six years, he already has a good handle on what it takes to be successful. “Our company rests on four pillars,” Snider explains. “We believe in Quality, Green, Creative and Clean.”

“I don’t know what I would do without him,” says one customer. Another relates, “I told my wife that if Winston ever retires, we will have to sell our house.” A third customer remarks, “If you need something, call Winston.”

Darwin Haerer Sr. positions his wheelchair next to his Walker Mower. He places a hinged board between the mower and his chair and slides across it to the mower’s seat. “There,” he says. “I’m ready to mow.”

If only Ralph Anderson had a crystal ball in 1946. At the time this 14-year-old farm boy and his brother were pulling an old reel mower down the road behind a Model A Ford. They were mowing 20 to 40 yards a week for what today would be pocket change.

He’s known as “Viehmann The Amazing” to people around town who have witnessed his magic act. Still, for most residents of Kennebunkport, Maine, and the surrounding communities, Dan Viehmann and his wife, Melissa, are more readily identified as the landscape contractors who maintain their properties.

Your son or daughter plans to tour the University of New Mexico (UNM) in Albuquerque. What can he or she expect to see? Southwestern architecture and an abundance of cacti and native landscape? You would be right on the first count, but wrong on the second.