MASON, Ohio — Chris LaMond is sitting in a forklift. He laughs because he doesn’t have a plan.
Not yet.
“We’ve done crazy stuff here,” LaMond said. “But this is ... crazier.”
LaMond is outside the VIP gate at the Cincinnati Open. He’s trying to get four potted trees the size of basketball hoops into the venue's new indoor fan zone. The goal is to bring that park-like feeling from the rest of the tournament grounds — where they've planted 42,670 flowers and 1,2932 trees — inside.
LaMond points at the gate he needs to drive through. He asks a coworker if he’s worried, and the response makes him laugh again.
“Me too,” LaMond said.
WATCH: Go behind-the-scenes with Cincinnati Open's landscaping team
LaMond is here, because at the Cincinnati Open, tennis isn’t the only star.
“It’s become a park,” said Pete Holtermann, the tournament's media director. “It is simply gorgeous."
The reason for that might have something to do with this: The tournament's chief operating officer was 12 years old when he started working at his dad's landscaping business.
Jansen Dell then took over the tournament during its $260 million transformation last year. And almost as soon as that event ended, one which had more plants than ever before, officials ordered 10,000 more for this year.
“I could talk about landscaping all day," Dell said.
Matches at the tournament in Mason begin on Tuesday. And the team from LaMond Design has been working to put the finishing touches on it for weeks. Dell tells me they've essentially brought in a semitruck full of plants every single day for a month.
“It’s about creating an environment that feels welcoming," Dell said. “You can’t look at these flowers, at this color, without being put in a good mood."
And so LaMond drives the forklift toward the gate, lifting it up and tilting the tree backward. He shouts, and it scrapes the top of the structure. Then, he drives through to the other side.
In the fan zone, sheets of plywood make a road for him to drive onto the turf. Several team members direct him to a white planter box.
“This isn’t a good time to ask," LaMond said, "but is that going to fit?”
He lowers the tree down and the rest of the team shoves it inside by hand. They start clapping because it does.
“Nice job,” LaMond said. “Now three more times.”
