Learn More About Our Landscape Team

At 14 years old, Gary always enjoyed being outside and enjoying nature. Like his dad, Shelly, he too wanted to earn some extra cash so he started working on different crews at Shelly’s Landscape Contractors through the summer months. Gary worked on installation projects learning how to properly install plant material, amend plant beds, trim and prune, drive tractors, load and unload trucks and speak a lot of Spanish! Gary also worked on the maintenance teams, learning how to push lawnmowers in straight lines, pull weeds, maintain beds, and many other tasks that are required to properly maintain a property.

This passion for the landscape industry continued as Gary attended the University of Kansas, majoring in Environmental Studies and Urban planning. To continue earning money and assist in paying for school, Gary worked at the Clinton Parkway Nursery. This was another family business where Gary learned some of the retail side of the industry as well as working on a crew to perform installation projects around the Lawrence, KS area.

Upon graduating, Gary went to work with another Chicago suburban landscape firm as a crew foreman. This opportunity taught Gary how other companies operate, different ways to design landscapes, how to schedule and stage projects, work with subcontractors and, communicate with clients and create solutions to solve problems. The experience was priceless.

In 1989, Gary joined the family business. In 2016, Gary took over the business from Shelly, handling everything that comes with running a business with over 60 years in the industry.

When Gary is not overseeing the operations of the family business, he enjoys spending time with his kids, Zach, Isaac, and Jacey, and his loving wife, Jodi of 30 years, along with their dog, Murphy! Gary also pursues his hobbies of photography, home brewing, and smoking meat.

After living in Guatemala for 6 years and becoming fluent in Spanish, Patti entered the landscape industry working with one of our longest-tenured vendors, Arthur Clesen Incorporated in 1998. As a bi-lingual speaker, Patti was an invaluable resource to have in the office when many of the clients and warehouse staff were Hispanic. At Clesens, Patti honed her managerial skills, communicating with clients, bookkeeping, managing office tasks, etc.

Since we knew Patti from her time at Arthur Clesens, and we needed a new office manager, Patti came on board in 2006. Patti is like our Ambassador for Everything. Daily, she handles everything in our busy office from answering calls and questions to bookkeeping and keeping everyone in line.

When Patti is not tending to the daily activities of Shelly’s Landscape, she enjoys spending time with her two daughters and grandchildren, their school activities and their after-school activities. Patti enjoys spending time with her husband, Danny, shopping and dining, home decorating and experimenting with new recipes.

The man who started it all.

As a 15-year-old, growing up on the west side of Chicago, like many kids, Shelly wanted to earn some money and just like many kids, he decided to start mowing his neighbor’s lawns. What was different though, was Shelly knew there was more to taking care of a property than just cutting the grass. Shelly also would trim the sidewalk edges by hand with hand shears. He would also trim and prune bushes as clients requested.

At 18, Shelly attended the University of Illinois at Navy Pier and shortly thereafter, enrolled in Roosevelt University to study Biology. All the while, continuing to provide landscape services to what was now becoming a nice size client base in his neighborhood.

When Shelly graduated, he remembers sitting in his father’s office trying to decide what he wanted to do professionally. Knowing that he had already cultivated a nice business with his landscape services, he decided it made sense to turn this into a profession. In 1962 Shelly purchased a red Chevy Corvair van and thus began Shelly’s Landscape Contractors.

Married to Karen for 60 years and counting, with two sons, Gary and Jeff, Shelly enjoys spending his days away from work reading books, doing puzzles, feeding and watching birds, and following with passion, the Chicago White Sox. Shelly and Karen also have a very tight group of friends who enjoy dining out weekly and wintering in Scottsdale with each other.

Zach is the Landscape Architect of Shelly’s Landscape Contractors; he is also the third generation to enter the family business! Zach earned his Landscape Architecture degree from the Robert Reich School of Landscape Architecture at Louisiana State University with minors in Environmental Science, Geography, and Horticulture. LSU is consistently rated as an award-winning, nationally-ranked University in Landscape Architecture.

Before moving home to join our team full-time, Zach worked for firms in Louisiana and Texas as well as other firms in the Chicago suburban area in both the commercial and residential sectors of our industry.

When Zach isn’t busy designing and selling projects, handling project management tasks, and making sales calls, he is an avid fan of the LSU Tigers and enjoys playing cards, reading, and taking naps with our dog Murphy.

We want to introduce the backbone of our company to you. These men are the hard-working, thoughtful, professionals that we depend on each day to satisfy the high standards that we strive to deliver to all our clients, both in our Maintenance and Installation divisions.

We have one employee with over 50 years with the company! The majority of these employees have been with us on average 15 years, several with over 20 years! We treat them as family and trust them to fulfill our company goals of providing the best services we can on a daily basis.

We would not be Shelly’s Landscape Contractors without their professional dedication to both our company and the clients that we serve.