Sneak Peek

Everything you will need to know when managing a garden business in this online course!

Managing a Garden Business course teaches you the practical tasks of a garden business, such as garden maintenance and landscaping, it will also help you understand the less exciting aspects of running a garden business, such as planning, legal considerations, accounts management, marketing and record keeping.

In the 20 hour course you will work through the course at your own pace, supported by videos and checking your progress with online tests. If you want to get more into your learning, you there are tasks throughout the course that will help solidify and reinforce your learning.

What's Inside this Course?

CHAPTER 1 GETTING STARTED 

• Points to watch out for 
• Two ways to begin in business 
• Starting a new business compared to buying one 
• What sorts of records do i need to keep? 
• Seeking advice 
• Promoting a new business 
• Understanding contract law 
• Review what you have been learning

CHAPTER 2 WHAT SERVICES COULD YOU OFFER?

• Types of service 
• Other options 
• Complimentary fringe services 
• Considering the options 
• What do you need to offer these services? 
• Specialist niche areas for landscape construction 
• Specialist areas for a design business 
• Buying equipment and tools 
• Finding materials 
• Developing a business 
• Review what you have been learning

CHAPTER 3 GARDEN MAINTENANCE SERVICES

• Plant care 
• Why plants get sick 
• Preventative medicine in the garden
• Planting 
• Moving established plants
• Feeding plants 
• Watering 
• Providing a spraying service
• Starting a pruning service
• Pruning equipment
• Starting a lawn care business
• Types of mowers
• Lawn aeration
• Watering
• Tree care and tree surgery
• Tree surgery techniques
• Safety aspects
• Gardening & landscaping tools
• Tool maintenance
• Power tools
• Power tool maintenance
• How to manually handle objects in the garden
• Starting an indoor plant service
• Review what you have been learning

CHAPTER 4 LANDSCAPING

• Options for specialisation 
• Starting a garden design service 
• Starting a landscape construction service
• Improving soils
• Improving drainage
• Improving surface drainage after construction
• Mulches 
• Hard surfacing
• Water in the garden
• Steps 
• Review what you have been learning

CHAPTER 5 MANAGING FINANCES & COSTING

• Business planning 
• Landscape specifications & contracts 
• Review what you have been learning 
• Final assessment 

WHY STUDY THIS COPURSE?

Discover the potential you have and the limitations you should respect.

There's an abundance of opportunities to start or improve gardening and landscaping businesses, but proper decisions need to be made and stuck to in order to ensure risk is low and success is optimised.

This course will help you to determine the best opportunities for you, recognising your strengths and weaknesses, and the assets and limitations that may be applied to your business.

There are many common mistakes though which are made by people operating garden service businesses.  Some of these are:

• Advertising that you will do anything (when you don't have the skill or the equipment to do many  gardening jobs).
• Underquoting when you first start your business - you are best working on an hourly rate (at least until you become familiar with what you are capable of getting done in a given time).
• Not including overheads in a quote - it costs you time and money to travel to a job, to supply tools, office costs, equipment maintenance costs, to give a quote in the first place, etc. All of these costs have to be covered.
• Wanting to get a job no matter what the terms are - there are plenty of people who think gardeners should be cheap labour, there are others who think cheap gardeners are not good gardeners.  You should not be afraid to lose a job because you are too expensive.  Someone else may just hire you because you're not cheap.
• Liquidity problems - some types of garden service jobs require you to have a certain amount of cash in hand. If you are not paid for a landscape job until weeks or months after doing the work, you need to have sufficient money in hand to carry you for that period.  If your work is seasonal, you need to save enough in the good times to keep you going in the bad times.
• Not being clear in what you are going to include in the job - clients may expect free garden maintenance after a landscape job. Some people expect free removal of rubbish after a pruning job. Some people expect you to come back and spray again for free if your first pest or weed spraying doesn't work. Some people expect the roots removed as well as the top of a tree when you quote on tree removal, or for all of the wood to be cut up into short blocks suitable for firewood. Clearly state EVERYTHING that is to be included on the job and don't feel pressured to do more than you contracted for.

Learn to provide the services that you are most capable of providing, and which are being sought after by your potential clients.