.png)
Date: 1/9/26
Duration: 22:49
Guest: Hunter Holbert
Website: https://rhlandscapes.com/
Listen on Spotify:
Summary:
In Episode 22 of Living Local with Frisbee Real Estate, Ed sits down with Hunter Holbert, the owner of R &H Landscape Development, a long-standing local landscaping company serving homeowners across Henderson County and Western North Carolina. Hunter shares the story behind the business, started by his father more than 30 years ago as a small “one truck and a helper” operation, and how Hunter stepped in after college to thoughtfully scale it into a modern company while still keeping the personal, small-business feel.
Hunter explains what R &H Landscape Development actually does day to day. They’re a full-service residential landscaping company offering lawn maintenance, seasonal enhancements like mulching and pruning, and landscape installations such as patios, pavers, small retaining walls, and fire pits. Their work is split about 50/50 between maintenance and installation, with a focus on smaller, homeowner-friendly projects rather than large commercial builds. He also gives a helpful look at how pros source materials, noting that while big box stores have their place, larger projects often benefit from going straight to the supplier.
The conversation takes a real turn as Hunter talks about Hurricane Helene and how it affected local properties and the landscaping industry. He describes clearing nearly 50 downed trees just to access their own shop, then jumping immediately into emergency cleanup. For weeks, the team prioritized digging out driveways, clearing mudslides, and cutting trees, postponing routine services to help the community recover. Even more than a year later, Hunter notes that restoration and cleanup are still ongoing in pockets across the area.
One of the more unique parts of the episode is Hunter’s other life outside landscaping: he’s a master’s-level violinist (Appalachian State, violin performance) and still plays with groups like the Hendersonville Symphony, Brevard Philharmonic, and other regional orchestras, plus weddings and events. Ed even puts him through the show’s “Finish the Lyric” game, and Hunter absolutely nails it, proving that a violin player can know country lyrics better than most.
They also touch on local favorites, with Hunter recommending Umi for sushi and Binion’s for a classic Hendersonville meal. For visitors, he suggests enjoying downtown Hendersonville and a scenic drive on the Blue Ridge Parkway, while offering a grounded perspective on post-storm forest cleanup. His take: beyond safety and access needs, fallen trees can actually support a healthy forest ecosystem over time.
To learn more or request an estimate, Hunter shares the best ways to connect:
-
Website: https://rhlandscapes.com/
-
Office phone/text: 828-606-3738
-
Or simply search R &H Landscape Development on Google.
If you’re looking for a trusted Hendersonville landscaping company for maintenance, patios, fire pits, or storm cleanup, this episode is a great introduction to a local business that’s built on relationships, craftsmanship, and community-first service.
Watch on YouTube:
Transcript:
Thanks for joining us today. We have a special guest with us in green, which is helpful for you to see him. He's even easier, but this is Hunter Holbert. He's with RNH Landscape Development, which is a local landscape company. Hunter, thanks for joining us today. Absolutely. Thanks for having me. Yep. So you're probably the first person that has a large beard that we've interviewed. So that's exciting. So we'll have to touch on that. But before we do that.
Tell us about yourself a little bit and about R &H. Well, I'm a local. I've lived here all my life. ⁓ The family's been here forever, as long as I know. Dad founded R &H over 30 years ago. It was kind of a one man in a truck and a helper kind of thing for a long time. And I think he liked it that way. But as soon as I graduated college, I said, I want to make sure that this is a business that can
sustain itself and also provide me with an avenue to retire. So I decided to scale it up enough and get some employees. So it's a little different than when dad ran it, but ⁓ we still try to curate to the personal touch side of things so that customers know who's there. I try to make sure that all of our customers know all our crew names so that they're all familiar, they can communicate. I try to get rid of the...
you know, the issue with some landscape companies is, you you have to call in the office to get anything done, you know, to make sure your crew knows what they're doing. But I try to cut that out, you know, so that it's much more personal. I try to keep it the way Dad had it. So what kind of services do you all offer? So we ⁓ we're a full service landscape company. ⁓ So we do, you know, yard maintenance, of course. We also do ⁓ what I call enhancement, which is like mulching and pruning. And we also do some installation.
⁓ So we do small ⁓ retaining walls. We don't go into the engineering side of things. We keep everything short so that it's more landscaping and less construction. And then we also do ⁓ patios, pavers, things like that. It's about 50-50 maintenance work and install work. So what size, how big of patios would you do?
We actually try to ⁓ stay to smaller things because we're better equipped to do smaller, ⁓ know, more niche jobs than we are to do, you know, a massive commercial installation. If you're doing something like that, there's companies that specialize in doing that all the time. But our equipment is on the smaller end ⁓ and we tailor mostly to homeowners. So if they're doing like a patio around their house or...
you know, a small driveway or anything like that. Outdoor kitchen? Yeah, we could do that. That's not something we normally do, but you know, that's certainly something we could work in. Fire pit? mean, those kind of things. Oh yeah, fire pits. Yeah, we do a lot of those. I've always envisioned a fire pit that's not cobblestone or brick, but some kind of material like that. Oh yeah. They've got a lot of prefab things that honestly look really good. And they come built in with, you know, the metal grates and everything. Oh.
and they really look quite natural. Most things aren't natural stone now. It's some kind of prefab concrete or something like that, but there's a ton of things. It's really amazing what they've done with some of that engineered material in the past 10 years. I'm guessing ⁓ a professional company like you guys probably get supplies different than the consumers do. We do. ⁓ You might see different things than what we might see at Home Depot or Lowe's.
Yeah, know, Lowe's and Home Depot has its place. ⁓ You know, they deal with larger wholesalers and try to buy and sell, you know, for the small volume that homeowners buy, they get a better deal when they go to Lowe's or Home Depot. But for the most part, if you're buying a lot of stuff, it's better to go straight to the source. And that goes for, you know, building products as well as landscape supplies, all that. We're recording this in the winter.
And so do y'all salt or anything like that related to snow removal? Yes, we do. And I actually spent my evening yesterday hunting down some salt because nearly everyone has sold out since this event covered such a large area. Yeah. So I did manage to hunt some down in Spartanburg. I drove down there and met the truck at six o'clock, picked it up and got home about eight thirty. So you had to go that far? Yeah. I mean, literally, I thought I had a truck driving down to South Carolina, travel with rest.
Greenville, hunting down some salt. went north up towards Weaverville to try and find some and then finally I lucked out and found some in Spartanburg. Well I probably should ask this off mic but by the time it releases it doesn't matter. But did you go to like a Lowe's or Home Depot or more of supply house? ⁓ both. I okay you know I probably made over a hundred phone calls to gosh anywhere I could think of you know because it's it's an issue now it's not just you know your local
tractor supplier loads on Depot. They're not just out. It's also their distributors and so on and so forth. Cause this is very unusual weather for our area. is. ⁓ It's its effect at a large area. So it's affected Greenville, think as much as us, which is affect our supply. So ⁓ tell me about Helene, how did it affect your customers and your business? Hurricane Helene. Well, ⁓ that was an interesting
The first week was very interesting. And then about a month after that, was just nothing but storm cleanup. But the initial week, was first making sure that we can get out from our shop. I think we had close to 50 trees fall down where our shop is. So those had to be cleared off the driveway so we could get our equipment out. Our employees, ⁓ luckily, our employees are.
halfway equipped to get themselves out. So they had to get themselves cut out ⁓ or shoveled out or whatever they had to do. literally within a day of the event happening, as soon as we could get out, we were out with our tractors and everything trying to get people dug out of their driveways. mean, mudslides and cut out of their driveways, trees and everything. And the tree cleanup, I mean, it took us a solid month of nothing but cleaning up trees and we kind of postponed all of our other work.
I had to send out notice to all our customers saying that we have to postpone everything that we normally do just to take care of people. And then, mean, we've still been doing Helene cleanup and restoration. We just did one of our last major restoration jobs a month ago, two months ago, something like that. And we're over a year out. Yes. And it's going to be a while before everything's back to normal. Wow. So how...
How many people do you have that work for you? I've got five employees. Okay. And it's myself and my dad are the the owners. Well, actually six employees. We have an office assistant now. My wife has taken on some of those duties, which greatly helps me out so I can spend more time running the business. know, sending out bills and that. So another thing you do that I've seen you, I know you through church, is playing the violin and you're quite accomplished player. So what
How long have you played the violin? So I started in the second grade. ⁓ Henderson County is well funded by some private funds that kind of ⁓ supplement the public school as far as the string program. Usually you don't see a string program. You're lucky if you see a string program in middle school and high school. But they actually had one in ⁓ the elementary schools when I began. So I was fortunate to start in second grade.
You know, and you can get so far on public school, you know, big classroom setting teaching before you really need private lessons. And then I got private lessons and then I ended up going to ⁓ college at Appalachian State and got an undergraduate in violin performance and also got my master's in the same. So what have you done anything with the violin since then or stayed in the area the whole time? Well, as soon as I graduated, I spent a year down in Morganton.
That's where my wife's from. And actually that was when I was working on my masters. And then we moved back up here. I made a decision pretty early on after I started finishing up my masters because I graduated with a master's right during COVID. So it was not a good time to graduate and go out and audition at places because there were virtually no orchestras having auditions. You couldn't get jobs.
you know, and I knew that if I did that it would be a long run before I could get actually to where I was funding myself. So I made, that was part of the decision, but the other part was, you know, I didn't want to see dad's landscape business, you know, end with him. I wanted to do what I could to keep that going. So I opted to do the landscape business full time. And fortunately, I've been very, very careful with my hands to make sure that I can still play the violin on the weekends and, you know, evenings, wherever I have time.
So you do play other places? I do. ⁓ Right now I'm on the roster with the Hendersonville Symphony, also the Brevard Philharmonic, Symphony of the Mountains, ⁓ and I also play weddings and other events like that. It's more of an entertainment for me than it is anything. ⁓ I definitely could not give that up. ⁓ It's a deeply instilled part of me, and I try to it going as much as I can. So when you said you're on the roster, does that mean
you always play or you have the option to be a part of and play? So with symphonies what they do ⁓ is they have rostered musicians and then they have sublist musicians ⁓ which are like, what they'll do at the beginning of every season is they'll send out a list of dates and you send in your availability and then the manager decides who's available and who can play which concerts.
Ideally the roster musicians cover everything. I see however if they have conflicts They've got sublist musicians that they call in to fill in for those positions Got it. Mm-hmm. So layman's term your ⁓ Gosh you're the front line, right? Yeah, we say yeah, that's that's the idea got it roster just sounds more professional. Yeah
I suppose so. And weddings? People just contact you directly? ⁓ I actually don't do that ⁓ because, you know, since I have to run a landscape business, I don't have a lot of time for communication. on the occasion, if I know somebody and they want me to play a wedding, I'll do that management. I'll put together a quartet or something. But gotcha.
I prefer to work for, there's a few local companies that I see that they actually do all the intercommunication between the bride and the bride's mother. And then I just show up and play, which is fantastic. Are you saying that's easier than talking to the bride, the bride's mother, the process? Absolutely. All right. So how long have you had a long beard? It's probably been three years now. Oh, so it's recent. Yeah. Okay. I've had a short beard for probably 10 years now.
But you know at some point it's like I guess over I was going into a winter time and I thought I'll grow it out You know can't stay warm for the winter time, but I just never I never trimmed it Too much shorter. You know I like to keep it about here if it goes much longer than here it gets in the way Because I do have to work on equipment and you know other things and if it gets too long you get it caught in things and then it's just Uncomfortable, but this is a happy medium. Well. It sort of looks really cool. What's funny is I don't laugh when I see you, but I think
Normally a big beard like that's on a burly guy. And you're lean and young. I'm thinking of big fat guys, know, old, have the big beard. So, or do you have a motorcycle? I do not. Okay. I, that is too much of a safety risk for me. See, it's another stereotype, but with the big beard. So, all right. So you grew up in the area. Uh, do you like to eat out? Do you like to make suggestions of food choices when somebody comes to visit the area?
Yeah, we don't eat out terribly frequently. ⁓ My wife's a good cook and I also enjoy cooking when I have time. I'm not the best cook, but I enjoy it. But when we do eat out, our go-to is probably Umi. Downtown, we love their sushi. Any chance we get, we like to go get a boat. You know, for two or... I'm trying to find some more people that would like to go because they have a boat for like six people and I'd really like to get the big boat.
But not many people that I know want to go eat that much sushi. But we love Umi and we're also big fans of Binion's. You know, both local places. Binion's delicious. Yeah. Umi's delicious. We tend to end up at Champa's more than Umi's for some reason. Yeah. You know, they're both, I think they're both, you know, neck and neck. Yep. It's very good. It's better than what the grocery store deli has. Oh, absolutely. You know, I think that's why people don't like...
sushi is they get that and then that's their thought forever is that grocery store sushi. Yep. So if you have people that come visit from out of town like hey you need to go check this out a local hot spot or a local place to hike or visit views anything like that come to mind? ⁓ We're not big hikers ⁓ you know but you know I always if people ask where where's the best thing to do ⁓ you know I try to recommend you know check out our downtown it's nice and quaint it's got a lot of places to walk.
And also, you know, I enjoy driving on the parkway. Again, not much of a hiker. I get my outdoors in while I'm working, I don't do a lot of that on my free time. I would expect that. Yeah, the parkway is awesome. We haven't been on it since Hurricane Helene, though. Have you? I've been through it a few times. OK. You know, some areas are...
cleaned up great and some, mean, it's gonna be years and years and years before you can look out in the woods and you don't see the evidence of the storm. And that, I mean, that's not just on the parkway, it's really everywhere. ⁓ You know, some areas like, you know, Laurel Park was a really bad one because it's a real dense forested area. And I mean, there's old growth trees that are laying over still. ⁓ And, you know, I think everyone's done a good job getting the first 20 feet or so cleaned up. But once you look deeper into the forest, it's still,
fairly hairy in certain spots. that's well said. Somebody in landscaping, is there a need for them to clean it up? Not really. ⁓ know, forests kind of naturally heal themselves and actually they, to some degree, it's beneficial for trees to fall over and, you know, do their own thing, compost down. ⁓ Over time, I mean, if you ever go walk in the forest, you'll see these like, you know, dips in hills, you know.
various places, a lot of those are formed by trees falling over and then the stump's rotting and what it does is the stump will lean over, pull up a section of dirt with it and that stays on the stump and as the stump rots away that leaves a little hill and you've got the dip behind it and that kind of forms, you know, helps form a natural forest ecosystem and you know a managed forest is what you know you'd call
know, these landscaped areas that you see, you even though they're forested, they're still managed, because every time a tree falls over, they get cut up and the stumps get pushed over or something. ⁓ That's not necessarily natural per se. ⁓ A lot of the cleanup that we have already accomplished is what I would call the necessary cleanup. And of course, there's more where people need to access, you know, areas of their property that they haven't. I mean, if you have a large woodland, you know, trees falling over is not a bad thing. It forms habitats for small...
animals to live in. As those trees rot down, it provides nutrients. So it's really not paramount unless it's blocking access to somewhere. That's a lot of information. It's good information. All right, Hunter, we're winding down, but I always like to... So we started something new recently. I don't know if you've seen it, but it's a little game we call Finish the Lyric. Oh, boy. Which, as I'm thinking, I like to sing, so...
It's easier for me to remember a tune than to remember words. And I'm curious, you as a violin player, if you even know words versus just the tune. It depends. OK. Are you pretty good with lyrics? ⁓ Actually, probably not. I think that's why I play is because I can't remember things. All right. So we have a couple of categories here. We have country, pop, rock, and Christian.
So you can choose that and then you can choose the decade. have 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000s and current. OK. What comes to mind? Probably country. Let me jump to country. I would say. I'm probably better with the 80s or 90s or 2000s. All right. Current stuff is totally different. All right. Let's see here. I think you'll do well with this.
So I'll read a few lines or a few words and then you finish it. And I'm just reading it, which in my head is a lot harder than humming it. So as long as old men sit and talk about the weather.
Something about little or old women. Yes, wow. As long as old women sit and talk about old men. Yeah, there we It's forever and ever amen. Randy Travis. Wow, good job. No, I haven't used that one yet, so well done. Here's another one. Out in the country past the city limits sign. There's a honky tonk near the county line. boot scoot and boogie. Yeah, there we go. Brooks and Dunn.
Alright, this is the last one in the 80s and 90s. I got friends in low places.
were the.
where the whiskey drowns and the beer chases my blues away. Yep, Friends in low places, Garth Brooks. Wow, way to go. This one I don't know as well. So this is in the 2000s, 2010s. ⁓ You know I like my chicken fried.
Cold beer on a Friday night. The song's Chicken Fry, Zach Brown Band. ⁓ Here's another song. I don't know some of these. I dug my key into the side of his pretty little souped up four wheel drive. Yeah. There we go. Wow, Hunter. That's Before He Cheats, Carrie Underwood. Wow, you're doing awesome. Last one then. You're almost six for six. This is Headed Down South to the Land of the Pines.
Something about Dogwood. I'm thumbing my way into North Carolina. Okay, there we go. It's Wagon Wheel. Darius Rucker. I just played that for a wedding. I wasn't learning the the violin? Yeah. Wow. No lyrics when I'm playing. How did that sound? Pretty good? It was fairly And you're saying this, does that mean you picked it? Well, no. I mean it's kind of more of a country tune, but it does have a pretty prominent fiddle part.
And again, you're doing that. I thought you'd be doing this. What? That's just how I talk, you know, when I say playing an instrument. It's some kind of gesture. Do you play guitar? No. OK. No, never played. It's not the same. No, actually, the closest thing to violin is probably the mandolin. OK, because they're just double string and it's all the same note, same fingerings. From what I understand, I'm not a mandolin player, but I think it's the same. So from a...
ignorant consumer is a violin same as a fiddle. It depends on who you talk to. ⁓ There's a common joke, it's like a violin has strings whereas a fiddle has strings. It can be set up differently, it's how you play it mainly. Gotcha. So it is the same instrument? Yes. Okay. We heard it here first. Yeah, there you go. A man with his masters in violin.
Or what is it? Music performance violin? It is a Masters in Music Performance with a concentration in the violin. Gotcha. And do you ever play the violin for any of your clients with R &H landscape? I don't think I've ever done that. I have had some clients attend events that I've played at, but I've never played for them per se. Well, maybe some will ask after they see this. I'm sure you'd appreciate that. I prefer to keep it separate. ⁓
I understand, because I wouldn't want to sing for somebody that's a client of mine in real estate. There you go. It's very different in my head. Hunter, thank you very much. Tell people how they can find you and reach out to you questions. You can look us up on Google. ⁓ We've got a Google listing, R &H Landscape Development. We also have a website, rnhlandscapes.com. ⁓ But I guess the best way is just do a Google search. We should be the first thing.
And is there an office phone number? Yes, our office phone is 828-606-3738. You can call or you can text us. and your wife will be there most likely. Yes, you'll either get her or me on the occasion. Got you. Awesome. Well, thank you Hunter for taking time. Absolutely. And check them out. I'm sure you're still growing. Yes. R &H landscape development. have some ideas in my mind for future uses.
Thanks again Hunter. Yes, thanks for having And to all of you all listening and or watching, keep living local.