Spent this evening at a discussion by London college of garden design .
The evening was chaired by Mark Gregory ( landform consultants) and I must admit I like the guy he talks a lot of sense and has years of experience and plenty of accolades from Chelsea flower show for gardens he has created.
The evening was mainly about contractors and designers and how they work together the good and the bad points and what both sides can do to improve the relationship.
All in all a very interesting and informative couple of hours, it was eye opening when he said that out of all the landscaping contractors out there probably no more that 25% were actually any good and worth working with. Now I have no reason to doubt what he says as he is at the top of his game, but it doesnt fill you full of confidence about the state of the industry.
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25%..............I'm suprised he thinks there's that many!
I see it more as an opportunity.
Stand out from the crowd, aspire to join the '25% Club', if you haven't joined already, and there'll be plenty of work available out there, not least from designers.
The designers in the audience were more worried about how they are supposed to find a landscaper that was in the 25%.
"it was eye opening when he said that out of all the landscaping contractors out there probably no more that 25% were actually any good and worth working with. Now I have no reason to doubt what he says as he is at the top of his game, but it doesnt fill you full of confidence about the state of the industry."
A couple of questions arise:
How does Mark Gregory know only 25% of landscapers (I assume he means businesses?) are any good?
Estimates vary on how many landscaping businesses there are in the UK. LANTRA say there are 16,850 businesses employing 125,000 people working in horticulture, landscaping and sports turf.
If we split the 16,850 businesses equally, just for argument's sake, that leaves us (potentially) 5,616 landscaping businesses. Splitting this down further 25% of 5,616 is 1,404 (good?) landscaping businesses based on Mark Gregory's assumption.
Now this is interesting and I've never quite worked this out in this way before.
We know that the APL (of which Mark Gregory is chairman) has 220 landscaping member businesses. Based on his 25% assumption it means just 16% of this assumed 25% of good landscapers are members of the APL (or .
One has got to ask the question, why aren't the other 84% not members?
Based on the LANTRA figures, BALI & APL represent just 4% of the entire UK landscaping horticulture and turf care market.
I attended an evening with Mark Gregory last year and and like you say Gordon it was a very interesting and informative evening
I agree with Mark Gregory's comment as there is a massive shortage of highly skilled people in all walks of life and not just in the landscaping industry of which there is no training available at this current time for people to learn just paving its combined with horticulture too
I get asked regular have I any jobs available for paving and after asking a few basic questions you know they have only been at it for a short while and don't have the skill to carry out the work to the high standards we work too, you could say anyone can lay paving but can they lay it to a high standard - the answer is sadly no they can't but it their eyes they think they can and can't understand when you stop them from working to put right what they have already completed
every man and his dog are having a go at hard landscaping now due to the shortage of work on the large sites, people being laid off etc plus garden maintenance guys having a go too, not saying this is wrong as I think competition is healthy but they under cut everyone to the extent it devalues the industry
I expect he was basing this on work he has come across and discussions with others in the industry, and he was well aware of the fact that many in the APL were not producing quality work.
But as he said everybody has different points of view on what constitutes quality work.
Thanks Gordon
That was an interesting comment for Mark to make!
Gordon Bowerman said:
Don't forget the low-budget effect! ... We all know we have to work to budget. I've built plenty of gardens I wasn't happy with because the client couldnt afford or didnt know better and I needed the job. They'd get a cowboy to do it anyway.
I've also lost money on jobs because I have to build to my standard even though they wont pay for it.
cant believe that 75% of landscapers are no good .. thats not my observation and I know plenty of them.
more like 95 ;-)
APL members are coached not to compete on price.
There is a minimum standard that APL members have to adhere to. It won't be comforting to them to hear that some members aren't meeting those standards.
It's a bit of a gaff from their [APL] chairman to let slip that "many in the APL were not producing quality work."
Daniel Johnson III said:
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