Longtime family-run businesses team up to build new nursery

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Richmond Highway area businesses and residents can’t get enough of their landscaping and gardening projects; another nursery will sprout up in the next year to fill the insatiable need for mulch, topsoil and plants.

E.P. Mowing and Landscaping — a family-owned and operated, full-service landscaping company for commercial and residential customers — plans to open the E.P. Nursery at 8753 Richmond Highway, right next door to its current office and just south of the Best Western Mount Vernon/Ft. Belvoir. The nursery site will include a new two-level commercial building totaling 7,000 square feet, to be used for both retail and office space, according to Louis Genuario, Jr., vice president of Genuario Construction Company, which is building the facility.

Excavation work has begun at the 2.5-acre site, and next steps are grading and installation of utilities, said Genuario. Architectural renderings for the aluminum structure will be ready in another month or so, and construction should be complete by year’s end, he added.

“Putting up a building isn’t that difficult; it’s permitting and getting everything finalized,” said Genuario.

The construction of E.P.’s commercial facility is a one-off project for Genuario Construction, which was founded 40 years ago and primarily focuses on high-end residential construction and remodeling. The Genuario Companies also include Genuario Properties — the family’s land acquisition, development and resale business — and Wakefield Homes, which sells and constructs portfolio homes.

Longstanding ties between the Genuario family and Enrique Pisfil, owner of E.P. Mowing and Landscaping, led to their current collaboration.

“We’ve known [Enrique] for 30 years — since the time he was a groundskeeper for the Woodlawn [now Mount Vernon] Country Club, and we helped him start his own business,” said Genuario.

Besides making and selling his own mulch on-site — a unique capability according to Genuario — Pisfil will sell architectural stone, plants and vegetation at the new nursery. Pisfil said he plans to keep his neighboring lawn mowing and landscaping business as well.

“Every year we increase our customers, requiring more bushes and flowers,” said Pisfil.

The nursery likely will open next spring, he added.