Business & Tech
Business Spotlight: Dorough Landscape Company
Each week we feature a business from our hometown of Lilburn. This week, learn more about Dorough Landscape Company.
Doug Dorough opened the doors to in 1967. Located at 5444 Lawrenceville Highway, Dorough offers his customers an assortment of services including landscape design, maintenance, irrigation and a large nursery on-site with hundreds of local and exotic foliage. I recently sat down with Doug to talk about his business.
Patch: How did you get into landscaping?
Doug: I started off in speech therapy and theater and was going to be an actor. I switched to landscape and landscape architecture and graduated from Auburn. I moved to Atlanta 46 years ago and worked for a small garden center. I worked for Dan Patillo, landscaping his buildings for three years. Dan made me an offer to start maintaining his thousands of warehouse properties which gave me my start.
Interested in local real estate?Subscribe to Patch's new newsletter to be the first to know about open houses, new listings and more.
Patch: What is the best aspect of owning your landscape company?
Doug: To be creative and create an environment for people to enjoy the outdoors.
Interested in local real estate?Subscribe to Patch's new newsletter to be the first to know about open houses, new listings and more.
Patch: What is the most challenging aspect of owning your business?
Doug: To create something that both a husband and wife will enjoy. Not often, but sometimes a husband and wife will be extremes in terms of colors, looks, and simplicity and it takes a subtle psychologist to get the two to meet together in the middle so that they can both enjoy their outdoor space.
Patch: What is unique about Dorough Landscape Company?
Doug: We love color. We love texture. We love subtle drama. The whole purpose of landscape design is to enhance the architecture that you're working with. That's the foremost thing. When you get to a back yard you have a clean slate to work with and that's where you have a chance to show your creative abilities. Atlanta has a wonderful climate and so our pallet of plants to choose from is very wide. Also our nursery is huge. We grow our own plant material so we have everything we need at our fingertips.
Patch: How many different environments have you created over the years?
Doug: I would say tens of thousands. We see 300 to 400 clients a year and so we install around that number of landscapes each year and after 44 years it turns out to be a lot.
Dorough Landscape Company is open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m. The nursery is open by appointment only.
