Gardening as a career

[Dolphin78]

Afternoon I’m tired of the corporate world and it’s been a tumultuous few years with redundancy and other unexpected career events. I’ve had enough of eating my life applying for soulless jobs for the last 5 months so I bought a domain set up a website and about to buy done cards and possibly sign up for a design course.
I’ve got a freedom fund and a ton of knowledge but I’m a single parent of teens and I’m scared…
Am I mad?

Yes. Good luck! I'd love to hear in six months you've got lots of customers but we are in a financial squeeze as a nation so I doubt employing a novice garden designer is going to be top of most people's list. I don't blame you for trying though, I'd love to do it. Please update us.

Aww thanks 🙏

I don’t see why not? Loads of people don’t want to do their own gardens. I guess you will need a van and some horticultural knowledge?

Perhaps I misunderstood...do you intend to be a garden designer or someone who cuts grass and other garden jobs OP?

The intention is to provide maintenance but moving on into design with some experience.
Keeping it simple to start but planing on doing some training/rhs courses. I’ve got decent knowledge and some flair

My experience of employing gardeners has been rather disappointing, their lack of knowledge was a big issue and also their lack of care. I have had help from one person who gardened the way I would, had I been able to, but sadly he worked in a different field, the gardening was a stopgap. I always said if he turned to gardening FT he should use " Gardening the way you would yourself" as a slogan.

That's not much use for people with little interest in their gardens but I do think there are many who are no longer able to do what they once could who would be over the moon to have a caring, careful and knowledgeable gardener. Best of luck to you @Dolphin78 , I hope it works out for you

PS Remember that some potential customers won't have the internet so a wee poster in the local Post Office, cafe, hospital or chemist if allowed might be worth trying.

Age U.K. are advertising for self employed gardeners near me, might be worth contacting them as a starting point. They want people to prune, weed and cut lawns

My dad did this - he’s an ex engineer and never took the plunge until my sister and I were grown up as he was worried about the risks - he has since retired but he had a very healthy book of business. He developed it by focusing on local estates - they live in an area of townships with big houses and aging population and actually a lot of the time he was returning the locations to a state that made the people overjoyed to see it come to life again and often became a companion and someone their family members who might live far away would rely on for checking in on them. Might help that it’s a rural community but he was inundated with work and was able to be quite choosy about what he took on. Also covered some sections of the town for the local authorities with his brother who gave up his chain of butcher shops to move into gardening too. My dad is very into gardening and this really played to his passion for plants, people and problem solving in engineering space. Best of luck to you! A sensible business plan and a people focused business outlook can succeed.

Have a look at the Weweed website, it is a network of mainly female gardeners,with lots of advice on getting started, many of their gardeners are ex corporate. Under events on their site they have a zoom event on May 12 on becoming a self employed gardener

Good for you!

I left the corporate world to become a gardener. Gardening has been my passion all my life so when I'd had enough of my career I did exactly what you're doing. I trained with the RHS to Level 2 on day release over a period of three years alongside running my business. It gave me knowledge, confidence and lots of contacts.

One of the best things I did was borrow this book from the library. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Start-Run-Gardening-Business-4th/dp/1472119967

Everything you need to start up and be successful is in there.

I absolutely love it and have never regretted ditching the corporate job. My clients have become friends, I'm outdoors all day every day doing what I adore. I just do maintenance and gardening no design because it's the hands on with the soil and plants I enjoy. Some of my former horticultural college mates became designers. Much harder getting work in that field. The contacts are great for me though because they hand over their projects to me when it gets to planting stage....that's really fun and lucrative work.

There is A LOT of gardening work out there. You will have a waiting list in no time. I only advertised once by delivering cards through doors. After that it was all word of mouth or people who saw me out and about working asked me to work for them. I reckon one post on a local community facebook page and you'll be away. Charge the market rate from day one as you'll regret getting work cheap when in six months' time you're rushed off your feet.

Hope you love it. Good luck.

I would love to hear how you get on as this is something I've thought of too. I'm sick of my corporate desk job although redundancies are on the cards and I'd get a good pay out so I'm sort of hanging on for that!

@Dolphin78 My DD did a career change to Interior Design. 1 year diploma course. Very very full on but worth it: expensive though! I’d honestly look at taking a course and doing some training. Yes, you will probably have to pay but the knowledge is invaluable.

I am middle-aged but spend far too much time on t'internet and came across this quiz from Careers Wales. It came up with some really good ideas, so I got my friends to do it and they were equally impressed with some of the suggestions.

My friend is looking at a job in biodiversity at her local Council and the quiz did highlight it's probably a much better fit than her current job.

Job ideas

Do you find you have much work over winter?

@SherbertsHerberts Winter work might be more physical or be centred around planning and design. My Gardner chooses not to work in the winter but I wish he did! We always have jobs, but we have a big garden and are reordering it as we get older. So anyone gardening needs to be able to redesign too. That’s where additional learning comes in.

Practical gardeners benefit from the RHS Level 2 Practical Horticulture course, as it demonstrates to a customer real knowledge and not just somebody who weeds and cuts grass.

I’ve no idea if it’s feasible but how exciting! Good luck, interested to hear how it works out for you 😊

A close friend owns/managers a very large plant nursery. He holds multiple horticultural degrees/courses and often jokes about every 2nd person now being a 'garden designer'.

You might be brilliant OP, but what actual expertise do you have it knowing 1000's of different garden plants, how they will look in 1, 3, 10yrs time in your design, ongoing care/pruning etc etc?

I had a lovely chap cut the grass and do pruning on my probate property the past year, he was an absolute life line for me and saved me a fortune in train fares knowing he was there every two weeks.

Best of luck, I hope it works out and you find a good customer base.

I employ a gardener and have spent too many hours trying to find gardeners for my elderly relatives, so good for you.

I was going to suggest this too. They were on BBC news the other week. All about supporting female gardeners of all levels of experience.

My mum has a gardener like this. He's amazing as a gardener. But he's also absolutely lovely with my mum. She was ill not too long ago and he was happy too sit with her and have a cuppa. We had his number and he'd let us know how she was - she's not a reliable source of information on this and we all live miles from her so can't just pop round.

If you plan on leafleting I would look at areas with decent sized gardens and elderly owners.

I'm skint and love doing the garden myself so not your target market. What I have considered but never done is having someone knowledgeable walk round my garden and give me suggestions. So paying for maybe an hour of their time. You could do this in new estates where people have a blank canvas. It could be a service you offer. Make sure you charge enough though.

Wow thank you ALL for the hint, tips and advice it’s really got me moving this morning after I woke up with the fear!
I’ve checked out weweed, have signed up for the RHS level 2 in September and am going to order some leaflets as well as post on FB. It’s taken me 5 months to realise I want to do something I love ❤️ and not be chained to a desk.

Thank you! I’ve ordered the book! Would you mind if I sent you a DM about rates?