With a foundation based on faith and core values, the team at APHIX in Frankfort, Ky., strives to make a difference both in the lives of their employees and customers, as well as across their growing service area.
Landing at No. 86 on Landscape Management’s 2025 LM150 listing of the industry’s top revenue-generating firms, APHIX is primarily a commercial landscape maintenance company. It also provides landscape enhancements, construction and snow removal services.
In 2022, the company partnered with an equity group to help them drive growth throughout the Southeast, says Allen Sweeney, CEO of APHIX. That partnership led to strong organic growth in the years to follow, along with multiple acquisitions across state lines in Knoxville, Tenn., and Huntsville, Ala. It experienced a 15-percent increase in revenue from 2023 to 2024 and expects a 20 percent increase in 2025 versus its 2024 revenue.
“The acquired businesses complemented APHIX’s core services and desire to grow in the Southeast,” Sweeney says. “With each acquisition, we implement APHIX’s branch management model, which drives organic maintenance and enhancement growth.”
Off to a fast start
The company continues to learn with each new acquisition and has found that the newly added teams appreciate the added structure, support and culture of APHIX, Sweeney says. So, it has been quick to roll out those processes to get everyone on the same page sooner.
“In some cases, we were slow to implement some change out of respect for the team and sellers but found that there is a deep desire for the processes and culture of APHIX, allowing us to implement faster,” Sweeney says.
While acquisitions have played an important role in APHIX’s success, Sweeney says the company won’t outrun organic decline with acquisition growth. So, it uses metrics to monitor and drive maintenance retention and new sales within the platform branches.
“In my opinion, building a maintenance and enhancement-based business with strong organic growth is the best way to grow any landscape business for success today and in the future,” Sweeney says.
He encourages other companies that want to grow with acquisitions to first make sure the current state of the business is in good order. Without a solid foundation in place, it’s difficult to support any amount of growth.
Become a destination
Like many companies in the green industry, APHIX faces the challenge of finding qualified field labor. To help combat that, it’s currently in the process of doing a full organizational review so it can become a destination company for leaders in the landscape industry, Sweeney says. The company also uses sites like Indeed and Facebook ads to recruit and retain employees.
“Today, we use many different angles to attract and retain labor, including above-average compensation, benefits and truly caring about the people,” he says. “We also utilize many sources to find labor, such as VISA programs, second-chance labor opportunities, schools, etc.”
Looking ahead, he says the combination of achieving organic maintenance growth and successfully acquiring companies at a greater pace than previously achieved will play an important role in the company’s overall growth.
And at the core of all those goals is APHIX’s dedication to people, value and faith, Sweeney says. It also relies on the commitment of its teams at every level to help ensure the company’s success.
“Our mission is faith-based, and we truly believe in bettering the lives of our employees, clients and communities. This is at the forefront of every internal leadership conference and discussion we have,” Sweeney says. “We believe that continuing our commitment to people will help us continue to scale and make a real impact in the lives of the people we touch.”
