Countryside Flower Shop & Nursery celebrates employee's 40 years of service

Countryside Flower Shop & Nursery in Crystal Lake celebrated employee Barb Swain Kindinger for 40 years of service as the garden center's landscape designer and landscape department manager.

Kindinger came to owners' Richard Harms and Jim Riedl for a landscape design position 40 years ago after graduating from Kansas State with a bachelor of science degree in horticulture. Harms and Riedl recognized her talent and passion for landscape design and she has been at Countryside ever since.

"I've watched her raise her two children, cultivate an impressive and loyal following of clientele and develop our landscape department from two to over 20 crew members," Harms said. "She's done it all with great success. Some of her clients have had her design the landscape of their first home and over the years, as they moved, their second and third homes. She has cultivated an impressive following."

Kindinger is an award-winning landscape designer and member in good standing with the Landscape Design Association (LDA) and Midwest Ecological Landscape Alliance (MELA).

Kindinger installed a rain garden at the employee entrance in 2016. Her home yard was named a certified wildlife habitat in 2017, and she and her crew were awarded "Excellence in Landscape Merit Award in Specialty Element" for her Italian waterfall by the Illinois Landscape Contractors Association in 2018.

Kindinger designed and installed a native plant/pollinator display Garden at Countryside in 2018, earning Countryside Flower Shop & Nursery the recognition of Conserve at Work in 2019.

"We are grateful for her 40 years of dedication, management of our Landscape Department and hard work," Riedl said.