A Journey in Gardening and Business Excellence
The story began when David Allington was involved in a family business in Golden Grove. He helped build a thriving agricultural retail store in the 70s and 80s. In 1988, the business had grown too big to keep as one entity. David took part of the business and served as the sole trader of the Golden Grove Fodder Store until August 1995. It soon became the biggest true drive-through fodder store in Adelaide.
During this period, David learnt the importance of customer service and became passionate about business service excellence. Driven by the question, Where has customer service gone? David set about putting customer service back into the gardening industry. How? By addressing the very complaints people make, and delivering above and beyond their expectations.
In 1995, David sold the Golden Grove Fodder Store in search of a new challenge and ended up purchasing a lawn mowing franchise. After three years of running the franchise, David had outgrown the business. Most significantly, he wanted to serve his clients in ways that this particular franchise did not allow.
Allingtons Lawn & Garden Care was born out of this realization: customers seeking garden maintenance services want more than lawn cutting and rubbish removal. They want on-hands help and advice about gardening, and they want it from someone whose expertise they trust. The mission Garden Maintenance Excellence was born.
After many years of research, informal interviews with fellow gardeners and thinking about tools, machinery, ergonomic design of trailers, training and the building of strong strategic alliances and networks with allied businesses, David believes he has the right mix to build strong gardening businesses. You’re invited into the story, to tap into this wealth of knowledge and resources.
David Allington
David has spent his whole life immersed in business, enjoying 18 years of experience in the agricultural retail industry, where he lived and breathed customer service.
In turning to the horticultural industry over the past 25 years, David has pioneered an exciting gardening services business at the cutting edge of the industry. Along with a mandate to restore a high-level of old fashioned customer service to the industry, David utilises modern technology and sustainable organic practices with plants and soil to the benefit of all that require his services.
David and his wife, Janet, own a little acreage in the Adelaide Hills where they operate a self-sufficient hobby farm, with sheep, a Jersey cow, chooks, guinea fowl, bees and a fruit tree orchard of about 160 diversely planted fruit trees.
With over 80 to 100 species of fruiting trees, shrubs and cane fruits they have a passion for organic whole food, soil health and biodiversity.
David jokes that at netting time, things can get a bit heated as he and his wife take many hours to protect their crop from the abundance of bird life in the area.
They would not see themselves as greenies, but believe in working with nature, rather than against it. So they do not use chemicals that will kill predatory insects and use solely organic fertilisers and soil feeding products.
David maintains that gardening is done mostly at below soil level, when it comes to plant health and vitality; healthy plants tend not to get as sick or attacked by insects, so the building up of soil microbial population and good soil fungi is imperative to plant nutrient uptake resulting in successful results in a garden or orchard.
For David, gardening isn’t a job, rather it’s his life and anointing. He leaps from his bed at 5am with passion to take on a new day of challenges.