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Urban Thickets to open new garden center

Brian Benson pictured inside his new landscaping company Urban Thickets Landscapes Monday, March 15 in Madison Township.

Staff photo by Gary Stelzer Brian Benson pictured inside his new landscaping company Urban Thickets Landscapes Monday, March 15 in Madison Township.

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By Jessica Heffner, Staff Writer 7:41 PM Tuesday, March 16, 2010

MADISON TWP. — What started for Brian Benson as a high school job mowing lawns has grown into a landscaping business that he plans to expand locally this spring.

The 32-year-old owner of Urban Thickets & Landscaping has moved his landscaping design and maintenance company into the former SCORE car dealership building at 6239 Germantown Road. After investing $300,000 to purchase the building and new equipment there, he plans to open a garden center April 16.

Due to some cutbacks from customers who can’t afford to do as much landscaping in this economy, Benson said he figured a new garden center in an area where there is not a lot of competition may help him capture more business.

“If people aren’t going to hire me and they are going to do the work for themselves, why not supply them the materials they are going to need?” Benson said. “This year is going to be a bit of an experiment to see how they community responds to us being here.”

The center will employ about eight people seasonally and sell everything from flowers, trees and shrubs to mulch and planting supplies.

Benson said he got into the business while working an after-school job mowing grass in high school. In 1996, he joined Urban Thickets under its previous owner when the business was located in Hamilton.

Through the job, he began expanding his skills to include garden design, planting and maintenance. It’s during this time he got to complete one of his favorite jobs, the original planting of Lentil Park on the corner of High Street in Hamilton. He then realized his career calling was “getting dirty and seeing the fruits of my labor doing this.”

In 2006, Benson purchased Urban Thickets and in July 2009 decided to move it to Madison Twp., closer to home but still centrally located for his residential and commercial clients across Butler County. He’s hoping his experience as a designer as well as a landscaper will set him apart from other businesses.

“It’s hard to be competitive when so many people are laid off so that anyone with a pick-up truck and a lawn mower can become a landscaper so to speak,” Benson said. “We set ourselves apart from those people with a good product, service and reliability.”

For more information on Urban Thickets, call (513) 868-8476 or visit urbanthicketslandscapes.com.

Contact this reporter at (513) 705-2843 or jheffner@coxohio.com.

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