We are 20 Years & Growing 🌳🎉🍃!
We plant trees. It's all we do; we love doing it, and we've been doing it for the past 20 years! Thank you to our customers, partners, and hardworking crew for helping us reach this incredible milestone.
iTrees.com is celebrating its 20th year planting trees! Each year we plant thousands of trees all over Chicagoland. We have seen landscapes transformed all because of the trees we planted. We've planted trees for homeowners who needed a new tree after one was removed, for customers moving into a new home that is in need of shade & beauty, for urban landscapes that need more green space, and could benefit from the privacy that trees provide. We have had the privilege of planting memorial trees for grieving families, and planting trees to mark major life events like the birth of a new child, an anniversary, graduation, or retirement. We've planted trees at schools and colleges for their annual Arbor Day celebrations, for Earth Week, or to add finishing touches to a local community project. We've planted trees for cities to beautify and revive their parkways, for parks to liven up recreation areas, for local storefronts to create a more welcoming atmosphere in their downtown business district, and for commercial properties and solar sites to help restore native habitats. Just to name a few! We are proud to make the earth healthier and more beautiful one tree at a time.
iTrees.com is an e-commerce platform with real agricultural roots, providing locally grown, high-quality trees and exceptional planting service. Customers trust us to deliver and run a smooth planting operation from start to finish, every single time. Our goal is to keep things simple for customers and make it easy on them, all while providing top-notch trees and service. Our dedication to the craft has taken us this far, all because of the trust our customers have in us to plant their new trees.
We realize buying trees online may not be normal and can raise several questions. However, we assure you we are a local business, and we select trees only from the highest-quality local nurseries. In addition to offering the best-quality trees at the best possible prices, we focus on customer service. We want you to spread the word, and we try to provide the absolute best service possible!
Our professional crew specializes in tree planting! That's all they do: plant trees, all day, every day. We train our crew to treat our customers’ property as if it were their own. Not only do we ensure their trees are planted correctly, but we also strive to leave your property looking better than it did before we arrived. Our crew brings the highest level of expertise to every single job, and they utilize the best equipment to guarantee a safe and efficient planting process. We just love trees. Our mission is to provide our customers with a tree and planting experience that makes them love trees as much as we do.
Flashback to 20 years ago: there was nobody offering this kind of full-service planting anywhere, let alone online. When this all began, it was because iTrees.com owner Christopher Harford saw a need in the community and was able to successfully fill it. His family is 5th-generation corn and soybean farmers, and his sister and brother-in-law own and operate a local, high-quality tree farm in Mazon, IL. Chris combined his background in farming and ag with his marketing degree, and iTrees.com was born.
Since then, Chris met and married Marlee. Together they now have 3 children, Cash, Sklar, and Jett. The kids each participate in various activities, enjoy celebrating Arbor Day festivities with us, and are part of the Grundy County 4-H program. Marlee has taken over all daily operations at iTrees.com, with Chris focusing on the family farm. Marlee is hugely responsible for part of what iTrees.com is today. She has an eye for trees, design, and marketing. Marlee has clear visions for what she wants to achieve, and an incomparable knack for problem-solving at the flip of a switch. Most of all, Marlee is very personable, which, at the end of the day, is truly what makes a successful leader, business owner, and ultimately what keeps customers coming back.
The iTrees.com office sits on the family farm and started out as a joint facility housing the headquarters for both Spring Grove Nursery and iTrees.com, along with Harford Farms and, on occasion, the recording studio for Chris and his friend Jerry's side project- the Snarf Talk Podcast. Today, our office is home to just the iTrees.com and Harford Farms headquarters. Some days, Marlee spends time out of the office tagging trees with customers, consulting with them at their homes or businesses, and of course, as a working mom, working from home. In the office, she has a small staff helping to ensure things run smoothly behind the scenes. While the iTrees.com planting crew has grown over the years, from 1-2 guys to multiple crews now being dispatched daily for tree planting.
Spring Grove Nursery has since gone on to build an impressive large shed on the nursery's property that houses equipment, the nursery's modern offices, and event spaces. Their children, Maggie and Joey, are now fully grown and are taking over many of the main operations at the nursery. The family businesses have taken off and grown into something we are proud of; our employees are happy to show up to work, customers appreciate the services we provide, and we get to do what we love- plant trees. It's been the time of our lives!
During our "downtime," the crew stays up-to-date on industry knowledge, working on skill-building and prepping for the next big season of planting. During the winter, they'll help out on the farm and tune up equipment. As soon as the nursery is ready in late winter to early spring, we shift gears. Our crew will jump in and help out at the tree farm. They assist with spring digging and planting. Chris will help out with this process, too, using his farm equipment to help plant trees and to plant cover crops to add nutrients back into the soil. Even the kids will stop by on their days off school to pitch in. It's an all-hands-on-deck operation at that point. We get to see firsthand what it takes to grow and maintain the trees we plant. The nursery carefully grows and maintains the trees for 8-10 years before they're ready to be dug. It's a slow process but well worth the wait.
Aside from the day-to-day tasks, we also spend time each year involved with helping local charities, schools, and other organizations. From donating and planting trees with local schools to planting trees in communities that have been devastated after tree canopy loss due to severe storms and tornadoes. Staying involved in our community keeps us grounded and focused on why we do what we do, and it is another way for us to give back to the communities that support us.
We want to take time to thank everyone who has helped us reach this 20-year mark.
We wouldn't be here without the steadfast aid of our family-partner nursery, Spring Grove Nursery. They have helped us branch out in the community, growing our customer base and fulfilling tree orders with trees we can trust will grow and thrive in our customers' yards. We also want to thank our other local nursery partners who are able to step in and provide high-quality trees when we are in a pinch or need a supply of trees that our family partner nursery does not grow or have available at the time. They work quickly and diligently to fulfill our tree needs. Another branch we've been able to lean on is through the associations we are involved with: Landscape Illinois, Arbor Day Foundation™, NACC, and Grundy County Chamber of Commerce. These associations have helped to keep us on course through their reliable resources on education in the green industry for a small family-owned business like ours, and guidance with networking and community engagement. We have countless other people to thank for helping us get to where we are today: family, friends, our local ag community, and our other business partners who help keep us strongly rooted, from our insurance to our advertising partners and everything in between. We are ever so grateful.
Last but not least, we want to thank our customers. Every single kind review left online, every mention of iTrees.com in a grocery store checkout line to a stranger or friend, each conversation started by the sight of a neighbor's beautiful new tree, and every returning customer who wants another tree, has absolutely helped to grow our business exponentially. We cannot thank our customers enough for their trust in our business- truly, from the tips of our roots to the tops of our canopies- THANK YOU!
iTrees.com is a true labor of love for us. These past 20 years have been filled with seasons of learning and seasons of growing and thriving. Each one is what it took to get us to this point in our story. We can't wait to see what the next 20 years bring. At the end of the day, we know we get to do the best thing on earth- plant trees for you! The best part of our work is helping people discover the world of trees and reconnect with the agricultural community.
We hope that all our customers and our communities come along with us as we grow the TREEvolution and plant more trees 💚!
