NORTH WEBSTER - Thaddeus Landscaping can be found in North Webster, but the business’s owner, Thaddeus Du Bois, has done landscaping as far away as Alaska.
The North Webster-Tippecanoe Township Chamber of Commerce held a ribbon-cutting for Thaddeus Landscaping, 377 EMS W 17 Lane, North Webster, on Wednesday.
“This is my fourth year in business just doing the landscaping aspect. The main thing I focus on is hardscaping, so moving big heavy rocks, which I love, so building walls, decorative landscapes, etc.,” he explained.
Landscaping tends more toward plants, while hardscaping is more toward just the hard stuff.
“It’s somewhere in between there,” Du Bois said of his business. “I like doing the hardscaping, but landscaping, I think, is more general and covers everything that I do.”
Because he’s lived so many places with his family, he’s had work in Santa Fe, N.M., and Anchorage, Alaska. Otherwise, most of his work has been in Kosciusko County, though he’s also applied his trade in Elkhart.
“Anywhere in the nation is what I tell people because I love to go on vacation and work,” Du Bois said.
His business operates year-round.
“It’s definitely year-round because there’s an whole idea that landscaping dies or goes slow in the winter, but last winter it was warm enough weather and I was able to work all the way through, so there was no stop,” he stated. “This winter, the cold kind of put a damper on that, but I’m year-round.”
To illustrate what he does, Du Bois pointed toward a project he did on Papakeechie Lake.
“That’s the one that really said, ‘Man, I love this. Let’s focus just on landscaping and not try to do anything else,’” he stated. “They had seen some work that I did up in Alaska. That was at a gold mine up in Dan Creek, Alaska, and I built a 40-by-40 airplane hangar for a guy. So, not really landscaping, but that’s how he found me. He said, ‘If you can do this, I bet you can do that.’ So I was working on that project and sharing it on Nextdoor, and this guy on Papakeechie - they’re from Chicago, they’re transitioning from retirement, both of them, into full time at Papakeechie - and they said they had this for twentysome years, ‘we’ve never liked the landscaping. We love what you’re doing, would you be willing to come out and just give us some ideas, and we want you to do a project.’”
He met with them, talked about a budget and drew an initial sketch for them. They loved it, the project was narrowed down with adjustments made to the design and budget.
“Ended up with a project that has a nautical theme. It allows them to get down to the lake safely. It makes it safer for their grandkids running down the hill,” he said. “I gave them something beautiful that was functional.”
Not only is Thaddeus Landscaping family-owned, but it’s also a veteran-owned business as Du Bois served in the Navy for four years.
To reach Thaddeus Landscaping, find them on Nextdoor, Facebook, Instagram or text his cell phone at 260-215-3351.