New business help plz

Hi, excellent forum you have here, lots of great information!

I am starting this thread as I am after some advice. I am 28 years old and I am currently planning on starting my own gardening round early next spring and I hope to build it in a full-time business, working solo. I feel that my area will enable me to do that.

However, at the moment my gardening experience is very limited and I am very keen to learn more and teach myself. I have started a distance learning course with Stonebridge Associated Colleges, the ASET diploma in Garden Maintenance and it is going very well, although I would like to do some more reading outside of the course as it only covers so much.

I have just finished reading Paul Power's book on starting your own gardening business and I found this book to be excellent, some great advice. Although, not really any information on HOW-TO garden.

So, if you would be able to kindly recommend ANY good books for a complete novice on topics that you think would help me, please do.

I hope to offer services such as mowing, planting, hedge cutting, pruning etc, all of the basic maintenance duties really. Feel free to also suggest other services that I could perhaps offer.

Many thanks for taking the time to read my post and I look forward to your book recommendations. Any other tips or advice on starting my business would also be very much appreciated.

 

Good luck with your business and the course you are doing. It's a minefield out there regarding books isn't it?
I have two bibles
Hilliers guide to trees and shrubs.. An excellent reference book well illustrated with every shrub and tree and the varieties in their particular genre.

RHS Pruning and Training is my other one. Lots and lots of info on when and how to prune different trees shrubs. Different methods required etc etc. I think it must have instructions for just about every shrub, tree, or plant in existence. Well illustrated and organised too.

I hope that helps

 

Good luck with tour new venture next spring. I started last year doing maintenence so i have some experience . I can give you a few tips make suer your reliable regardin turning up to do jobs on a regular basis, get your ads out in local rag and post office early in the year JAN and Feb.
Buy a good quality reliable mower, i would recommend Hayter/Honda/Atco 18 inch rotary for utility lawns get one with a roller on to stripe the lawns. The mower is your most important power tool. Also buy a reliable petrol strimmer/ brushcutter to do the edges and parts the mower cannot cut.
I have asecond hand combination strimmer and long reach hedge trimmer attachment made by Stihl. You will need disposal bags or bins for waste if the customers green bins are full or unavailable. You can buy all the gear on e -bay or on - line retailers as i did.

 

Pro Guard's your man he can give you some good advice, you could do with being his apprentice for a couple of years.

 

Welcome to GC and good luck with the new venture

I would read just about any gardening book you can get your hands on. If you live near a big public or private garden see if you can volunteer for a few days or weeks to get some practical experience then you can ask as many questions as you like, if you have the time

 

Jimmy, welcome to the site.

Horticulture is a facinating carrer path, there is a potential to make a good living but certainly not 'big bucks' most pro gardeners do it because they love it rather than any ambition to make a fortune.

What you need is plant knowledge, this will initially be your unn doing. Myself and many pro gardeners have had an interest since childhood therefore this plant knowledge is second nature.

A good way to learn will be to trawl around your local gardencentre looking at shrubs and learning the names etc, once you have this knowledge you can then look up pruning times etc. No one will expect you to know every garden shrub but you do need to know the basics and more than the customer lol!!.

A very good pruning guide is: RHS pruning ISBN 1-84000-151-8 this is a brilliant reference guide.

I would suggest you stick to basic maintenance at first, In order to make a profit you will need to charge a MINIMUM of £13 ph, Do not under price or undercut you will regret it down the line.

As for equipment, buy decent quality ie stihl, husquvarna etc, you want the pro spec machines with good anti vibration mounts not the £120 type strimmer etc. Regarding a mower I would suggest an etesia pro 46, this is a small workhorse of a machine and will take all you can throw at it. You will need a good van. There is an equipment thread already in the tools section were I previusly gave a comprehensive list of basic and not so basic kit.

Lastly, you will need a second income in your first year to help cover the winter months. Make sure you have a 'float' so you are covered in the event of breakdowns sickness etc.

 

Wow, with all that valuable info, I think I'll set myself up as a gardener.
BTW Jimmy Good luck, and fine weather

 

Thanks very very much for all of your quick replies, your advice is very much appreciated and very helpful to me.

I will certainly look into purchasing those books suggested.

In response to the mower recommendations, I guess I should look for a Hayter, Honda or Atco 18 inch rotary mower or a Etesia pro 46? I take it that these are petrol mowers? Also, what do you mean by utility lawns and getting a mower with a 'roller'? I assumed that you mean a cylinder mower? Would a 'push cylinder' mower be adequate or should I go for petrol? I take it that I will need to get two mowers then, a rotary and cylinder?

Can anyone also recommend a decent petrol strimmer? If anyone knows and can recommend a good online shop to buy all of my equipment please let me know, that would be great.

Oh, one last thing. I already have a small car that I was planning on using for my business, however, it wouldn't be big enough to take garden cuttings/ waste away in. Can I just ask, from your experience, would it work against me as a business if I didn't offer to take the waste away and instead offer to just bag the waste up in bags that I can supply?

Thanks again and I look forward to reading your advice.

 

Hi Jimmy
Taking the waste away is an absolute essential
I would never dream of employing anyone who didn't provide that service
Just a personal opinion though
Sometimes, though, your customer will have a compost pile for grass cuttings and the like?
Or want tree cuttings shredded??
Good luck

 

how smalls your car ? if its to small ya probably wont get all you need in it

i mostly remove the waste but some of my customers have compost heaps or a green bin from the council
As for your tools well it depends how much money youve got to spend dosnt it i started my business with about 200 quid
mostly cos i didnt want to risk to much money if it didnt pan out id also recomend you visit a dealer so you can see
what your buying first hand even if you then go and buy it online :thumb: id also recomend youy get your self some
public liability insurance just incase

 

Jimmy, The ref to rollers are rear roller rotary mowers, these produce stripes as opposed to a rotary that doesn't.

Personally I only use a rotary an ,etesia pro51K, In this way I only carry one machine.

Cutting to leave stripes can take significantly longer on odd shaped lawns and unless you cut weekly the effect is wasted. That said the majority of my work is as a proper gardening eg general maintenance as opposed to simply grass cutting.

In my opinion if the lawn is weed free moss free and nicely cut and edged then most folk will be happy my customers are.

Atco and hater are heavy and I used to find the drive mechanisms suspect, that said buy the machine that feels right to you.

As for waste, I do not normally remove it. A lot of my work is large gardens from 1/2 acre to 25 acres these simply have a rubbish area were waste is either piled, burnt or composted. For small gardens the councils provide green waste wheelie bins or starch bags. With landscaping work or similar then I price to include a skip or grab Lory.

You can get a huge amount of waste in a green wheelie bin if you cut it up small and stamp it in!!!

If you take waste away then you need a waste carriers license and a suitable tipping vehicle or trailer, tipping can cost as much as £50 per cubic meter IMO best avoided.

 

One thing, It sounds blunt but the truth is a car does not set the right image nor is it practical no matter how carefull you are you will ruin it.

 

"I take it that these are petrol mowers?"

I reckon you should only be thinking of a Petrol mower (perhaps 2-stroke for something like a flymo to be used on steep banks, as I guess a 4-stroke may not be happy getting oil to the cylinders at, say, a 45 degree angle!!)

"Would a 'push cylinder' mower be adequate"

I wouldn't pay for your time to push a manual mower round my lawn!

For a rotary mower I use a rear-roller self-propelled mower. The reason for this is that when cutting along the edge the roller can span the edge, whereas if you just have 4 corner-wheels then when you drop a wheel over the edge the blade drops down and scalps the lawn.

But I only do my own garden, not other people's, and I'm pretty sure that Pro Gard's mower is the 4-corner-wheel type.

I also have a cylinder mower for the nice stripey-lawns. If someone wants a really smart stripey lawn then I would expect them to have a cylinder mower, so they would only need to pay you to do the cutting - not provide the equipment.

"would it work against me as a business if I didn't offer to take the waste away and instead offer to just bag the waste up in bags that I can supply?"

I have a large garden, and we compost everything we can - so that we have enough compost to enrich the soil each year. I can't speak for a tiny garden, but composting bins are often subsidised by the council - I bought 2 plastic "Dalek" bins for £20 each. If your clients have never though of making their own compost perhaps thy will be impressed when you recommend that to them?

Here's a link to find out if your client's local council subsidises Compsot Bins:
http://www.recyclenow.com/home_composting/in_your_area/in_your_area.html

If you are of a patient nature you might try "little old ladies" for clients. I have a friend who advertises as the "Lady Gardener" in the parish magazine, and does lots of old ladies gardens. It has at least as much to do with companionship as gardening (and it probably helps that she is a) female and b) was a nurse), but if that suits you then it might be worth considering.

Good luck!

 

Jimmy, to illustrate the point ie vehicles a professional setup makes the world of a difference even down to saving time rooting around for a hand trowel or whatever:

My van inside:





who would you chose, the guy in a car or the one with a smart van? Set the right image and you can charge better prices as well as making your job easier and more efficient.

 

Thanks for showing me up there pro :lollol: thats me old van by the way the new ones much tidyer :thumb: quite a number of my customers are little old ladies to you only need to get one an do a good job for her an she will tell everyone she knows you know wot there like :wink:

i personally dont think a nice van matters to much if your works good they wont worry to much i mean i used to walk or get a lift from me mum :D however that said you dont want to spend more time trying to get the mower out of your car than cutting the lawn do you