Re: Looking for gardeners

**j* e* m* s* <h*@sbcglobal.net>**

With a weekly garden column and several speaking engagements each 
year, I get a lot of opportunities to do garden consulting, which 
frequently leads to requests for garden design and yes, installation.

Do what you know. I know plants but not design, so I work with a 
designer. Depending on the size of the job, we will do the planting 
or, if it's big, we hire people to do the work. We have a stable of 
Master Gardeners that we pull from to do the planting and we have two 
guys w/muscles and equipment we can bring in for big jobs. We also 
sometimes work with a crew of Mexican men. The manager of this crew 
makes his own financial arrangments with our clients.

We pay our crew members $25 an hour for some work and $35 an hour for 
other, as a pass-through. We don't take anything off the top. I know 
that landscape companies would probably not be able to pay crews 
those kinds of fees, but we're a small operation and we work with 
clients who seek us out, finding us mostly by word of mouth. We also 
will work in phases w/clients. A large commercial job has taken us 
three years to complete because of the clien'ts sked and budget.

The designer and I discuss and spec plants for her design, I source 
them and do the logistics...getting people and materials on site. We 
bill for our services, such as the design and plant selection. We 
make our 'gravy,' as we call it, from what we charge for plants. I 
use a factor based on my cost and we quote a planted price.

Besides what I think is decent pay, we offer flexibility of schedule, 
which is something that appeals to several people who don't want to 
work every day. We usually try to keep the same crew on a job until 
it's done, but we might work with a different crew on the next job.

jems

-- 
Jo Ellen Meyers Sharp
The Hoosier Gardener
Writer * Editor * Speaker * Garden Consultant
Co-author of The Indiana Gardener's Guide
P.O. Box 20310
Indianapolis, IN 46220
E-mail: hoosiergardener@sbcglobal.net
http://www.hoosiergardener.com
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