helping landscapers become plant people

**<d*@sympatico.ca>**

I have tremendous respect for the lassie from Poison Ivy Acres and have no doubt that her dander has been raised for good reason. There's not quite enough information in her post or on her blog to see what got her going.

For example, what is the history of this particular landscaper association? Had they previously hosted plant seminars, are they planning to do so? What is their general record?

Here's a bit of background before I get into the topic. 

Landscape Ontario, a volunteer horticultural trades association of approx 2500 business members just held its annual Congress in Toronto- a 3 day trade show with seminars and other events. Of the 32 listed seminars (not counting an all day session on IPM ) 14 were directly related to plants, of which 5 looked specifically at sustainability. The other 18 were primarily related to improving business practices although 2 of those focussed on media relations.

My day job is a nursery manager and trades account supervisor so I'm in daily contact with a large customer base. Most of the landscapers I know are in the business because they like landscaping and they like plants. ABsolutely, there are some philistines out there but most are folks that you would invite home to dinner or sit and have a beer with. I consider myself a gardener first and a landscaper a distant second. My avocation is garden communicator.

Many of a landscaper's customers don't know plants and don't really care what they are as long as form and function are met. Form and function is usually defined as  solid green mono-cultured lawns surrounded by solid green privacy hedges. Most landscapers take that into account and still provide appropriate materials. Their clientele are entirely different from the retail customers who come to our garden centre asking for landscaping advice. 

Most landscapers have a preferred plant list, some more comprehensive than others, for several reasons:

    it needs to be bullet proof unless the customer exhibits gardening skills or hires the landscaper for maintenance. (We saw one irate customer at our store descrying the integrity and lineage of a landscaper because a blue mist (Caryopteris clandenesis) had died. Never mind that the landscaper had recommended against it -perhaps USDA Zone 3 might have had something to do with it). The upshot was that many retail customers heard the tirade and, for sure, that company's name is registered in their mind as a negative.)

   it needs to be readily available from a variety of plant outlets and in matching size at the time of demise.

   the value of the plant portion of a landscaping job often pales in comparison to the value of the entire job and, so, doesn't merit as much design time. That time was spent in developing the plant list using the following parameters: sun, shade, wet, dry, shale, clay.

We like to think that plants are the most important part of the landscaping job but, unfortunately, that is just not so. There needs to be a distinction made between what we, as gardeners, call landscaping, and what the landscapers call landscaping. And yes I'm aware there is a huge middle-ground cross-over.

To refer back to what Charles said about landscapers being active:

L.O. on behalf of its members was very active politically on the cosmetic pesticide ban issue (on the wrong side of the issue but that's my opinion)

Very active in developing certification programmes for professional development, including both portfolio education and journeyman trade status and numerous business skills.

INvolved in green roofs and LEEDS. 

Developing and implementing safety initiatives, banked hours, scholarship programmes, community beautification projects etc.

So there are "good" landscapers out there.

Can we, as garden writers, work away at "educating" the landscaper? Sure we can but we best have our duckies lined up before jumping into the pond. How many of us garden writers still belong to the Victorian school of rapacious plant collection (visit a foreign country and hide a slip or seed in a jacket hem?) How many of us suggest that gardens are nothing more than an artificial construct and, as such, should please us without environmental constraints? How many of us disagree completely with any cosmetic ban?  Absolutely, we have philistines amongst our lot as well.

I suggest that we,  as gardener writers, can further the cause by educating all consumers. We need to discuss organics, green initiatives, native plantings, sustainability etc but we also should include cost factors. Us enlightened folk might wonder how you can put a price tag on correct practices but our readers, aka landscaper customers, certainly do.

And, we can certainly get on the speaker's schedule for trade associations and do our bit there, as well.

This shouldn't become an us vs them exercise, 'cause we are us.

Dan

Dan Clost's Greenscapes

GWA member

LOHTA member

_______________________________________________
gardenwriters mailing list
gardenwriters@lists.ibiblio.org
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/gardenwriters

GWL has searchable archives at:
http://www.hort.net/lists/gardenwriters

Send photos for GWL to gwlphotos@hort.net to be posted
at: http://www.hort.net/lists/gwlphotos

Post gardening questions/threads to
&quot;Gardenwriters on Gardening&quot; &lt;gwl-g@lists.ibiblio.org&gt;

For GWL website and Wiki, go to
http://www.ibiblio.org/gardenwriters