Certificated gardeners/landscapers ?

Anyone worth their salt looking for a trades person of any trade should stick to recommendations and follow them up. I have seen some shocking work produced by 'qualified gardeners' ditto the unqualified.

Personally I hold mandatory spraying, chainsaw tickets and EL and PL insurance but no formal horticultural qualification. My horticultural skills are built in the real world from a childhood love of gardening and a family obsessed by it, this is now the basis for a very enjoyable and profitable business.

IMO what actually makes the professional gardener is plant knowledge.... something that is not readily taught at college, Keen life long amaetuer gardeners joining the profession later in life often have better plant knowledge than some newly qualified students.

As for tree work, those wanting it done should actually ask to see chainsaw tickets and insurance documents, no reputable business will mind this but the cowboy contingent rarely have it. Lets remember though that often the worst work we see is were the customer has gone for the cheapest possible quote in the knowledge that they may be getting a bargain.

The bigest stumbling block to the profeshion is the low value atributed to it, people need to understand that in order to get decent workers they actually need to pay. It cracks me up the adverts that crop up regularly in the local paper

"gardener wanted, must be an experienced, smart and tidy worker. two days per week £7ph"

Who are they trying to kid? what sort of mug would want to work self employed for that!!!

To run a proper selfemployed business with insurance etc you need to charge an absolute minimum of £13ph, substantially more to have a profitable business run as a business.

 

All well and good, but if everyone chose based on recommendations, how would someone starting out in the industry (and that could be any industry, not just gardening) get their first job, and thus hopefully their first recommendation?

 

By meeting them and assessing aptitude and personality.

 

BTW, The CORGI gas redgistration scheme is supopsed to stamp out dangerouse gas instalations.... just look at the number of prosecutions and now theyve changed the name of it!!!!

IMO a mandatory training level would be a needless costly burecratic hurdle for established busineses that would leave even more of an opening for fly by night folk.

 

Experience over qualifications isn't such a difficult one, but how to tell good from bad ( qualified and certified or not) is even harder. Word of mouth recommendations and perhaps if you see a garden you particularly admire it would be a compliment to the owner to ask if it was done for them and could they give you the name of the person.

Qualifications don't necessarily make you any good, experience doesn't always-some people spend years doing the same thing wrong, so like most things in life, you have to suck it and see.