how to start a home-based Landscaping Business

Maybe you’ve always loved to garden and believe you could be really good at it if you had a chance to devote yourself to the craft. Then again, maybe you don’t know a wisteria from a wheelbarrow, but you’ve been yearning to find a way to earn a living outdoors. Either way, you’re motivated to get serious about gardening or landscaping and determined to go into business for yourself.

That’s great. But what’s it really like? What kinds of work can you find to do? Who will your clients be? How will you get work? What will your days be like? Does working out of your home make sense? And can you really get paid for having so much fun?

When Landscaping Matters

Before we get too far, it would be good to consider whether landscaping really matters. Will you be in the business of doing exterior decorating for rich people, or will there be something more meaningful about your work? The answer is, that’s up to you. For instance, landscaping can have a damaging effect on the environment (toxic pesticides, water-hogging plants, destruction of native habitat), or a beneficial one (organic gardening, water-efficient plants and irrigation systems, restoration of native habitat). Similarly, landscaping can create spaces that are hospitable and safe for people, or not, all depending on the skill and intentions of the practitioner. Consider some of the many good outcomes of landscaping: trees that make oxygen and sequester carbon (helping to counteract climate change), native plants that benefit wildlife, accessible gardens for handicapped people, children’s gardens that teach little ones about nature, healing gardens that offer herbal remedies and soothing space for patients at hospitals and residents of rest homes, edible gardens that provide wholesome local food, sharing gardens that engage the community in eliminating hunger among the less fortunate, watershed-friendly gardens that make use of natural rainfall to recharge groundwater and create habitat. As a landscaper, you’ll be improving the environment by controlling erosion, providing climate control for houses, reducing the urban heat-island effect, producing oxygen, growing fruits and vegetables (and maybe even caring for bees, chickens or other small livestock), providing habitat for wildlife, and restoring or preserving native ecosystems. I could go on and on. These are the services that landscaping offers, and you are in charge of maximizing the benefits of the landscape you create. That’s an important job, and it will become more important as time passes and people realize that a garden does more than just look pretty. Decorating for rich people? That’s only a tiny part of what landscapers do these days, and the possibilities for good work are end-less and deeply moving to contemplate. If you care about more than just making money, you’re in the right place!

We live in the most exciting moment in the history of horticulture. We’ve progressed from the tradition of the purely ornamental landscape to the complex and evolving practice of sustainable landscaping—the idea that landscapes can benefit both nature and people when properly done, and that they can function well with a minimum of resource use and negative impacts. We’re finally getting it: land-scaping provides valuable services, it does stuff, good stuff that we and the planet need. That’s a breakthrough idea that was far too long on coming, but it’s finally here. Never before has there been such an understanding of the effects of our activities, and never before has this work been more important or more needed. We need more thoughtful, progressive people to carry on this vital mission. You can be a part of it.

Just One Little Story

You might guess that I have lots of stories to share after so many years in this business. And yes, I do. Some of them are tales of aggravation and worse, while others are the narrative of some of the best memories of my life. Someday maybe I’ll write a book about these, but for now I’d like to share just one of them with you.

I was asked by an old friend to make some improvements to the landscaping at her home. I hadn’t seen her in many years, and when I arrived I was surprised to find that her husband was confined to a wheelchair, the result of an accident that had left him a paraplegic. On account of the way the property was landscaped, he was also confined to the house because steps and other barriers everywhere in the garden thwarted his ability to enjoy the outdoors. I proposed an accessible path that led across the yard to a promontory overlooking the beautiful garden, thinking this would free this fellow from years of confinement. My idea was accepted with enthusiasm and we brought it into being over a period of a few weeks’ time. A couple of months after we finished the job, I received this note from the client: “It was so good to get to know you. Although you are a great team, you are also great individuals sharing sensitive, kind and caring traits. Mary is very pleased with the results of your work and I am touched and most appreciative of how you sensed and were attentive to my needs. I can’t remember when I have received such loving consideration. I love my pathways and place in the sun. Love Don & Mary” The client enjoyed our work for many years before he passed away. Does landscaping make a difference? You decide.

Measuring the Landscaper’s Life

You’ll always be learning something in this endlessly interesting business. In fact, there are so many changes coming along every day that it’s a challenge to keep up with it all. And on a personal level, because you are in direct intimate contact with living systems, you’ll be able to connect with the infinite reaches of nature in a powerful and moving way. In fact, doing this work is a kind of spiritual path for many people, who were drawn to it by a longing for a personal bond with the natural world. Perhaps you are one of those people, and if so, know that your desires will be more than adequately met through your work.

Then there’s the day-to-day excitement of the actual physical work. Few people fail to feel the energy of a landscaping project in full swing: the tractors, the trucks arriving with plants and soil amendments and materials, the smell of freshly turned earth, the seemingly sudden beauty of a completed job. The physicality of the work itself can be equally energizing: stretching to prune a fruit tree, swinging a pick in the hot sun, combing through the soil with busted fingernails, drinking madly from a jug of cold water on a hot day, coming home tired and dirty and completely at peace.

Finally, there’s the time travel—thinking ahead to the day when the flowers will be in bloom and the trees will be tall, then walking the site with your client and sharing the pleasure of having done something truly wonderful. Surely, it’s one of the great experiences of life.

What Kinds of Work Are Available and Who Does What?

Many people think that landscaping is a pretty unsophisticated profession. Mention landscaping or any related field, and some folks get an image of a kind of outdoor janitor wearing old blue jeans and pulling on the starter rope of a lawn mower. Ask them what professional skills they think this person might have, and they’ll likely mention weeding, fertilizing, watering, and mowing (the work of a maintenance gardener) or perhaps planting flowers and trees (the work of the landscape contractor). It’s true, these jobs are all there to be done, but there’s so much more to landscaping than that. The world of landscaping ranges from the small, localized work of a maintenance gardener to the bird’s-eye view of a landscape architect whose tasks might include urban and regional planning, ecosystem restoration, or even global issues, such as rainforest management. The landscape industry includes both the backyard grower of a few plants for the local trade and the huge wholesale nursery with hundreds of acres of landscape plants, dozens of employees, and a constant stream of trucks shipping plants all over the country and even the world. Not all landscaping is done outdoors; the interiorscape business is a profitable and fun specialty. The part you play in this amazingly diverse world depends on your interests, your energy, and your talents.

Let’s have a look at who does what and how they work together. We’ll work backward, from the care of the finished product to the starting point, planning and design; then we’ll cover some related fields. This approach makes sense because it’s quite possible you’ll get your start in maintenance, as many people do. Aside from being the easiest place to begin, maintenance gardening is also the best place for most people to start. Why? Because unless you’ve had to care for some of the abominable landscapes designed by landscape designers and landscape architects (most of them school-taught and with little or no real-world experience), you can’t possibly understand why they don’t work. If you make the long climb from gardener to landscape contractor, and then to landscape architect, as I did, you’ll have a deep understanding of what you’re doing from the ground up. Everyone coming up in this business should be required to take this path, but few do. And of course there is no need to take it all on, and no shame in focusing on “just” maintenance or contracting. It’s up to you where you want to take your career.

The gardener is the base of the pyramid, the one who is called upon to care for the landscaping after it is designed and installed. The Japanese say, “The gardener is a person who keeps things from growing.” It’s odd and yet very true, since the main job of the gardener is to come in on Tuesday and make everything look the same as it did last Tuesday when he or she left. Status quo is the gardener’s calling, husbanding an aura of serenity by making the landscape look as though nothing ever changes. Control is part of gardening, often made necessary by bad design; one of the gardener’s main tasks is to continually cut back poorly chosen plants that have become too big for their designated spaces. The gardener is also a nurturer, one who must look closely at the places under his or her care and make adjustments, often subtle, to keep things moving in the right direction. Because despite this illusion to which the gardener is an accomplice, the garden does change. Weather and seasons do their work, pests and their predators come and go, and plants have different needs at different times and at different points in their life spans. Even the soil is alive, teeming with good and bad fungi, bacteria, insects, earthworms, tunneling mammals, and dozens of other things that appear to be creatures straight from a sci-fi film. All these things and more are on the job seven days a week, and it is the gardener who must understand them, work with them, be for or against them as the situation demands. The true gardener is a wizard, a little god.

So what exactly does the gardener do? In the real world, a gardener just starting out usually puts an ad in the classified section of the local paper or on Craigslist or a local online service, puts flyers up on local bulletin boards, drives around middle-class neighborhoods searching for yards that look like they need a little help, and knocks on a few doors to pitch the services he or she has to offer. The all-important work of marketing is done on the cheap, relying on free and low-cost approaches that often work better than more costly strategies and fit better within the minimal budget of a start-up company. Eventually breaks will come, filling a once-empty schedule, and with any luck, after a while the jobs start to add up to full-time employment. What about training? Well, maybe there is none in a lot of cases, and many successful people started out knowing not much more than how to pull on the starter rope of the lawnmower, but I don’t really recommend that. Show some class and learn enough about your profession to give people their money’s worth, even if you’re just mowing and cleaning up yards at first. When you present yourself as a professional, you’re expected to know at least the rudiments of your work. (But more about that later.)

Gardening is an ideal business to operate out of your home because most of your equipment can stay on the truck at night, you need little office space, and you don’t need to be open to the public—very few people bring their gardens into the shop. Your initial budget will probably not include hundreds or even thousands of dollars per month for shop and office rent, but even after you’re doing well there are many reasons to keep your operation at home (and some reasons not to). We’ll get into that later, too, but for now, rest assured that a home-based small operation is a prudent way to get started.

You may have never tried to imagine what it would be like to own your own gardening service, so here’s a fictionalized but realistic account of how it might go for you. Try this on for size and decide whether you could see yourself doing this full-time.

The day starts out with a quick check of the equipment, a swipe or two with a squeegee on the dewy windshield, and a cup of coffee sloshing around in the cup holder of your truck as you head to your first job of the morning.

First stop is the Parsons place: They’re retired; the old man is kind of crotchety but not a bad sort; Mrs. Parsons is pretty quiet; there’s a friendly mutt dog that lollygags around in the back yard all day. You start in the front yard. The house is on a corner lot, with a higher than average number of dog deposits on the lawn, pine needles drop all over everything every week, and the old folks are particular about every needle getting picked up and hauled away instead of left as a mulch as it should be. The azaleas are always hungry and thirsty because of having to grow in the competitive environment under the greedy pine trees. You fertilize them, then mow the lawn, edge, and clean up the walks. You cut back the old spiraea where it’s trying to take over the front walk, dump the clippings into your trash can, and take them out to the truck where they get deposited in the trailer you tow around behind you all day.

The Parsons’ backyard is mostly paved. There’s a swimming pool in the middle (the pool man takes care of that), some junipers along the back fence, a huge oak tree (the tree trimmer comes in every couple of years and does some pruning, you clean up after it the rest of the time), a stand of bamboo on the north (kind of a lame attempt at “going Japanese,” from the 1950s most likely; the darn stuff’s always trying to get into the flowerbeds), a beautiful view of the valley this time of the morning, a mockingbird on the telephone pole in the back corner. You do some pruning, chop at the bamboo runners to try to keep the yard from turning into a bamboo forest, you notice that the petunias are getting kind of dry and give them some water (“I sure wish these people would step outside once in a while and check on this stuff—I can’t do everything!!”), pet the dog (who looks more like a tiny aging buffalo), hoe some weeds out of the beds, sweep. It’s a pretty simple place and not too demanding other than that bamboo. You visit with the folks a bit, and say something tactful about the petunias, make a minor fuss over the dog in their presence (never forget showmanship), then head back to the truck. You lash down the mower and edger, tighten the cap on the gas can, and drive to the next job.

The Constantino family: Nice folks, though the kids are a bit much. (Nobody warned you about the weekly Big Wheels patrol?) Start with the back this time. (No reason, that’s just the way you like it, and who’s to say different? Aah, self-employment!) The back lawn is huge, so you put in lots of mowing time here. These folks liked your idea of composting their yard waste, so you take the clippings over to the back corner behind the hedge and mix them with leaves and a layer of soil after turning the pile. You replant the bare spots in the ground cover from the flat you bought at the nursery yesterday and then water them in real well. You rotate the pots on the patio so they don’t grow one-sided, then fertilize the lawn and program the sprinkler timer to come on for ten minutes to wash the fertilizer in. Next you move to the front, which is little more than a tiny strip of shrubbery, some perennials, and a brick walkway. The work is mostly cleanup here, except in the parkway, where you pull some weeds and water. The ferns have thrips again, so you spray, rinse out the sprayer, and then clean up the walks. You get out the pole saw and lop a couple of crossing branches out of the alder tree. Finally, you check on the sprinklers in the backyard, say goodbye to the client, and go to lunch.

So it goes in the afternoon, and tomorrow, and the next day. It’s not a bad way to go, really. You get to smell the smells, watch the birds, get a little exercise. It’s pretty bucolic and it sure beats an office job. Plus, when you’re done, you get to admire your work. It feels good. Of course the specifics will be somewhat different depending on the climate where you work, but you get the general idea.

In the evenings you return phone calls, do the books, make any needed adjustments and repairs to your equipment. Saturdays you spend working on equipment, changing the oil in the truck, maybe doing a little extra work for someone. Sundays, if you’re smart, are all yours. To make a living, you need to work fifty-plus hours a week, but it’s a good life.

After a few years, maybe you decide you’d like to do more—get into commercial maintenance, add employees and vehicles, or perhaps build gardens instead of just maintaining them. These opportunities will come your way if you’re good and if you take good care of your clients. They’ll want you to do more for them, they’ll tell their friends, and you’ll find yourself in demand. Your success will come principally from word of mouth, the spread of your story from your happy clients to others.

You’ll have to make some decisions along the way about how big you want to get, and in which direction you want to go. But whatever you do with your career, you will have made a good start by choosing to enter at the ground level. And if you stay at that level, there’s no shame in that. Remember that in many cultures, the gardener is revered, because people understand the value of his or her work. To be an excellent gardener is a fine thing.

The landscape contractor is a builder who specializes in the construction of gardens and landscapes. The scope of the trade is very wide, from planting a few plants in Mrs. McGillicutty’s backyard to heavy construction on a commercial site, such as an office building or a public park. The landscape contractor can be a one-person operation limited to small, specialty gardens or a giant corporation with hundreds of employees. At first you will probably be more interested in a small operation, but keep in mind that the typical landscape contractor will have at least two or three employees in order to be competitive.

The small landscape contracting business is easy to operate from your back-yard. When your business gets bigger, you may want to move it elsewhere to avoid becoming a neighborhood nuisance, but at the start there’s no problem with the simple, low-budget, home-based approach.

The work is physically and mentally difficult, much more demanding than maintenance gardening; the risks are greater (and so are the potential rewards); and a considerable amount of knowledge is required in order to be really good. Most states require that a landscape contractor be licensed. A state license is issued after a qualified applicant passes an exam, pays a fee, and posts a license bond.

Unlike the maintenance gardener, the landscape contractor moves from job to job and is always looking for work. (There are many ways to get jobs; I’ll go over these in chapter 6.)

Many landscape contractors specialize in what’s called “design/build,” constructing gardens from their own designs. Others work from plans drawn by some-one else. Each approach has its merits, and it’s good to do both in the beginning.

Making the move from maintenance gardener to landscape contractor is jumping in with both feet. But unless you’re very content with simplicity, you’ll probably become bored with mowing and weeding at some point and yearn for the crazy life of a “real” landscaper.

The complexity of landscaping has given birth to many specialties and subfields. Though most people begin with garden maintenance or general landscaping, you may have special interests. There are even specialties within specialties. For instance, the landscape contractor may specialize in water gardens or native plants or hardscape construction (walks, patios, retaining walls, and the like). Some people install and maintain food gardens. Others deal in pest management, irrigation repair, outdoor lighting, or spas. It’s endless, really. Surely you’ll find your own special thing to love.

To get you oriented, here’s a brief introduction to some of the general categories of related fields. (Refer to chapter 8 for information on supporting trades and services, such as pathologists and civil engineers. See Appendix 1 for a list of resources.) We won’t spend a lot of time on the details of these related fields, but if you find yourself drawn to one of them, there are plenty of other sources of available information. For example, your state probably has a nursery association that can help you if you want to start growing plants for a living, and an association for landscape contractors as well.

The landscape architect is a licensed designer. Unlike the landscape contractor, who can design only private gardens that he or she then builds (called “design-build”), the landscape architect can design any type of landscaping from small gardens to large-scale urban projects, but isn’t licensed to build anything. The scope of the work is broad and goes far beyond garden design.

The qualifications to become a landscape architect are stringent. If you think this is what you want to do right now rather than coming up through the ranks, look into some of the available university programs, because that’s the fastest and easiest way to get the education you’ll need. Look to the American Society of Landscape Architects (www.asla.org) to learn more.

There’s another related profession called the landscape designer. The designer is usually not tested or licensed, and often takes on the work without formal training. Because of the lack of regulatory oversight, some landscape designers are very capable and others are not. In some states a landscape architect’s license may not be required (to do a simple residential planting design, for example), but in others the unlicensed designer is operating illegally regardless of the scope of the work. Being a landscape designer is perfectly honorable as long as it’s done with the requisite skills and professionalism and within the bounds of the law. Check with the Association of Professional Landscape Designers (www.apld.com) for detailed information on this field.

Many landscape architects and designers, even some fairly renowned ones, operate out of their homes. Because design doesn’t require trucks and tools, it’s easy to set up a studio/office at home. Clients visit landscape architects at times to go over plans, have meetings, and so forth; so the office needs to be accessible and attractive. It also needs to be legal, so be sure your local zoning ordinances permit visits by clients.

It seems that no one has come up with a gender-neutral term for nursery professionals, so we’ll go along with “nurseryman,” knowing that women are in no way excluded from this field. Nurserymen grow and sell plants. There are two basic categories of nursery operations: retail and wholesale. Retail nurseries you surely know about. Like any merchant, the retailer buys plants and supplies from whole-sale growers (and, more rarely, grows plants on site) and sells them to the public. A wholesale nursery, also known as a grower, produces plants from seeds, cuttings, divisions, or tissue culture, grows them in containers or in the ground, and sells them to retail nurseries and to landscape contractors but usually not to the general public. Some wholesalers grow a wide variety of plants; others specialize in one thing, such as roses, perennials, trees, or ground covers.

Can you operate a nursery out of your home? Yes, as long as there are no community regulations against it. In fact many people make quite a nice little supplementary income from plants they grow in the backyard. There are a couple of strategies that could be very successful for you. If you offer planting as one of your services, a good approach is to grow the kinds of plants you commonly use on your jobs. You can usually produce them more cheaply than you can buy them, even from a wholesaler. Plus, they’re always on hand when you need them. If you like to use certain plants that are hard to find or often out of stock, growing your own makes sense. Another approach is to grow specialty plants and sell them to other people at retail or wholesale prices. Most people who become involved in horticulture develop special affections for certain groups of plants. People go cuckoo over tuberous begonias or native plants or ornamental grasses or whatever. There’s often a strong market for specialty plants, especially rare or choice varieties that the run-of-the-mill growers just don’t handle.

If zoning laws permit it, you can sell directly to the public. Alternatively, you can wholesale your plants to retail nurseries or landscapers. The profit per square foot can be high, especially if you don’t have any employees. And of course you’re already paying for the land. Looking out the kitchen window and seeing rows of happy, thriving plants can make you feel rich.

Managing pests and diseases is the specialty of the pest control adviser and the pest control operator, the first making recommendations for control and the second applying herbicides and pesticides and releasing beneficial insects. Progressive pest control people use biological and environmentally safe methods to minimize the application of dangerous chemicals. Pest control professionals are highly trained and licensed and often must take continuing education courses to retain their licenses.

Now, the idea of spending your days at the business end of a spray rig, squirting noxious chemicals onto rosebushes may not thrill you. But there’s a whole new consciousness in pest and disease control that involves the use of beneficial insects, nontoxic and least-toxic sprays, and cultural methods that often achieve even better results than the traditional chemical approaches claim to deliver, minus the risks and negative impacts. This field, called integrated pest management, is really opening up, and there are opportunities to do a lot of good. It’s a fascinating study of the interrelationships of plants, diseases, pests, and the environment. You’ll never get bored, and you may get in on the ground floor of some exciting new research.

Operating a pest control business out of your home should be fairly easy, except that you probably won’t be able to store the more toxic chemicals in a residential area. Check local regulations before you pursue this as a home-based business.

The arborist is a professional who is trained in the care of trees. An arborist can consult on and treat tree diseases and problems. Arborists are certified after taking an exam. If trees are your thing, look into this field. Check out the International Society of Arboriculture (www.isaarbor.com) for career information.

Tree trimmers do just that: They prune and sometimes remove trees. The work is very physical and quite dangerous. If you love trees and are a daredevil type, consider tree work. You can start out with a couple of chainsaws, a truck, some ladders, and safety equipment. Later, you can graduate to large trucks, chippers, and other heavy equipment. For safety reasons, the crew size is usually at least two, so plan on becoming an instant employer. Licensing is required in some places, not in others. A lot of knowledge is required to do a good job in this fascinating field. You can easily operate a small tree-care business from home.

Nowadays most professionally installed landscapes include irrigation systems, especially in arid climates. Many of these systems are complex, and their design, installation, and maintenance are often handled by specialists. The landscape contractor frequently handles this aspect of the job, but you may choose to focus on just this specialty. In some states, irrigation work is done under a different license than landscape contracting.

When you’re getting started, consider doing irrigation repair and trouble-shooting. The market is small but steady, because systems are always in need of repair. You can work for landscapers, gardeners, homeowners, or commercial or public clients. The best way to learn the trade is to go to work for someone else for at least a year. Licensing may or may not be required, and working out of your home is no problem. This is a nice business for the nuts-and-bolts type of person and is especially good if you don’t want any employees right away, because you can do most things without help. Later, you may decide to move on to design and installation, which can get you into some pretty ambitious projects.

Do You Have What It Takes?

People are always saying to me, “It must be so much fun to be in your business!” Well, yes, it often is. More than fun, it’s deeply satisfying in a lot of ways. But there’s another side to it: Long hours, work that is sometimes brutally hard, emotional stress, enormous risks, and not necessarily a lot of money. Tiptoeing through the tulips it ain’t. But still, it’s good enough to have kept me and a whole lot of other people going.

So, how do you manage the stress and strain? The best way is to be the type of person to whom this lifestyle comes naturally. There are some qualities I believe you must have if you’re going to be successful and happy in this business. Take this quick quiz and see if you’ve got what it takes.

1. Are you emotionally stable? If you’re depressive, excitable, or unpredictable, you’d better take up something else. You’re not going to hold up under fire. Inner calm will make you more effective and happier.

2. Do you have abundant energy? Not just the occasional burst of steam, but the ability to forge ahead hour after hour and day after day, working steadily and quickly. It takes plenty of physical, mental, and spiritual energy.

3. Are you a self-starter? There’s no boss to watch over you, so you can get away with goofing off for a while, but it’ll catch up to you. Being self-motivated is especially important when you work out of your home, because it’s so much easier to snooze away the workday.

4. Can you handle complexity? How many things can you keep in your mind? It had better be lots, because even if you write things down all day long (which you should), you still need a good memory. Having so many balls in the air can be thrilling or terrifying. If juggling multiple responsibilities isn’t your thing, you’ll be in trouble.

5. Can you think on your feet? All day long, people will be asking you questions, making you offers, and coming to you with problems. Many’s the time your success will depend on the quick right answer.

6. Are you a good listener? Your business depends on your ability to meet people’s needs, and that means really hearing them. It also depends on the accuracy of your understanding of everything that’s going on with your jobs, clients, employees, suppliers, and all the rest. You have to be able to process and store incoming information.

7. Are you a team player? Many misguided people approach business as though it were war. The truly successful businessperson recognizes the existence of common goals and works with the other participants (clients, employees, suppliers, subcontractors, architects, everyone) to achieve these goals.

8. Are you independent? An apparent paradox—team player and independent both? Yes. You’ll be making your own way in the world with no one to tell you what to do. Much of what you need to know can only come from experience. You’ve got to be willing and able to think for yourself.

9. Do you have a positive attitude? Landscaping is a wonderful thing. It brings beauty and joy to so many people. That’s easy to forget when you’re having a bad day. Enthusiasm is contagious, and the ability to communicate it will be one of your most powerful tools.

10. Do you like people? You must genuinely like people and get a kick out of dealing with them. Grouches and misanthropes need not apply.

11. Do you have a sense of humor? Like insanity, it’s not absolutely necessary, but it sure helps.

12. Are you physically fit? You’ve got to be able to lift heavy things, swing a pick, dig holes all day, maybe climb around in trees. This isn’t a desk job. If you’re not fit when you start, you could injure yourself.

Well, how’d you do? I think you need to have answered “yes” to most of these questions. If you’re lacking in some department, consider whether you’ll be able to improve yourself fairly quickly. Starting any business is a big challenge and is guaranteed to result in a lot of personal growth. You don’t have to be 100 percent right away, but you’ve got to believe in your ability to rise to the occasion.

Why Do You Want to Run Your Own Business?

My lifelong entrepreneurial instinct arose from an apparently inborn, very strong visceral reaction to the word “boss.” I can’t hear it, or even think it, without cringing. The idea of having an actual boss, someone “over” me who can tell me what to do and fire me if I don’t do it, or even if I do, sends a surge of adrenalin into my system, making me want to flee to a distant, very very small island. What I mean to say is, “Ask me how I really feel about having a job.” Let’s just say that in my opinion the conventional working world leaves a lot to be desired. I’m trying to be polite about this.

Many people who have spent years in an impersonal, dog-eat-dog corporate situation or in government or any other large organization often yearn for self-employment. They’re tired of feeling insignificant, like an ant or a blade of grass. They realize that no matter how good they are, most of the recognition (and most of the money) will probably go to someone else. They’re tired of being pushed around and want to follow their own star. They’re willing to risk failure. They want a great adventure.

If this sounds like you, you may be ready for the world of self-employment. But don’t proceed based on negative feelings—you’ve got to love both horticulture and business. You’re not getting away from something so much as getting into something. Remember that you’ll probably work harder, earn less, and risk more. But the personal rewards will almost certainly be greater. If you did pretty well on the quiz and you’re still reading, congratulations. You may have found your calling. So, let’s look at one last aspect of your new adventure before we move on to the details of starting your business.

Making the Transition: Amateur to Professional

Puttering around in your own backyard is fun but isn’t the same as being a professional. How do you go from hobby to career? How do you learn enough to be able to really call yourself a pro? Should you begin part time or take a deep breath and quit your day job to become a full-time landscaper? It will be helpful if you learn a bit about how to prepare for your new career and to see what some of the traditional pathways into landscaping are out there for you to take.

Landscaping is a fusion of many disciplines—horticulture, engineering, the life sciences, art and design, physical work, and business management. Chances are you’ve got a pretty good grasp of some parts and need help with others. Fortunately, there are a number of ways for you to improve yourself to the point where you’ll feel comfortable about going into business. Let’s look at some.

Many of the important things about landscaping can’t be learned from books. Many people never go to school, yet they become very good at their craft. I think you’ll find that some type of formal education (maybe just attending seminars) will be necessary at some point. Still, there’s no substitute for working in the field.

You may want to start your career by working for somebody else for a year or two. That way you can see how other people do things; you’ll lose your innocence and get a wider perspective. You may even want to work for a few different companies, possibly even in different segments of the business—a retail nursery, a landscape contractor, a gardener, or an irrigation supply house. It’s best if you work for someone who’s really good, so you learn how to do things right. Remember, though, that employers won’t be too interested in training you beyond their needs, because one of their biggest fears is that a sharp employee will eventually go into competition with them, and of course that does indeed happen all the time. Expect to learn more by observation and action than by training.

Begin to read voraciously. Good books abound on the subjects of horticulture, landscaping, contracting, and business management. In addition to your local bookstore or library (don’t forget the library at the local college or botanical garden), check out some of the sources of professional books listed in Appendix 1. Read these books and more as you find them.

The other important source of written information is trade and professional publications, many of which also are listed and described in Appendix 1. Don’t forget popular gardening magazines. And of course the vast resources of the Internet, which I’ll cover later, are indispensable.

Attend trade shows, seminars, classes, webinars, and lectures. Join your local botanical garden or garden club. Join your trade association, and take advantage of what they have to offer. Find out what other professionals in your area do to stay informed.

Quite a number of colleges and universities offer degrees in landscape architecture, environmental horticulture, and related fields. Many junior colleges offer certificate programs and two-year associate degrees in horticulture, either of which is enough to get you going. Some of the classes are even held in the evenings and on weekends for the convenience of those who can’t yet give up their day jobs. Others are offered online so that you can complete your studies on your own schedule, choosing your school without regard to location.

Many adult education and similar programs offer short courses in various aspects of horticulture, taught by professionals or retirees. Botanical gardens and similar institutions also have informal, non-degree classes. In addition to useful course content, these classes will help you get to know other members of the professional community.

Here’s what a couple of typical community college horticulture curricula might look like:

This is usually a one-year program and is a good starting point if you’re not ready or able to commit to a more ambitious course of study. It will give you a decent grounding in the basics, put you in touch with professionals in your community, and help prepare you for self-employment or a period of apprenticeship with an established company before you strike out on your own. A certificate program by itself won’t make you an expert, but it’s a great way to get started. Here’s a typical array of courses included in the certificate program:

1. Plant Identification and Culture: How to identify and grow commonly used landscape plants. Approximately two hundred species of trees, shrubs, perennials, vines, and so on. (2 hours lecture, 3 hours lab and field study per week)

2. Soils and Fertilizers: Soil and plant nutrition basics. Properties of soil, kinds and uses of fertilizers, soil and nutrient requirements of landscape plants. (2 hours lecture, 3 hours lab per week)

3. Irrigation: Design, installation, and maintenance of drip and sprinkler irrigation systems and related topics. Kinds and uses of equipment. Basic irrigation hydraulics. System engineering and installation. Water conservation and management. (2 hours lecture, 3 hours lab and field study per week)

4. Landscape Design: Basic design principles, hardscape design and engineering, planting design, site evaluation. (2 hours lecture, 3 hours lab per week)

5. Landscape Construction: Tools and techniques for planting, hardscape installation, and irrigation. Safety. Bidding landscaping jobs. Basic carpentry, concrete, and masonry work, electrical, plumbing, and drainage. (2 hours lecture, 3 hours lab and field study per week)

6. Landscape Maintenance: Pruning, pest control, fertilizing, water management. Irrigation system maintenance. Equipment care. Safety. Bidding maintenance jobs. (2 hours lecture, 3 hours lab and field study per week)

7. Greenhouse and Nursery Operations: Introduction to wholesale and retail nursery growing operations. Techniques of plant propagation. Green-house and nursery structures. (2 hours lecture, 3 hours lab and field study per week)

8. Landscape Drafting: Measuring the site, preparing a base sheet, conceptual and working drawings, construction detail drawings. Irrigation and drainage plans. (2 hours lecture, 3 hours lab and field study per week)

9. Work Experience: Supervised on-the-job experience working for a private company or doing community volunteer work. Work experience is done concurrently with classroom and lab work. (225 hours during the one-year program)

To earn an associate in science (AS) degree, you need to complete the certificate just described and then spend a second year taking elective courses after choosing an area of emphasis. Electives include general education classes such as psychology, accounting, English, art, marketing, and management, as well as in-depth classes related directly to the selected emphasis. These areas of emphasis typically include:

Both degree and certificate programs will usually apply toward higher education at state colleges and universities. If you’re interested in pursuing a bachelor’s or higher degree, check with the counselor or instructors for transfer requirements.

Don’t forget that you’ll also need to learn the business aspects of your career. The basics of small business are the same no matter what your chosen field. Fortunately, there are many resources for getting up to speed. Many community colleges offer night courses in small business management with classes in financial management, computers, advertising and marketing, and other general aspects of business. Adult education programs, university extension programs, private business schools, and other institutions offer similar programs.

Short courses and workshops are common in most communities. Don’t forget online courses and webinars and of course books and websites that you can study on your own. Banks, insurance companies, and large accounting firms often hold seminars and produce written material that is helpful to the small business owner. The Small Business Administration (SBA; www.sba.gov), a federal agency, produces dozens of booklets and online materials for business owners and also offers free one-on-one counseling with retired businesspeople through a program called SCORE (Service Corps Of Retired Executives; www.score.org). The SBA has 900 “Small Business Development Centers” nationwide, offering free face-to-face help from business professionals as well as lots of resources. They also offer counseling online and by email, also at no charge. SBA also operates an online “classroom” that provides in-depth training courses at no charge.

There are also programs and information geared specifically to the horticultural industry or to the construction industry. Check with your trade association, local builders’ groups, and the local chamber of commerce for more information.

Really, there’s a ton of information out there, and it seems the more you look, the more you find. You need to avail yourself of some of it, because nobody is born knowing how to run a business, and it’s not an easy thing to do. Most business failures are due to bad management, not lack of business. Probably the biggest weakness of small business owners is that they focus exclusively on their craft or profession, because they love it first and foremost, and ignore their business. That’s deadly. Don’t be the next fool. Learn business and learn it well.

You’ll never really “learn” this business. It’s complex and it changes all the time. I still spend ten to twenty hours a week studying, reading journals and trade publications, and attending classes. Plan on being a student for the rest of your life. That’s one of the greatest joys of horticulture. In twenty years or so, you’ll start to get pretty good.

Part Time or Full Time?

Jumping in with both feet can be pretty scary. Maybe you’re thinking about starting out part time, and that’s OK. Get some Saturday gardening jobs to see if you like it; if you don’t, it’ll be pretty easy to back out. You can keep your investment in tools and equipment to a minimum at first, perhaps borrowing some things from the family or buying used tools at garage sales. Sometimes you can use your clients’ tools, but I regard that as somewhat unprofessional. (Besides, what if you break something?)

If you do start out part time, I’d suggest you be up front with clients. Tell them you’re just beginning rather than acting like an old hand. Show them you can be trusted with their valuable landscaping, but don’t try to be something you’re not. They’ll like you that much more for your honesty.

Get two or three jobs for variety. Stick to garden maintenance at first, because the complex demands of landscaping will overwhelm you. Besides, it’s pretty hard to tackle a landscaping project if you’re only working Saturdays. Another strategy would be to help out a gardener with his or her route part time.