3 water-minded businesses celebrate anniversaries Email
Written by Colorado Green NOW   
Wednesday, July 13, 2022 02:00 AM

Colorado Green Now

Ewing celebrates 100 Years

Saving water is their mantra. Ewing Irrigation & Landscape Supply, Inc., hit the 100-year milestone this year with celebrations in branches from coast to coast and among the Ewing family members who have led its successes across four generations. For more than 25% of those years, Ewing has had a major presence in Colorado through selling irrigation products, exhibiting at ProGreen EXPO, supporting Day of Service projects and more.

Ewing’s first Colorado store offered irrigation supplies beginning in 1996 with the Highlands Ranch location, which is still operating. Most recently, Ewing chose Colorado as the launching point for expanding its products into Ewing Landscape Materials, which offers a full range of bulk landscape materials and hardscaping products. Ewing’s first bulk supply location in the country opened here in March 2018.

According to Scott Atwell, regional manager for Colorado, offering additional products that meet more than irrigation needs “rounds out our opportunity to become a one-stop shop for our customers.”

DBC Irrigation Supply marks 75 years

John Alderman, the man behind this Colorado company’s ongoing success, admits he didn’t understand irrigation when he got into the business. When the original Denver Brass & Copper Company was founded, the inventory consisted of plumbing pipe and industrial supplies. By 1995, the company was already refocusing as an irrigation supplier when Alderman closed on the purchase.

“Now I appreciate what irrigation can do for the environment and our communities,” alluding to water shortages in Colorado due to growth and drought. “We are up to the challenge of spreading water more effectively across a wider population,” he confirms. Now a “recovering accountant,” he has a passion to help the industry deliver water efficiently via water-saving products and training.

Taking care of customers is the No. 1 priority at DBC. Every person hired must begin their job learning how to fill orders regardless of their role. One employee reminisced how a new customer wouldn’t believe him when he reported it was the owner who took a deep dive into boxes of nozzles.

Community service is another top priority. Stores have sent supplies and volunteers to Day of Service projects and materials to Landscape Career Pathways Schools. Alderman serves on the Colorado Garden Foundation Board, which awards grants and scholarships that support Colorado horticulture. “It’s one of the things I’m most proud of,” he says.

Revive at 50 still rescuing lawns

In 1972 when the Revive product was born, keeping Colorado lawns green was becoming big business. It was a time when high-end residential customers prized landscapes with lush green lawns and when irrigation systems appeared as a new status symbol. Ironically, in 1977, when President Carter declared a drought emergency in Colorado, Revive, a Colorado product, entered the market. As a spray-on lawn treatment, the organic-based product offered to conserve water by penetrating clay soils to bring water deeper into the soil. It opened the soil to make better use of applied water and nutrients, thereby reducing water needs.

John Eden, sales manager at Revive, remembers in the late 1970s when David Larson, president of American Chemical Works, who formulated the product offered it to Dick Miller his employer. Miller owned Ever-Geen Lawns, Colorado’s largest lawn care company at the time. Eden admits he was very skeptical but with rave reviews at the US Air Force Academy’s Falcon Stadium and athletic fields in Jefferson County Miller seized Revive as an opportunity. It is still with the legacy firm today. The product continues essentially as the same organic soil treatment as the original one with the addition of iron to the liquid product.

This is an abridged version. Read the full article in Colorado Green magazine.