On the island of Kauai, Hawaii, No Ka Oi Landscape Services maintains the grounds of a number of resorts including the 26 acres of the Sheraton Kauai Resort. 200 coconut palm trees are trimmed every six months. The Singapore plumeria trees (right) are trimmed and sprayed for pests as needed. The seashore paspalum lawn is mowed weekly with a reel mower and fertilized quarterly. The purple groundcover in the foreground is hemigraphis. Around the fire ring is song of India.

As is typical in business, the principle of supply and demand guided the direction and growth of No Ka Oi Landscape Services.

Frank and Abby Santos seeded the company in 1975 on the pastoral Hawaiian island of Kauai – a time and place without stoplights and shopping centers according to Abby.

Even so, "It was a very opportune time to start a business," she says. "We grew along with the island."

What Kauai did have was hotels and restaurants so No Ka Oi started out as a plant rental business providing interior plants to them. Eventually, the company started handling the ground maintenance for some of their clients and added services as needed. In 1982, Frank Santos got his landscape contractors license as the business grew.

Presently, they have about 60 employees. Eighty percent of No Ka Oi's business is grounds maintenance, almost all of it in the commercial sector. Of these accounts, 75 percent are resorts including the Kauai Sheraton, the Bali Hai, the Waipouli Beach and the Islander on the Beach.

Perpetual Service
According to Abby Santos, resorts have a certain set of needs and expectations, beginning with 365-day-a-year attention. The grounds at the resorts on Kauai play such a key role in the overall experience for the visitors because, she points out, they encompass so much area as opposed to resorts in urban settings.

"It has to be fabulous and beautiful," Santos says. "The resorts want to keep the visitors on the properties."

Besides creating and maintaining stunning environments, an emphasis is placed on making sure that the views of the ocean and other splendor are not obstructed by trees and plants.

The resorts that No Ka Oi cares for expect a full range of services including irrigation, hardscape repair and interior plant maintenance. However, care of water features is often not included in the contract.

An atypical service for most places, but not here, is beach maintenance, which they perform for a few properties. One in particular, the Kauai Beach Resort, is on the east side of the island with a constant onshore wind bringing in a lot of debris, including huge fishing nets and flotsam from the 2011 Japanese tsunami. No Ka Oi is contracted to pick up the beach daily, which they do so on foot.

One other service they offer is parking lot sweeping. No Ka Oi cares for the island's biggest shopping centers, both with large parking lots, which they clean five times a week.

No Day at the Beach
Of the challenges presented in this area of her business, Santos mentions sustaining a productive working relationship through the resorts' management team changes.

And the issue of noise takes on even greater sensitivity at resorts. As an example, she cites the pool area at the Sheraton where there is a very small window of time from when her crew can start working, and making noise, to when guests start arriving at the pool.

Santos says, "We try to bring in a lot of guys but that can make a lot of noise with everyone working at once. So it is really hard to balance that."

Another example of balancing the needs of the property with the desires of the resort's visitors is caring for the coconut palms around the pool. Normally, No Ka Oi prunes the 200 plus trees at the Sheraton every six months. But to reduce the amount of flowers that fall into the pool, two crewmembers climb and clean up the pool trees every three months, each time faced again with a short window of opportunity.

At the Castle Makahuena at Poipu resort, another of No Ka Oi's customers, the salt-laden breezes would damage the four acres of landscape if they were not salt tolerant. The plants spilling over the cliff are Indian privet, which is very salt and wind resistant. No Ka Oi trims this hedge quarterly.

This area at the Sheraton Kauai Resort features bromeliads (right), a Lau'ae fern (middle), red ginger, areca palms, and el toro Zoysia grass.???(R)???AE'?N????e'?N,A+No Ka Oi is also in charge of clearing debris out of the ponds.

At the Beach House Restaurant, the landscaping crew trims the bougainvillea hedge lightly once a month with an Echo articulating hedge trimmer.???(R)???AE'?N????e'?N,A+ The lawn is mowed with Tru-Cut reel mowers, and once a year, aerated and top dressed with 11 tons of sand.

The Kauai Lagoons Kiele golf course hired No Ka Oi to hydroseed the areas and plant all the trees. The Bowie Hydro-Mulcher Victor 800, which the company owns, is one of two hydroseeding machines they used for the job: the other one having to be rented.

The palm trees around the pool at the Sheraton Kauai are cleaned up every three months to reduce the amount of flowers that drop in the pool. In the foreground are Naupaka plants and Laua'e fern.

One challenge that No Ka Oi shares with all landscape companies in Hawaii is insects. Since there is no freeze, the bugs thrive year-round. And new bugs are always being introduced to the island. Ridding the properties of them brings particular concerns.

As Santos puts it, "Trying to control pests in a resort environment where there are always people walking around takes a lot of skill."

Asked how the company wins commercial accounts, she mentions networking and, "We've been in business for so long. We have a really good reputation."

And protecting that reputation is very important to Santos. She reminds her employees that even when off of the job, they are ambassadors of the company.

"This is such a small community," Santos says. "All the resort mangers talk to one another."

They try to write their contracts with built-in extensions so that new contracts don't have to be continually created. Sometimes a new manager will want to review the contract but by building strong and trusting relationships with their clients, adding or changing services can be handled verbally.

As Santos declares, "It's all about relationship building."

And that is a good principle to resort to for continued growth as No Ka Oi prepares for their fifth decade.