landscaper of the year finalist
LANDSCAPER of the Year
2012
Confident Vision
BY BILLY R. SIMS
Nikos Phelps builds his business with add-on services and an eye for opportunity.
R
ain fell lightly but insistently the late Octo- ber day Nikos Phelps gave a walking tour
of his business, Utopian Landscapes, on a former 8-acre nursery in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, that had slipped into disrepair before he purchased it a year earlier. Several of the greenhouses are open to the sky, their plastic coverings torn or missing, and the
trees and shrubs they contain are askew. A vintage, wooden-framed house and 150-year-old barn front- ing the road are undergoing repair. Phelps and his crew have created several large rubble piles in the process of reclaiming the property. He sometimes has to jump across mud puddles to get from one building to the next. Phelps, 28, moves and speaks with self-assurance
March 2012 / TOTAL LANDSCAPE CARE 41
finalist
