STORE AROUND THE CORNER: Yard Rx

With more than 20 years of experience in the field of landscape sales and organic technology, Tammy Kovar has worked with her fair share of trees.

But it wasn’t until she saved a neighbor’s tree in 2004 that the Summerfield resident brought her passion for horticulture to the East County. She bought a spray rig and started Biological Tree Services on the side and began taking care of a local builder’s trees.

Four hurricanes and a housing boom later, Kovar left her full-time job with Plant Health Care behind and concentrated on growing her business.

“It got bigger and bigger and we’re still here,” Kovar said. “It’s been very interesting because the community has embraced all this science, but the industry I worked for hasn’t. We’re succeeding one yard at a time.”

On Nov. 4, Kovar opened her newest venture — Yard Rx — in the Good Earth shopping center on Main Street in Lakewood Ranch. Yard Rx is a retail store, which offers organic and biological yard alternatives for homeowners, builders and developers.

“The idea is to build sustainable yards one at a time,” Kovar said. “This is probably the first one of its kind. We’re selling science — living biology.”

Homeowners can bring in soil, leaf or twig samples to be analyzed. Yard Rx will then provide landscape maintenance services or prescriptions for improving the plant’s health. Additionally, the store offers an educational workshop area for homeowners to meet with arborists, horticulturalists, biologists or engineers about improving the health and sustainability of their lawn.

The idea is to create a green approach to solving lawn and landscaping problems. For example, rather than spraying pesticides, Yard Rx may recommend spraying soap on the problem area to kill the root of the problem.

“We’re here to educate the community and making it easy to go green,” Kovar said. “Biological Tree and Landscape Services will do the services for them, but if they want to be do-it-yourself then we’ll coach them how to do it themselves. We have the products available to make their yard sustainable.

“This is the way to go for the future,” she said. “We’re ahead of the curve and our clients have been open and receptive to incorporating science into their yards.”

In addition to Yard Rx, Biological Tree Services has another East County retail location, which focuses on selling sustainable land supplies for farms, golf courses and landscapers.

“We’re building the model,” Kovar said of Yard Rx. 

Contact Jen Blanco at [email protected].

BASICS

Yard Rx

Owner: Tammy Kovar

Address: 8140 Main St., Lakewood Ranch

Phone: 539-1614

Hours: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday; 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., Saturday or by appointment

Employees: 8-10

Website: www.biologicaltreeservices.com.

What makes the business unique: “The idea is to build sustainable yards one at a time,” owner Tammy Kovar said. “This is probably the first one of its kind. We’re selling science — living biology.”