Our story

Green Horizon started in the bed of a pickup truck. In 2008, Marcus Rodriguez had just left his resort design job on the Outer Banks, moved to Charlotte with his wife, and started mowing lawns to pay rent. Between jobs, he would sketch landscape plans on napkins and leave them in clients’ mailboxes with a note: “This is what your yard could look like.” Within a year, three of those clients hired him for full redesigns and word spread through Myers Park and Dilworth.

By 2012, Green Horizon had a crew of six, a horticulturist, and a waiting list. Marcus hired Sarah Chen — an ISA Certified Arborist who shared his philosophy that removal should be the last resort, not the first suggestion. She brought deep knowledge of Piedmont native plants: Carolina jasmine, oakleaf hydrangea, serviceberry, and native azaleas that thrive in Charlotte’s red clay without excessive irrigation or pesticide programs. Then came Elena, who cut clients’ water bills by engineering irrigation systems around actual plant needs and clay soil drainage rates rather than blanket timers. Today we are an 18-person team with a LEED-accredited project manager, a nursery stocked with Carolina native plants, and 850 completed projects across Mecklenburg, Union, and Cabarrus counties.

We still sketch on napkins sometimes. But now we have the team, the tools, the certifications, and a track record proving that beautiful outdoor spaces and responsible environmental stewardship are not mutually exclusive — even in the Piedmont’s red clay.