Gardening career..?

[Snadger]

Methinks it's a young mans game, make no bones about it,gardening is hard graft........but can be pleasurable.
My stint at self employment left me with a full order book, the reason being was that I wasn't charging enough!
Don't try to undercut the opposition. I used to have a mixture of regular fixed price paid work and 'one off' clearances. The regular work kept me ticking over but the one off's were where I made the money!

All this was when I was a young man.......I doubt I've got a decent days graft left in me now!

I was also a self employed Blacksmith.............but that's another story!

[piskieinboots]

Self-employment is never something to go into lightly, all the downsides have been already stated - but remember no tax, insurance or sick-pay - you have to foot all that.

Enough of the negative - although keep it all firmly in your mind.

Being self-employed is a thrill ride, you are in control of your destiny, you won't get promotion or a pay-rise, you won't get good assessments - but you will feel great when you make that first invoice up and actually get paid.

I have been self-employed now since the mid 80's, however, in this current role (home-based) for almost nine years - I wouldn't change it unless I had to.

- Be sure of your motivation - you will need tons
- Check thoroughly what your essential overheads are (mortgage etc)
- Don't spend tons of dosh on business cards, flyers etc
- Don't spend tons on a website (this can come on your first £1m)
- Don't undercut/charge to cheaply, it will bite you on the butt later
- Stay focused
- Be prepared to work any hours it takes

But most of all....enjoy it

[piskieinboots]

I was also a self employed Blacksmith.............but that's another story!

how exciting - did you scare the horses

[Snadger]

how exciting - did you scare the horses

NOT a farrier.........a Blacksmith!

[piskieinboots]

NOT a farrier.........a Blacksmith!

ah erm yes erm oops

[Hilary B]

If you want/need a website, either design it yourself (there are plenty of good programs and most of them are not expensive) or get a friend to do it for you. These businesses which charge a fortune for web design very rarely do any better than someone who has done their own and enjoyed the game!
Domain names vary in price from about £9.99 for 2 years, up to hundreds. Find one which is cheap, but also reflects your business.
OH has done several now (2 business, a few others 'interest') and daughter has done her own for her business.

[SlugLobber]

In defence of Piskie, we used to call the farriers Blacksmiths in Bolton. Not sure why, now, but my friend still calls them that, regardless of whether they make their own shoes!

As for gardening, I can only say that the company for which my OH services all the vehicles has seen a sharp downturn in contracts. A friend of mine has had hardly any work since January. She would be in serious trouble if she wasn't married to someone with a good wage. It may depend on your area, though. In Surrey, there seem to be a lot of one-man-bands AND larger companies.

I would second the domain name suggestion and also consider offering a broad range of services. Good luck!

[Victoria26]

I've just got a job in a garden centre...but its a start...

[Two_Sheds]

I take a look around me and think "I could really tidy that garden up, make it lovely", but round here: people like having fridges in their yard.

No seriously, the people here are on low incomes and have no spare money to spend on the garden and a lot don't even care what it looks like. What I'm saying is, find out if there is a market for your service.

I used to work for a volunteer garden-clearance group, and it was awfully hard work - we had to use power strimmers, chainsaws etc, the gardens were in that much of a state. It wasn't a bit of light weeding and garden design, like I hoped it would be. So be prepared for hard physical labour.

As Surralan might say "where's your business plan?"

Work out your expenditure on the back of an envelope, and work out your earnings, averaged over a year (not much work over winter). See if you can make the figures work, before you lash out on courses and equipment.

Best of luck with it.

[selfheal]

Looking at things from another perspective.....

you may want to consider applying to do a National Trust Careership in Horticulture?

They run a 3 year course to either become a gardener or an estate warden, usually about 21 places each year. You get paid an apprentices wage, some estates/propertie provide you with accomodation, others dont, and you do 10 weeks college training and reaseheath college in Chesire. This is in 2 week residential blocks over the year. Over the 3 years you gain tons of work experience, NVQ levels 2 and 3 in the relevant subject (horticulture/envrionmental management) and a selection of Health and safety certificates which allow you to use machinery/tools etc.

The general idea is to train you up over the 3 years so that you can then go out and find employment, often within the National Trust (sometimes even at the property/estate you trained at) towards the end of your final year.

I have a freind who is just coming to the end of her 3rd year doing a estate wardens careership (so the environmental version) and she really knows her stuff. If it were not for the fact that there arn't many jobs beign advertised right now she shouldnt have any problems getting a job. Alot of the other people in her year have already got permament jobs on other NT estates lined up- i would imagine the same applies to the gardening careerships too.

Seems like a good course, and having done a 3 year countryside management HND with placement year at university myself i wish i had known about the careership program before i went to uni- for starters i could have been paid a wage for 3 years! and i'd be more experienced, more H&S certificates etc.

The only thing i should point out is that there is alot of competition for positions on the course because there are so few each year, but if you have the passion and show potential then your the right kind of person.

The jobs starting this september are advertised in April, so im guessing they will go online any day now!

more info: National Trust | Gardens & parks | Careership programme

worth considering anyway- would be nice to be able to do gardening and not have the stress of beign self employed? Im starting to question wether environmental management is what i want to be doing, and a small bit of me is saying 'why not consdier the Nt gardening careership....' its niggling away at the back of my head for now, not made my mind up at all!!!