Paula Bonar Of Small Engine World, A Dixie Chopper Dealer In Naples, Fla., Congratulates Greenscapes Inc. Owner Steve Pruchansky Upon Delivery Of His Latest Order Of A Dozen Dixie Chopper Classic Mowers.

Talk about earning your Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval!

When an engineer endorses a mechanical product for use on his own property, can the recommendation get any better than that?

Apparently not for Dixie Chopper and the Greenscapes Inc. landscaping firm of Naples, Fla.

For the past two decades Steve Pruchansky, Greenscapes CEO, definitely has been a Dixie Chopper fan. And after ordering another dozen Classic 2760 models for the 2009 mowing season, his company now operates a fleet of 80 Dixies in the three counties it serves in southwest Florida.

Greenscapes has been running Dixie Choppers since 1991 and recently retired its oldest mower, a 1994 model with countless hours of commercial use behind it.

"We started out using Flatlanders and ran them in combination with Classics," Pruchansky said. "We've been buying Dixie Choppers for several years and add some new ones to the fleet every year."

But the long association started almost by chance.

"When we first came across Dixie Chopper, it was at the suggestion of a customer," Pruchansky explained.

It certainly didn't hurt that the mowing customer in question was an engineer by trade.

"He had some familiarity with Dixie Chopper and actually had done some research and knew that Dixie Chopper has the highest blade tip speed of all the mowers," Pruchansky recalled.

"So he said to us, 'Why don't you use a Dixie Chopper on my property?'"

Pruchansky was impressed enough with the engineer's assessment that he went out a bought a couple Dixies.

"The machines worked great, just like he said, and we put them to work for us. We're very, very happy with the machines," Pruchansky said, noting that his 250-employee Greenscapes crew still runs a few Snapper units on smaller properties.

But it has been all Dixies in his recent ordering.

"The fleet is growing in size every year," he said, noting the new mowers were purchased through the Dixie dealership Small Engine World in Naples.

Small Engine World owner Paula Bonar was on hand at the end of March to deliver the 12 new Dixie Chopper Classics to Pruchansky and Greenscapes.

Dixie durability is essential, Pruchansky said, since most of the mowers absorb in excess of 30 hours of use weekly under the Florida sun (that's once travel-time hours aboard the trailer are subtracted from the work week).

But the love affair between Dixie Chopper and Greenscapes extends beyond mere mower operation.

"You can pass it along," Pruchansky stressed, "we are especially thrilled with the excellent support from the dealer and the factory.

"The machines themselves are very dependable. Our mechanics find them easy to work on, and the longevity just exceeds our expectations."

Pruchansky said commercial cutters normally expect to get four or five years out of a machine. "But we're getting a lot more out of them than that," he gushed.

Greenscapes even takes advantage of Dixie's traditional look, standardizing its fleet so all the mowers look identical, even down to the tires.

"We love the stainless steel look," Pruchansky said. "We love the new containment units. In fact, we are in the process of retrofitting our other mowers with new containment units."

So it's easy to see, when it comes to Dixie Chopper, he can barely contain himself.