Consider yourself as a mentor

I've been in landscaping and gardening (in one form or another) since I left school at 16. I've worked on golf courses, landscaped massive (and not so massive) private gardens, maintained estates and even a whole town's recreational spaces and landscape facilities. I consider myself as experienced and knowledgeable but I am certain that what experience and knowledge I do possess is just the tip of an iceberg as far as the landscape and horticulture profession is concerned. There's no doubt about it, landscaping and gardening is a challenging business; both in the physical and knowledge sense. We have to own and use more tools than any other profession, we potentially know more Latin than any other type of business (and that may include Doctors too) and there is such a variety of skills and different facets of the trade. We just cannot know everything but should we discriminate against someone who knows less than we do? Afterall, we too were in the same boat once and as long as we are alive and willing to continue working in this great profession then we will always continue to learn - there is absolutely no way that we will ever absorb everything. LJN is unique for so may different reasons but probably one of its most enduring qualities is the pool of knowledge that is contained within its membership. We all know something that another person doesn't and we are all capable of learning something from someone else. I set LJN up in the first instance because I wanted a place where everyone could come, without the need to be vetted or accredited so that we could all benefit from another's wisdom. Someone called me a evangelist the other day; others might think I'm some kind of guru but I'm just an ordinary guy with a bit of energy, a lot of passion and a will to see a job through. What you might not believe is that I have learned so much more from other members of LJN than I have ever put into the site myself and I feel that if the question was asked of others that they might have a similar answer. We cannot afford to discourage newcomers to the trade. It is not in their interest or in the interests of our industry for a person starting a new business to wander aimlessly and without help through the initial stages of their new business life. We have no right to insist that any person seeks an educational route before embarking on a business and we have no right to demand or dictate at what stage they should reach certain milestones. However, what we can encourage is that anyone who does choose landscaping or horticulture as their business is that they do everything within the constraints of their current capabilities and we do have the ability to help them achieve that. What might seem a daft question to one person is an imperative link to a solution to another. I remember when I first tried to take box cuttings. I used pure seed compost and I was extremely annoyed when the cuttings rotted off. I learnt from that mistake (and this was before Google was anything like it is today) that box cuttings need to have at least 50% grit in the compost. I would like you to consider yourselves as mentors and think about how you may need help and advice - even after several years in the trade - and how you too can offer it to others. It could even be the case that two individuals of similar standing, in sense of time served in the industry, may exchange beneficial information but they are no less equal for needing the help.

Replies

HM GARDENS July 25, 2010 at 1:35pm

Can I just say I had a really good tip from what was a worrying post, it was a small snippet that I had not thought of and will help improve my very small ( tiny) buisiness.
I really appreciate any verbal help and I absolutely would help anyone in return.
Fenlandphil July 25, 2010 at 2:23pm

Some years ago I heard Malcolm Muggeridge talking on the subject of specialisation and the specialist expert.
He said, "specialisation taken to an extreme leads an expert to know more and more about less and less, the end result is someone who knows absolutely everything about nothing."
There is a very good reason why we have all been given two eyes and two ears but only one mouth, we should all have the capacity to gain more knowledge than we can impart.
Richard@www.seasons-garden.co.uk July 25, 2010 at 6:02pm

I think most of us will echo your sentiments on this subject Phil- it is a very good site indeed.
However, it is an unregulated and very competetive industry and many of us will have witnessed the standard of work done by others pretending to be bona fide tradespeople or been denied work by a cash only quote. You can understand therefore why people post their responses as 'No one showed me how to do it....' But how would you 'vet' the member posing the question in the first place? Cowboys own pc's too.
PRO

Lara Hurley July 30, 2010 at 9:19pm

It's all about the passion someone has for a subject. If someone is doing a job because they love it, they will learn as much as they can from wherever they can and use the knowledge well. Cowboys, in it for the money, or folks who don't care about the job, will do a bad job or be poor students. Never judge a book by its cover though...Many of my best students used to be those who'd come from nowhere, no qualifications, no money, just a genuine desire to find out more. Don't turn anyone away. I've been teaching landscape stuff for many years and still have to ask 'stupid' questions...
Nick Donaghey @ Garden Gurus July 30, 2010 at 9:32pm

I remember recently reading about a study that showed that conciencious people tend to do better in their careers; an absolutely pointless study as anyone with even a small grasp on reality could work this out. My point is that anyone conciencious enough to ask a group of virtual strangers for help in understanding their trade deserves all the help they can be given.