Jay Martin, his two sons and daughter plan to take North by Northwest Lawns on new paths in 2014.

Their goal is to grow the family business beyond maintenance work and toward landscape design and water-conservation.

Business got a recent boost after North by Northwest received Super Service Awards in 2012 and 2013 from Angie's List. The online business-review service only lists 5 percent of applying contractors, Jay said. Local customers wrote positive reviews that helped North by Northwest gain the award, he said.

"We've always been customer-driven," Jay said. "They like us and they want us to do more."

After moving from Florida to join his brother's lawn-recycling business, Jay started North by Northwest Lawn in 2003. Now his crews cover multiple cities to the north and northwest of Austin.

About half of the family's projects are maintenance-related, Jay said, but steadily the Martins and their employees have moved into building landscaping, retaining walls, irrigation systems, patios, paved paths, lighting and more. Jay said his oldest son, Jordan, is active in landscape design, while Jay's second son, Adam, supervises landscape construction.

The Martins also have more help since Jay's daughter, Tiffany, joined the team as office manager in 2014. She helps fix a firmer schedule for all employees, Jay said.

The family's peak season starts in March and should bring even more growth to the business, Jay said.

"When you go and do a job, and you walk away from it and the customer's very happy, there's a lot of job satisfaction," Jay said.

Crews often labor during 100-degree temperatures. The job is not for everyone, Jordan said.

"We have long hours of work during the growing season," Jordan said.

For three years, business crews have been working in drought conditions and weeks of 100-degree heat. The drought has changed the business's methods and offerings, Adam said. Crews are installing fewer tropical flora and more moisture-conserving plants such as cactus, he said.

The Martins also offer water-retaining products such as AquaSmart, a polymer sand introduced in Austin in 2012. It acts as a sponge, absorbing 12 times its weight in water and holding it in the soil for up to three years, Jordan said.

Even during the drought, crews managed to restore lush grass, Jay said. They also offer sprinkler nozzles that require less water and are wind-resistant, reducing loss of water from drifting, he said.

"They're more expensive to us, which doesn't translate over to the customer because we're competing against the other guy," Jay said. "We're realizing less profit, but it's our intention to be as conscious as we can about our limited supply of water."

So far, the Martins have not encountered a project they can't perform or research, he said.

"If we have to subcontract it out, we watch [the subcontractors] and learn," Jay said.

Adam said the family members maintain friendships with many other contractors, getting together for events and information-sharing.

"We're all in the same business," Adam said. "We're all cooking in the same sun."

North by Northwest Lawns, 512-569-0660, Hours: Mon.–Fri. 7 a.m.–5 p.m., www.nxnwl.com