I have'nt posted here since i heard the sad news that Phil had died. My apologies for that although I have continued to support the site every year through being a pro member. Life has a way of twisting and turning in ways you could not imagine. I both love and hate my gardening job. It was not always this way, when I firat started in horticulture I was chomping on the bit. I came from an agricultural background but didn't want to persue that because of the damage I witnessed it doing to the environment. Hence I ended up working to try and enhance the environment by trying to promote wildlife friendly garden space and other privately owned spaces.
It was a very fruitless task at first, my schedule was mostly full of clients who wanted pristine gardens manicured within an inch of their lives and would rather have me throw every chemical known to man at their garden as long as it worked out cheaper. As time went by I found a few clients who shared my values but the uptake was slow. I get that a garden is a place that is used for various activities but I could'nt get it out of my head that what i was doing was so against my strong views about the environment. It seemed that most clients wanted a garden that looked good (in their view) and did'nt care what damage was done to get there.
Things have changed now and I have a lot more clients who share my views but very few who's stance is as strong as mine. If it was up to me this planet would be left to go wild. But then would I have a job ? I have a couple of clients who are as bonkers as me if not more. They occupy my time for two days a week, The rest are at varying levels of environmental awareness but as usual it always comes down to the most deadly sin of all - the love of money. They want to earn lots but pay people to work for them at the lowest rate they can get away with. I am an expert at spotting these clients on first meeting them so things are not taken any further.
I have one day per week still filled with the type of client I am trying to avoid. Basically because the market for wildlife / environment friendly gardening is not that big. I have actively looked for these kind of customers for over ten years. They have come but it has been a dribble. I am hoping that the recent news regarding climate change will encourage more people to embrace this way of doing things, not just with their gardens but with every aspect of their life. Is this too much to ask ? It's not for my sake but that of our planet, children and other species which inhabit this ball of rock.
Views: 661
Replies
Great post . Agree gardening can be love hate , I see many manicured gardens and low maintenance gardens i suspect many are about the customer adding benefit to their own lifestyle and making the most of what little time they have , Its difficult to judge because many also have a tidy eye essential to their mental wellbeing and it will be evident in all areas of their lives .
I used to have a client who would ring me when a few leaves from her neighbours tree strayed onto her manicured lawn and it was always an emotional plea to call and remove them but she was organised and highly succesfull , i suspect she applied those meticulous standards to every area of her life .
From my point of view it was gardeners boot camp because every line had to be straight , neat and tidy , the wind was my worst nightmare , we parted amicably .
In most gardens i find if you are enviromentally aware you can plug some beneficial plant to attract bees etc to re set the balance , every little helps .
What can we do about slugs and snails which show no mercy and devestate rows of dahlias , crops of lettuce . Ants which suck the starch out of sunflowers , I have watched adult finches carrying food to their young in nesting boxes only to witness crows lining up ready to pick off the baby birds as soon as they emerge from the safety of the box .
How many gardeners stop the mower to allow a bee to feast off a head of clover ? or place a ladybird on a rose stem .
I used to manage an area around a lake the most important thing was knowing when the tadpoles were about to emerge as little frogs and not strim or mow , it becomes second nature but what do you say to a client who is having a garden party that weekend and wants a tidy ship , finding clients who are in tune and understand can be difficult .
So much of gardening is about keeping up appearances at any cost .
Coming from a creative background my old boss was a master craftsman and told me '' everything is in the eye and there is no place for the abstract so we must tow the line and align ourselves to our clients desires to earn a crust '' In the end he started to resent his clients and dismissed them , self sabotage and went bankrupt .
I think its getting easier to achieve a balance if we take the time but the problem i find is its easy to end up on a treadmill in our work just trying to get through the day , It takes an act of will to break this habit its often easier to manage whats already in the garden and get paid , its often difficult to make suggestions if the clients are not around .
I once had a client who was a nature lover and after a visit to her garden she rang me up , furious she was and told me there were aphids on her roses and reminded me she did not buy greenfly spray for the fun of it but i had a deeper sense of observation in spotting the ladybird nymphs but then you end up doubting yourself and wonder whats it all about .
Reading your post, I guess I must have been luckier than most with my clients (most are rural, property-rich, cash not so much!). Most now have wildflower areas, I no longer have any clients that basically don't like nature!
The one aspect I find difficult to get rid of is using weedkiller - for old driveways, gravelled areas, paving etc there's not a better alternative that's also cost-effective - open to suggestions!!
I feel you can apply a different approach to different sites and a lot boils down to your clients budget and tolerance of weeds .
Over the years i have introduced ground cover which can engulf areas which would otherwise become infested with weeds a favourite is johnsons blue geranium or ladies mantle which some call a weed .
Celandine was a favourite with one employers wife as was establishing violets in between cracks in paving and cobbles .
Use of shade in some areas also helped and planting shrubs such as rhododendron along walkways to screen exposed areas and a cheap fix was to plant buddleias in large exposed areas to detract and what nicer than to see scores of butterflies swarming around the flowers but if you have a customer who is a purist you need a different approach .
mulches are a quick fix but not a permanent solution unless its concrete .
An unusual approach i once saw was the old gardener with a big sweet jar full of calandula seeds he sowed randomly in a large exposed area , The results were spectactular and became a real talking point and kept the weed down for a season .
Also done plenty of hoeing which i find very satisfying but even with the most green minded considerate client i have seen the application of herbicides put to use by qualified professionals to reclaim sterile areas and re plant to create more beneficial areas where more life can flourish , Application always carefully measured and a last resort .
Things like nettles and borage add lots of value to insects much depends on peoples approach to weeds , I find foxgloves are a bit marmite , personally i love them but had customers who pull them up in disgust .
In big gardens they can afford to give more back to wilding and leave pockets undisturbed but smaller gardens i prefer to hoe and hand weed i actually enjoy it when you step back and look at what you have achieved its satisfying but time consuming .
There is a place for specialists to deal with weeds like ground elder and mares tail .
Even mowing or brush cutting wiill have its casualties
Agreed - my largest gardens are all fairly wildlife friendly - and for the past 3 years I have point blanked refused to soak whole areas of gravel in Glyphosphate and the like. I carry a 2 litre pump spray of selective and total weedkiller - any particularly stubborn weeds get a drink, the rest don't.
One of the larger clients has asked for the acre of rear lawn not to be cut this year at all - they have loads of snowdrops (gone now) acconites, daffs - these die back, orchids appear and so on. It is a picture, though getting a standard ride on through it once or twice a year is a challenge!
Hi Stuart,
so good to read your post, I completely understand how you feel! I stopped gardening about 6 years ago when I was still down south and going through a heap of life hassle! I'd always been into nature, had stopped using any spray and mowed a bit less, but in the back of my mind there was always this niggling feeling that what I was doing and what I believed in weren't really aligned. Then I decided that gardening was just fighting against nature but still I carried on.
I'd designed 3 gardens and helped build them, still a lot of environmentally unfriendly stuff going on, trying to counteract that with lots of lovely pollinator friendly planting, but my desire for design and creativity and putting shapes, textures, materials and plants etc together was still niggling me. I used to edge my own lawn with scissors, so I could see what was going on in borders and not trim any small beings, and often just edging made the longer grass look more 'managed' although I’m not keen on the word managed! Lots of conflicting thoughts going on.
Anyway, 6 years later and been up in the Scottish Borders for 4 of those, lots of different jobs, but been in a garden centre for the last 18months.
I LOVE buying and displaying the plants and enthusing with customers about plants and gardening in general, but what I find absurd is a customer with a lovely plant in one hand, bought because Bees love it, and in the other hand a can of Wasp spray 😔
I’ve been reading Dave Goulson’s books and my heart was telling me I need to do what was important and ‘right’, so, I’m still at the garden centre, having reduced my days, and Ive started gardening again with a friend who was going through the same issues, fed up with ‘tidying’ folks gardens and clients wanting everything neat, and only liking some parts of Nature.
We’re doing lots of planting though, to show folks that it can look wonderful AND be great for all those wee garden souls and encouraging people to just relax it a bit. Every time I get doubts I remind myself of a chap up here who started a company called ‘Humane Wildlife Solutions’, in the midst of the tweedy, hunty, shooty masses, and his friends and family telling him he was mad, he’s done it! Ten years he’s been going, he’s based up here but travels all over and also gives advice via video call. He managed to get the government to ban the sale of glue traps and has just joined in partnership with the Born Free Foundation!
It helps having a friend to work with, and I don’t know if it’s going to work out, but we’ve got to try. It’s SO important!
Where are you based?
Take care,
Rosie
Inspirational post Rosie. Much more to be said & discussed so hope this topic runs ....
Great post. I have to admit that most of the gardens we are asked to design specify 'low maintenance' but sadly that usually means easy to manicure rather than wildlife friendly.
It's a joy to be asked to design a bee-friendly planting plan or to incorporated hedges and/or wildflower areas into a garden. Even water features can be a great support for all kinds of critters as well as bringing visual and aural interest into the garden.
When we're designing for domestic customers, via Tapestry Design Studios, our designers will always take the time to encourage clients to take eco-friendly options. We're getting there, slowly. I think it helps that Monty Don frequently mentions gardening techniques that are better for our planet.
Lovely post.
I'm a bit caught in the middle of an this too - I absolutely refuse to use chemicals/weedkillers (taking this to the extent of using a weed brush over several hours to de-weed several hundred metres of pavements and driveways on a communal housing area I maintain). However...as this last sentence suggests, I do a fair bit of maintenance and this can be environmentally counterproductive (e.g. why do pavements need to be weed-free anyway!?). Quite bit of mowing which I am conscious is probably awful in terms of emissions. The issue that I am fighting against is that stuff like this tends to pay me more (approx £30p/h+, as opposed to £17.50p/h which I charge for as a basic rate for what I'd call 'proper gardening').
I do work for a wide variety of clients, have sown a couple of wildflower meadows (even own a scythe which I've used to cut the meadows in autumn), designed and planted a few borders specifically with pollinator-friendly plants in mind...etc. I value this type of work and the thoughtful approach it requires far more... I use electric hedge cutters which I guess is better than petrol, although there is a whole debate about the production of batteries and environmental destruction required to mine the necessary metals etc.
So...my real issue is that on the one hand I need to earn a living to pay mortgage, support my partner (and soon our kid too, who's due in June) and sometimes the un-environmental stuff seems to pay better. This is completely insane as far as I'm concerned, but does seem to be the way of things. Maybe I should be charging more than £17.50ph for "proper gardening", but I'm quite new to the game and only just working my way up in terms of experience...
For those of you who have had some success with promoting more environmental practices in some of your customers' gardens, would be great to hear what you've done and what has been most/least successful.
I'm based in rural North Yorkshire.
The best jobs have always come from word of mouth. The local bee keeping community are good to know. It is the larger gardens where I am most fulfilled and able to do it my way. I got a very good large estate client after she saw my website (searching for a wildlife friendly gardener) and head hunted me.
My website is old now and I haven't done anything to it for many years. It needs an overhaul desperately as I still have services listed I no longer want to provide.
Battery powered tools have only just started getting more popular but I've been using Pellenc for 11 years now. I shy away from using anythjng with a petrol engine these days. I do lots of things with hand tools where it is economical. A scythe is a must have tool.
Work in small gardens is now down to one day a week. Boy do I dread that day. I have even considered going to a four day week until I can find more of what I want or try to upsell to the environmentally aware customers I already have.
Something will have to change and in a massive way if the planet is to avoid what is forecast. I still come across people who think climate change is not man made and that we are being manipulated by the super powerful / rich elite so they can increase their power and wealth. There is no point arguing with these people, I would rather spend my time doing what I can.
There's definitely manipulation. The intent behind it is actually well documented and transparent.Having said that,of course we should strive to maintain balance and harmony with nature wherever possible. What we shouldn't do is allow our inherent good nature (for the most part!) be taken advantage of by those in a position to influence how we think,feel and act.
-
1
-
2
of 2 Next