Our Community Involvement
We believe that giving back is part of our duty to our fellow man. As such, GrowinGreen provides support and/or volunteers with several organizations that contribute to the well-being of our community and our country. Here are a few examples of the contribution our team has made in recent years.
February 2018: Piedmont School – Athletic Field Renovation
The Piedmont School athletic field renovation project took place in High Point, NC. This is a small school that specializes in children who learn differently due to a learning disability. Their students range from first grade through high school and they all share the same soccer/multipurpose field for both physical education and their athletic program.
GrowinGreen believes every child should have a safe field to play on. Due to the excessive traffic, this field had worn down and become unsafe. We approached the school to see how we could help. With the school’s backing, we began the process to create their field of dreams. We were limited to the two months between the end of school and the beginning of the next school year.
We began by defining the area to be renovated and removing the weeds. The area in the middle was worn out so we opted to use a highly engineered black compost to not only amend the soil but to repair the levelness of the field.
We used an aerovator to break up the existing soil prior to adding the compost. This is important to blend the soil with the compost so as not to create a layering effect. We opted to use a blend of seeded Bermuda grasses to re-establish the field which was applied to the top of the loose soil. We applied a starter fertilizer and starter watering to keep the seed wet.
We were able to create a safe level playing surface in just under two months. We will continue to work with The Piedmont School to maintain their field.
July 2016: 20th Annual Renewal & Remembrance, Arlington National Cemetery
GrowinGreen was proud to provide men and equipment to maintain our nations’ most sacred piece of land. We along with 400 of the nations top lawn, landscape, and green industry organizations spent the day working at Arlington National Cemetery. Our team was honored to serve our country by participating in this event.
June 2016: The Piedmont School, High Point
The Piedmont School in High Point caters to children with ADHD as well as, other learning challenges. They have a small field for soccer, football, PE and outdoor activities. Unfortunately, due to wear & tear the soil has a lot of compaction that’s created a ‘bowl’ affect in the middle where water collects. It also has a large area that no longer supports grass. We decided to donate the time & materials needed to provide a safe playing field for these children – one that will be ready by the time school starts back in August.
July 2015: 19th Annual Renewal & Remembrance, Arlington National Cemetery
GrowinGreen, Inc., a member of the National Association of Landscape Professionals, participated in Renewal & Remembrance at Arlington National Cemetery on today.
Every July, hundreds of landscape and lawn care professionals come from across the nation to Arlington National Cemetery to participate in an event called Renewal & Remembrance which is organized by the National Association of Landscape Professionals. They volunteer their time mulching, upgrading sprinklers, cabling and installing lightning protection for the trees, pruning, planting, liming, and aerating the soil.
“Our members look forward to this opportunity each year to give back to the individuals who made personal sacrifices for their country,” said Sabeena Hickman, CAE, NALP CEO. “We consider it a privilege to be able to volunteer our time and talents to improve the health and beauty of the grounds at Arlington National Cemetery, one of our nation’s most sacred places.”
Jonathan Rigsbee, the owner of GrowinGreen, said, “It’s a privilege to honor those who have given their lives for our freedom. Our work today will insure the continued beauty of this sacred place and provide a tranquil environment for the families that visit loved ones here.”
NALP members were also joined by members of the Professional Grounds Management Society and the National Hispanic Landscape Alliance and the event received support from lead sponsors Caterpillar, Inc. and New Holland Construction.
April 2015: Earth Day – Day of Service, Victory Junction
For the past several years, GrowinGreen has celebrated Earth Day by giving back to the earth and/or our community by celebrating with our annual Day of Service. This year, like the last two years, we spent our Day of Service at the Victory Junction Gang Camp in Randleman. Victory Junction is a camp for children with serious illnesses and was founded in honor of Adam Petty by Kyle and Pattie Petty.
This year, for our Day of Service, Victory Junction asked that we help them with their fire ant problem. We donated our service, and Bayer Environmental Science was gracious enough to donate a product called Top Choice that controls fire ants for a minimum of one year. In many cases, we have seen it will actually control fire ants for up to two years!
Victory Junction was concerned that their campers could be bitten by the fire ants. Unfortunately, fire ant bites can sting and burn and can be extremely painful. If a fire ant mound is disturbed, the ants will rush out and ‘attack’ whatever is disturbing their mound. Scientists have found that once the ants find the disturbance, a designated ant will release a pheromone that tells all of the other ants to bite at the same time. Needless to say, fire ants are relentless and need to be taken care of before they get out of control! And, this is especially true when children that are already struggling with medical issues are involved.
It is very difficult to identify a fire ant based on its color. A fire ant could be red or black or red and black. The best way to identify a fire ant is to identify its mound. A fire ant mound can get very large. When I say very large, I mean up to, and sometimes over, three feet tall! When you disturb the mound, the ants will rush out and are obviously searching for the disturbance. Fire ant mounds are generally near heat sources such as sidewalks, buildings, AC units, and concrete. A ‘small’ mound is generally not smaller than six inches.
The reason Top Choice is such as effective product versus the old methods of using baits and general insecticides, is that it is undetectable in the mound. When the worker ants come in contact with the product, they carry it back to the queen which causes the entire mound to collapse within approximately thirty days. It then lasts in the soil for about a year and it prevents new ants from entering the area. However, depending on soil type, moisture, and other factors, we have seen it last quite a bit longer.
We would like to take the opportunity to extend a HUGE thank you to Dave Swanigan, Jose Milan, and Peter Farno with Bayer Environmental Science for donating enough Top Choice for us to successfully complete this entire project! Without partnerships like this, we could not have helped Victory Junction with its fire ant problem and, in turn, we could not have made the camp a safer place for the kids. We truly appreciate the partnership that we have with Bayer and we appreciate the assistance that they provided with this project!
August 2014: Athletic Field Repairs
Tommy Cowett is on the lawn in Kernersville, NC at KSA Kernersville Soccer Association. This is the signature field, the GrowinGreen sponsored field, we maintain these fields at KSA.
What we’re doing today, here it is the middle of July and this is what happens to your soccer goals. Goalie is down here clubbing around in the mud all the time and he’s tearing it up.
Now we use this little sod cutter. And basically it’s a pretty simple operation – you cut it on, you got your measurements here about how deep we’re going and this baby is set on about an inch and a quarter, and you engage your blade so you’re on the bottom. Now I’m pretty much going to have no problem running this straight down the line. Remove that old sod. That’s about it – disengage and I can pull out.
It’s a nice cut and we’ll just remove all of this because it’s not well-rooted in. Especially since we just cut it out. We’ll lay new sod in these real rough areas and cut it in. So anything you see like this – a bare spot, we’ll be cutting those out in squares. We got really nice new sod.
This is really an excellent facility – it gets a lot of play. You see the white spots down there in the field; we’re actually top dressing, I show that to you in a minute.
Here it is all cut out in the goal area and we’re going to begin to sod. There’s Scott Reece operating the tractor – there’s all the debris, the old rugged sod we removed and he’ll be dumping that. And here is the sand crew, the lovely Shannon and Ben Smith, our summer interns. They’re building character with a shovel.
The sod has arrived and we have begun to lay it as you can see. Ben butts it up, nice and tight. He rolls it out, and works the seam a bit to make sure that it’s nice and tight. Shannon comes along and lays another piece. And we will just continue to lay this sod. This is some very good quality sod. This will be a good comfortable goal for the goalie who be at this end.
Throw the water into it. It’s a beautiful thing.
This is what the sand brigade has been doing working some low spots with a lot of Bermuda underneath.
This is how the sod is completed. Those were dead areas – the sod was laid-in, we used sand to fill in the seams, water and, that’s how it’s done.
April 2014: Earth Day – Day of Service, Victory Junction
In celebration, the GrowinGreen team was at Victory Junction Gang Camp taking part in the PLANET Day of Service. We’re donating our skills and expertise to help them prepare for the arrival of this season’s campers.
July 2013: 17th Annual Renewal & Remembrance, Arlington National Cemetery
GrowinGreen was proud to provide men and equipment to maintain our nation’s most sacred piece of land. We along with 500 of the nation's top lawn, landscape, and green industry organizations spent the day working at Arlington National Cemetery. There were 25 funerals today, we were honored!
July 2013: Victory Junction Gang Camp
We volunteered our services at Victory Junction, a camp for children with chronic medical conditions. Victory Junction reported huge mounds that they could not identify in the areas where the children play. As soon as we arrived on the scene, we knew we had to get rid of all of the fire ants, the builders of these huge mounds. Children with chronic illnesses should not have to play among fire ants, so we stepped in and took care of this for them.
