The Attack of the Designosaurs

Speaking of monsters (see "Garden Wise Guys" below), the time has come to talk of some of the design practices that ought to go the way of the Stegosaurus. Just as this ancient dinosaur became extinct when conditions changed around it, the changing conditions of our present world are making lots of formerly accepted gardening practices obsolete. And those who continue to design landscapes that follow the old, wasteful rules are slowly changing or going the way of all effete creatures. Here at County Landscape & Design we call them "Designosaurs."

It's simple. Water wasting plants are out; climate-adapted plants are in. Chemicals are out; natural controls are in. High-impact hardscape materials are...you guessed it...out; biotechnical, reclaimed, recycled, and natural materials are waaaay in. Dumb irrigation controllers? Ouuuut! Efficient smart controllers? In. Lawns out; meadows in. Bare soil...you know; mulch in.

These changes matter to you because they are not only good for the environment, they make your gardening life easier, make the garden look and work better, and can save you heaps of money. Who could argue with that? Shoot, even if you hate the environment, you should do these things because they're good for YOU!

Yet there are plenty of people still stuck in the past. Why do homeowners continue to do things the old way, and why are some designers still lawn-and-thirsty-plants-centric? Well, mainly because of habit, ignorance, and oftentimes a misunderstanding about sustainable landscaping that leads them to believe it's an arcane practice that results in grim, parched, ugly places and agonizing sacrifices. Nothing could be further from the truth. A sustainable landscape could look like most anything -- a Japanese garden, a perennial garden, a forest, whatever -- and sustainable landscapes can be GORGEOUS!

Want to know more? Hey, you need a copy of my book, Sustainable Landscaping for Dummies. Have a look at it and order your own autographed copy right here. Don't be a Designosaur!

Getting Started in Your Own Landscaping Business

OK, so this is me hard at work at my drafting board, designing a new garden for one of my first clients. This photo was taken a few years ago; I've been at this a long time. When I first started doing landscaping, I didn't realize it would become my life's work. But here I am, still at it. 

If you happen to be interested in a career in landscaping, you may want to check out my classic book, How to Start a Home-Based Landscaping Business. First published in 1993, it has opened the door to many an aspiring landscaper over the years. Now in its 5th Edition, How to Start a Home-Based Landscaping Business is used as a college text and has sold tens of thousands of copies. It's a great way to get your bearings, to decide whether this is the field for you, and to guide you through the intricacies of starting and operating a successful landscaping or gardening business. Readers send me emails and letters nearly every week, thanking me for all the help this book has given them. It can work for you too.

Just to get you started, here's the Introduction to the book. If you'd like to get your own autographed copy, just click here.

Here's the intro...

HOW TO START A HOME-BASED LANDSCAPING BUSINESS

Introduction

copyright © Owen E. Dell 1993

 

 

In 1972, I was studying botany at the local junior col­lege, going out into the mountains and deserts of our beauti­ful state of California and looking at some of the most gor­geous natural places you or anyone has ever seen. As luck would have it, ‘72 was one of the great years for wildflowers and we really got an eyeful. Having grown up in the inner city, I knew little about nature, or about gardens for that matter, and I was plenty impressed. Through that wonderful spring that I’ll never forget, something grew inside me, something that was entirely new to me and remarkable.

We would troop out into the wilderness and spend a morn­ing, a day or a week steeping ourselves in the incredible el­egance of it all. Then we would inevitably return to civi­lization, which looked more and more like a bad mistake car­ried out on a grand scale by some very inept people. As I be­gan to see nature I also began to see gardens, and what I saw was how inexplicably different the two were. Slowly over that spring I came to understand that gardens were important, and that they could be made better than they were. I came to love nature, but I also came to love the idea of my playing a part in nature. I came to have a passion about the dream that had unfurled inside me like the first leaves of a sprouting bean – the dream of making horti­culture more like nature.

My good friend Buddy was in the class. Buddy was a Louisiana boy, fun-loving and easy-going. He saw it, too, this dream and we talked about it a lot. That summer, broke as always, we de­cided that we were going to quit school and become landsca­pers – native plant landsca­pers. So, suddenly there we were, our meager funds invested in a ‘55 Ford pickup (light blue, no major dents, ran pretty good, $100), a few hand tools (from the swap meet mostly, another $50), and a couple of straw hats (Thrifty Drug Store, $2.29/each plus tax). No, we didn’t have any work, but we felt great just the same.

At the time, a cup of coffee was still a dime at Sambo’s, and that was our lunch every day. We called it “Coffee Bean Soup,” and drank lots of it from the bottomless pot of java and the soothing little jug of “coffee whitener,” the ingredients of which we avoided thinking about. We had Coffee Bean Soup and lots of laughs and not a whole lot more at first. No sensible person would have lasted a day with us.

We spent the last part of June and most of July driving around looking for piles of trash to haul, weeds to be cut down, anything that would get us another few dollars for the next day’s gas and a couple of beers that evening. We did some pretty horrendous things. And we were having a blast.

Finally in late July, we got a job building some retain­ing walls and a terraced garden for a kindly college profes­sor up in the hills. I often think back on how trusting he was to let us do this, especially since our initial approach had been to ask him if we could haul away some rubbish. Still, I guess we did something right because he kept us busy right through September.

The first day, we broke the gas main. The next month was the hottest on record. The soil was more like rock and it never occurred to us to soften it with some water before try­ing to dig it. But we were doing it, that was the thing! And what a summer it was, so good to be alive. We were on our way!

Now to the main thing, the thing that has kept me going all these many years. We finished just as a bit of fall was be­ginning to show up in the morning air. And yes, the job was beautiful, everyone agreed on that. The last day, about 3:00 p.m., Buddy and I carried the last of our tools up to the faithful blue Ford and turned to look back down on our mas­terpiece. That moment, there with my wonderful friend and business partner, there with our hard fine work, that moment will surely always guide me through the hard times, as it has so often in the past. We stood for I don’t know how long, each thinking the same thought: that if we could feel this good once a year, that would be reason enough to carry on. When we finally turned to each other we both had tears in our eyes.

Horticulture has been good to me. I’m pretty comfortable these days. I have lots of work, and if I have Coffee Bean Soup for lunch it’s because I’m trying to lose a couple of pounds. I still think about quitting now and then; we all have our bad days. But when I consider the other choices I might have made, I’m glad about my life.

Now, I will tell you that if you want to put your green thumb to use, and if you learn to do things really right, you will be doing something brave and noble and fine. You will have a marvelous, difficult and rewarding life. You will meet the finest and warmest people. You will see beauty every day, beauty often of your own making. And as you grow old, you will travel beneath the shade of trees you yourself planted with your own hands. If this is what you want, I’ll try to help you get a good start. Remember, don’t come looking for riches, easy money or a soft life. But if you can live with whatever your personal Coffee Bean Soup is to be, and if you can stick it out, I do guarantee that your soul will be nour­ished, your heart will be moved and your corner of the world will be much the better for your having made your choice. And, yes, I do hope to save you some time and trouble by keeping you from making the mistakes I made.

Truth is, most people who start a business of whatever kind know only their craft. That’s not enough. You’ve got to run a business, too, and if you run it badly, you’ll fail. Sadly, most people do fail because, like a garden, a business is a complex and challenging thing. It’s just too much for most who try. You see, if you only know horticulture, you’ve only got half the skills you need in order to do well. So now, let’s make you the exception, the one who succeeds so that you can do what you love, earn your livelihood at it, stay out of trouble and have a good time.

Most of this book is about practical matters. I’m not going to tell you how to plant roses or what kind of fertil­izer to use. There are plenty of books that will help you with all that. This is a book about the business of hor­ticul­ture. You’re go­ing to learn how to set up your company, how to write a business plan, keep records, find and keep good employees, attract and retain clients, manage jobs and a lot more. You’re going to learn how to do things right the first time. Nuts and bolts? Yes, but don’t be put off – you’ll find it’s as interesting as gardening. And remember what’s behind it all – a love of green things, of natural surroundings, of nurtur­ing. It’s all connected, all a part of the great adven­ture. Come on along…

To purchase your own autographed copy of How to Start a Home-Based Landscaping Business, click here. Thank you!

Adversarial Horticulture

I don’t watch TV much. I’m too busy and TV makes me restless, and besides I enjoy the smug feeling of being able to act as though I’m above all that. But now and then when I’m in a hotel room and there’s nothing better to do, my dark side comes out and I find myself watching tacky cop shows and other lowbrow dreck. I'm not too proud of that, but there it is.   

A few springs ago I made a visit to a local desert and got severely rained out as soon as I arrived. There was nothing to do except hole up in a cheesy motel until the wicked storm passed. Surfing through the channels I came upon an ad for power garden equipment. The sponsor was one of the large national home improvement store chains. Like so many ads, this one was a little 60-second play in which the Happy Suburban Homeowner (a 30-ish white male) ventures out to the far corners of his lot, his sturdy shoulders hung with a goodly arsenal of power tools – weed whacker, lawnmower, chainsaw, etc. 

Looking like he's bound for Iraq, HSH disappears into the shrubbery. Soon a cacophony of snarling motor noises emerges from the greenery, and bits of hedge and grass fly up as the foliage quakes and shivers as if it were being devoured by a giant gopher. After a while, HSH emerges, a bit soiled, with his hat askew and his t-shirt hanging out. But he has a happy grin because he has once again prevailed against the enemy that is his garden. Cut to the logos of Toro, John Deere and Green Machine.   

Such is the relationship many of us have with our yards. We accept, and are even eager about, the apparent necessity to engage in a fierce war with the garden as part of our Saturday domestic ritual. Thus a place intended to be a peaceful refuge from the world’s troubles becomes a chlorophyll-soaked battleground strewn with the severed branches and mutilated grass blades of a suburbia in mortal conflict. 

I call this Adversarial Horticulture. I also call it unnecessary. It is not what we really have in mind, is it? Truth is, if you take a little extra time to design stability into your landscape you won't need to struggle. The garden you create will be on your side and stern measures won't be needed.

Gardeners are pathetic control freaks. We really are. I include myself in this. We cultivate a benign image that is utterly at odds with our truly vicious nature. The Gentle Art of Gardening? My foot. If weeds are to be counted as plants then we kill far more than we grow, do we not? If insects are among the wildlife we claim to love, then we must include genocide among our activities. We pinch, prune, shear, slash, chop, dig up, bury, squash, graft, coppice, espalier, pollard, girdle, tie up, tie down, stake, eradicate, poison, drown, trap, suffocate, and just plain murder. The monstrous things we do to plants and insects would land us in prison if we did them to a puppy. So much of gardening is about control and so little is about truly nurturing. (Gee, I hate to get political here, but a recent study revealed that Democrats spend most of their gardening time nurturing plants, while Republicans, if they garden, spend their time tidying up and shearing plants into unnatural shapes. Not to cast any aspersions or anything.) 

Why do we behave this way? Do we use the garden to act out our frustrations at being otherwise out of control at home, at work, on the street? When we can’t deal with our teenagers or our spouses or our boss, does the garden serve as a surrogate? If so, we have a great deal of work to do on ourselves. On the other hand, if all this is made necessary by the condition of our gardens themselves, then we had best get to work on creating a better garden. I'll share more in future posts about how to make this happen. For now, know that help is on the way.