New To Gardening, Possible Career

Hey guys!
The title pretty much says it all, im relatively new to gardening, ive pottered about here and there and i also used to work in the gardening dept for a DIY store so i know the basics. Long story short, im currently working in an office and its depressing, ive been looking for another career path for some time and while i was out in the garden today enjoying the weather i thought to myself, why not do this for a living?
Thing is im not too sure how to go about doing this as ive said, i have no professional experience, do i need any or can i learn on the job? Do i need any specific qualifications? If theres anyone about that does gardening for a living id love to have a chat or get some general guidance, Thanks in advance!!!

 

You'll need a good strong back! Not sure how old you are but think about what your career prospects are long-term doing heavy physical work. Not all aspects are physically challenging, though, and it certainly beats an office job.

You could start your own garden maintenance business starting in a small way. You could learn on the job but there's more to gardening than just keeping things tidy so you'd have to be prepared for a steep learning curve in things like plant identification, plant care, pruning etc. A friend of mine did a distance learning course which covered this type of thing.

Or you could go to college, get qualifications and go down the National Trust type career path - a good choice if you're young. There are colleges like Brooksby Melton which specialise in horticultural courses and , no doubt, many others. If you got a job with the NT you would probably be able to do some sort of apprenticeship but I think competition is stiff.

You could do garden design - though I gather the market is awash with newly-trained designers trying to escape their office job, so it may be hard to get enough commissions.

Bear in mind that gardening is not very well-paid, unless you are Alan Titchmarsh, so think about what that means for you. If you are young and need to get a mortgage presently, a salaried regular job might be better for you. If you are already settled and perhaps have a steady-earning partner you could think about an independent business where uneven cash flow can be coped with. If you do garden maintenance remember you will have almost no work from November through to March.

 

Hello and welcome

I don't mean to come across as a naysayer, because if its what you want to do, then I wish you luck and success, but...

Do you think you'd still enjoy it as much if you were working to someone else's schedule and specification? Will you still want to go out to a customer's garden if you're choked up with cold, because you know if you miss them out you'll lose money and potentially their custom? Will you be happy if a customer sets unrealistic expectations, giving you a couple of hours a week to achieve their vision of urban paradise? Above all, will you still enjoy it if you're doing this for 50 or 60 hours a week, and then have to do your own work at home?

If the answer is yes to all of the above, then go for it, and good luck.

 

Agreed.

Setting up a garden maintenance company is pretty simple. You will need your own car or van though and be prepared to be messed around by 15% of the people who call you every year Also invest in some petrol tools like a mower, strimmer and hedge trimmer so you can maintain a garden while the customer is out or if they have a huge garden. You don't need any qualifications if you already maintain your garden as you should know the difference between a weed and not a weed.

It depends where about the original poster is from. Around here gardeners who know what they are doing with their own tools can make between £10-12 an hour, which is a lot in my opinion.

However competition is very fierce atm. There are many people who lost their jobs and decided to take it up as a sideline, so I wouldn't go quitting your job until your company is established, which may take a couple of years to do. You need to make yourself stand out from the other companies in your area to get their attention. Most for example are called "Sue's Gardening Services" or "Grahams Garden Maintenance" which to me is very dull. My company was called "Jungle Jane's Garden Maintenance" (I kept the user name after I quit though) and many customers would find the name amusing and I believe gave me the edge over my other competitors.

Nick, If you need any advice in the future about running a gardening company then feel free to drop me a PM and I would be happy to help you out.

 

One extra thing about business in general, regardless of the industry its in.

Check out the dull, mundane, but essential stuff. Will you be a sole trader or a limited company for example? In the case of the former, your liability extends to your personal stuff so if you get sued for more than is in your business account, technically the litigant can go after you for your car and your house and whatever else you might own. In the case of a limited company, liability is limited to whatever the company as an entity owns (although there are legal mechanisms to extend that to anything the director(s) owns). There are insurances to cover these worries though. Look up Professional Indemnity and Public Liability. As there is a grey area as to which cover type applies in different specific cases, some insurers now offer a combined package to broaden your cover (or they did about 10 years ago when I had a business).

The one thing that made me wind up my business was the tax return. You could get an account to manage all that (more cost - less profit) but if you do it yourself, be prepared for major stress. For 2 days of the year I couldn't do anything at all that was my primary business function, because I was far too busy preparing the tax return. "Tax doesn't need to be taxing" - Load of manure that statement. On my last one, after 2 days of going through paperwork and filling in the online thing, which crashes out every so often, it came up that I owed £26k in tax. My calculations suggested it should have been no more than a few hundred quid. I knew it was a mistake on my return, but I also knew that it was now in the revenue's system and the way the tax man works is he destroys your life first, asks questions later if you appeal. I was lucky in that when I phoned the tax office, I got an actual intelligent human, and between us we quickly identified and corrected my mistake, bringing the tax bill back to what I'd estimated, but I can tell you, that was stressful. That was the final straw. I'd put up with awkward customers thinking they owned my soul for long enough, and when the tax scare happened, I just emailed my friend and business partner, told him I'd stick with it until we'd fulfilled all our outstanding contracts but was not taking any new work.

I was so excited when we first launched our business and first started getting enquiries, but that excitement soon turned into disillusionment after being messed about, having to repeatedly pester people for money, having to stave off the Federation of Small Businesses who at one point actually tried to intimidate us into joining (for real), dealing with the tax stuff, getting phone calls from clients at 11PM at night, people arguing over price even though we were very competitive etc.

 

If it's something you want to do, try it! You can always go back to the office job. If you have a will and enthusiasm, you can make it work.


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