A Passion For The Environment Grows Northeast Horticultural Services
Passion is often depicted with the color red but in the case of Stacey Marcell and her business, Northeast Horticultural Services (NEHS) in Milford, passion is bright pink. While most tree care and landscaping trucks are white or green, NEHS trucks and equipment are bright pink as are the shirts its staff wear.
A passion for the environment is the business philosophy that Marcell, a state of CT licensed arborist since 2000, has long lived by. After earning a bachelor’s degree in horticulture and spending over ten years working for tree care companies, she had a child and decided the time was right to take charge of her own destiny. She bought two trucks and founded NEHS in 2007, where her knowledge and passion have won over customers and gained her a loyal following. While pink is her favorite color, Marcell had a more important reason to brand her business with it. Her daughter, now 11, was diagnosed with brain cancer when she was 22 months old. Marcell bought a pink wood chipper that year and donated a percentage of the profits she made with it to St. Baldrick’s Foundation, a childhood cancer charity.
“Ever since then, I have continued buying pink equipment. What started out as a way to earn money for an important cause has evolved into a way to express that this is a woman-owned business. They stand out, grab attention and have people taking notice,” she said. “My daughter is a happy, healthy survivor now but also what has come of it is a very branded image that includes pink aerial lift trucks, chippers, trailers, hydro-seeders and all kinds of cool equipment.” Also setting her company apart, besides being a female-owned business in a traditional male-dominated field, is her infectious passion for the environment. “It’s my overall love for trees and the industry. Everybody who works here catches the passion – the word passion is part of our core values here.”
NEHS services, which are grounded in science and ripe in artistic beauty, include tree care, landscape design/installation, all-inclusive landscape management programs, plant health care, organic lawn care as well as landscape construction and masonry. NEHS is also one of only ten tree care companies in Connecticut accredited by the Tree Care Industry Association.
While NEHS does all phases of landscaping, Marcell retains a special love for trees, which she says are at the core of every quality landscape design. “We are very unique in that we are looking at it holistically, starting from the largest plants on the property down to the smallest,” she said. “Having experts that know how to blend all the different levels of fauna on a property is ultimately what sets us apart and makes us successful.”
Additionally, being accredited with the Northeast Organic Farming Association (NOFA) as Organic Landcare Providers is a source of pride. “We fully promote good stewardship of the earth: putting the right plant in place and designing sustainable landscapes that are successful not just for the first five years but for the entire 30 to 50 years somebody might be living with the landscape that we put in,” Marcell said. “All that comes from the passion that we have for what we do.”