What's in a name?
At a social function recently, I ran into a friend who also is a former client. In the course of small talk, she asks, "So how's the gardening business?"

I politely responded and continued our conversation, though inside I was seething. We did a fairly large project for this woman, including a pretty substantial stone patio and a pretty cool water feature. Yes, there were plants too, and plenty of them. Furthermore, I know she is active in her garden club. One would THINK she would know that there is a difference between what I do and what "gardening" is.

Am I a gardener? Sure. But that's at home. My chosen career is landscape design.

What are you? Do you deliberately choose what vocabulary to you use when discussing your profession. If you don't, you ought to.

Are you a landscaper? Gardener? Landscape architect? Landscape designer? Landscape contractor? If you are a professional, you ought to use words that sound professional. It's all part of your image.

Put yourself in the shoes of someone not in our industry. What image does the term "landscaper" conjure up? Perhaps that is the image you want. For me, no.
What I do is equal parts art and science. In order to do what I do, and do it well, I need to understand bits and pieces of many other professions. Among those professions, I count civil engineer, architect, horticulturist, environmentalist, carpenter/woodworker, ironsmith, mason, plumber, electrician, and more. How many of those are "gardening"? One. Is gardening an important element? Certainly. But I'm not in the gardening business.

How do we communicate these things to someone not in the industry? I don't know. It's hard enough to communicate them to people IN the industry!

More on this topic later. The cicadas are coming.

HGTV's Landscapers' Challenge

Received word this week of an air date for the LC show I participated in 2 years ago! You'll have to tune in to see who won.

Click here for info on the show and air times.

It was definitely an interesting experience, especially since my competition was two friends! Nancy Sauerberg from Nancy Sauerberg Design and Todd Hayden from Schmechtig Landscapes were both on board and it was fun to compare notes later.

For anyone interested, the referral to the show came through our involvement with APLD.

Check your grocery store

The Chicago area is well represented in a new publication called Distinctive Backyard Ideas written by Barbara Ballinger and published by Harris Publishing. Of the 42 projects featured, SIX were produced by my company. I have no idea how often this publication will come out, but word on the street is they are working on another one.

A word to the wise: Although the photo on the cover is nice, they did ask me to submit something for the cover. Problem was that my digital photos were not of high enough resolution. For those of you who aspire to have your work published, it's a good idea to make sure you've got at least a 6 megapixel camera.

Another Book

I guess 2007 has been a good year for PR opportunities!

A couple years ago I was approached by Andrew Wilson, who was one of my teachers at the Inchbald School of Design in London 20 years ago, about a book he was working on. Well, it just came out, though it doesn't appear to be available in the U.S. yet.

The cover image to the left comes from Amazon.com (UK), so if you are interested right away, you can grab one there.

I have not yet had a chance to go through it cover to cover, but it's a very nice coffee table book. I appear to be the only American represented. It's nice to see my friend (and former classmate!) Sally Court represented as well.

A New World For Me

When April arrives, for the first time in my professional life, I will have a job!

Huh?

Yep. I'll be joining the team at Schmechtig Landscapes in Mundelein, IL. We're still working on a title, but I'll be heading up a design team there, so I'll be doing what I love (designing landscapes), without the business function that took so much of my time with Garden Concepts.

I've shared this with only a few people, so you can consider this an announcement. A few have asked why. Without boring you with too many details, it came down to this. I know when I made the commitment to start the AALD that I'd be back designing landscapes come spring, 2007. I could fire up Garden Concepts full bore, but when fall and teaching season arrives, then what? There are always loose ends. This solves that problem, among a slew of others.

In any case, I'm very excited. For those of you who don't know the Schmechtig team, it's worth a visit to their (our!) web site.