As the sun beams down outside on a gorgeous day, Matt Kraynak is hunkered down in his office on the phone explaining to a customer why it's a lousy day.

Inundated with rain the prior day, Kraynak tells her the ground is still too wet for planting.

"But it's not raining today and the sun is out,'' she responds with a bit of irritation in her voice.

"I know,'' he replies. "But the ground is still muddy. If we plant now the mud will choke the plants.''

His customer accepts the explanation. But Kraynak is left with the feeling that she thinks he should have control over the weather.

Such is the life of a landscaper. Still, as the owner of the 15-year-old MK Landscape, Kraynak sticks to his guns.

"I just won't do it. I won't do the work if I know it's going to kill the plants,'' he said.

With drenching rains almost a daily phenomena this spring it's been a brutal time for Kraynak and other landscapers. With each passing wet day it often means a loss of two working days for those in the industry.

To make up for the lost time Kraynak is planning on 16-hour working days in the summer. But he believes he has a leg up on others as he literally grew up in the business through his family tree.

His grandfather, John Kraynak Sr., began landscaping in the '40s and went on to found Kraynak Nursery & Garden Center while his father, George, helped to expand the family enterprise and continues to work at the Hermitage center.

Matt began working at the center in elementary school and designed and sold his first landscape when he was 13.

"It was the best free hands-on education you could ever get,'' he said. "By working in the greenhouse I saw how plants grow and can project how it will look five years down the road.''

He found consumers often look at plants like a St. Bernard puppy.

"People buy something that's cute at the time but have no realization how big it will get,'' he said.

Quitting college in 1984, Kraynak opted to go full bore at the center and decided to strike out on his own in 1987.

"I saw a need for someone who understood the nursery business -- not just someone capable of digging a hole,'' he said.

Employing five, the business is housed on Robertson Road in Hermitage. Kraynak uses the large garage-like structure as a base camp. The real work is away from the office.

Last year 80 percent of his business was commercial work with the remainder going to residential landscaping. Usually the percentages are reversed, he noted.

Among his bigger commercial jobs was Greenville Savings Bank's new Hermitage office, where 185 trees were planted.

"In this business you have to have more knowledge than just growing tomatoes,'' he joked.

When designing for homes the key buzz words are maintenance-free. But customers also want a pleasant looking feel for the outside of their house.

"Seasonal colors is my main goal,'' he said.

While everyone thinks of colors in the spring, summer and fall, it's possible to create hues in the winter by planting trees with red color bark.

A typical job for a home on a small lot runs $2,000 but his bigger jobs can fetch up to $30,000. For newly completed homes, Kraynak finds local owners spend 3 to 4 percent of the homes' cost on landscaping. With raw material costs such as shrubs and trees being lower locally than the national average, Kraynak said homeowners get more for their buck here.

Whenever designing landscape Kraynak said he always bases his creation on the style of a home. For any house though, the tree serves as the foundation for the design.

Popular trees among the local crowd include dogwood, crabapple, blue spruce, Japanese maple, weeping cherry and magnolia. Shrubs among demand here include holly, azaleas, rhododendron and Japanese ewes.

Kraynak frequently finds himself as an educator among homeowners.

With much of the area having heavy clay soil, water bubbles up to the surface since it can't go down. Kraynak counteracts that by creating raised planting beds in his designs.

He also finds himself explaining to homeowners that even the hardiest plant requires tender care during its early years.

"The first year of any plant must be treated like a baby,'' he said "You have to water and trim them properly.''

In addition to the weather, having enough plant materials constantly worries landscapers. If a season turns busy and a landscaper didn't order enough they could find themselves out of luck.

"The biggest catch of this business is you can't control your production,'' Kraynak said. "You can't call someone up and say produce me 10 more dogwood trees.''

While branching out in subcontracting patios, retaining walls, tree removal and excavation, the real green is in landscaping.

"To me landscaping involves the earth and something growing,'' he said.