I have just been reading this book. At first I thought nah. I don't actually want to be a garden designer.
I mean I am one, because I have my PDC, and I could design gardens, but designing a garden and actually doing it are two different things.
I have found if one wants to design a garden, one needs an insanely wealthy client with a brand new plot who will throw money at you to get it done and won't use any lack of budget as stumbling blocks. Unfortunately, unlike New England where this book is set, people in Auckland aren't that flush with cash because housing is so expensive they have no time to spend on their garden. This book was talking about installing stonework masonry, landscaping swimming pools, decking, patios, stairs and doing driveways. This is even before they consider the plants.
Then because you can't conceivably do all this on your own what you do is charge a mark-up of your services, and then get sub contractors to do all the work for you under your direction. So basically you become a project manager. Most people won't hire someone else to do this for them because they would want to do it themselves, but if they do hire you, you need to work with them and do exactly what they want, even if it's maybe the wrong thing, like put in a swimming pool that is going to guzzle a lot of water that someone else will have to clean.
I've learned that one may install a spectacular garden but when the money dries up and they have no time to maintain it the garden will soon go to rack and ruin. Especially given our climate that weeds love. We get no rest over the winter period unlike in New England where it snows in winter and the plants are hibernating.
I think its a bit like people who hire other people to decorate their house. Why would you do this, can't you trust your own taste? If I have someone else decorating my house, then it wouldn't be mine. They would decorate it according to how they like it not how I like it. Because everything you do creatively has something of YOU in it. Maybe I am not thinking like how a garden designer may think, because they have really sold out but I would put too much heart and soul into my work to just love it and leave it. So the dilemma seems to be will Selina garden for cash. Or will she garden because she loves to? Would it be better to just concentrate on my own garden than bother about other people's, who may or may not even be interested. I thought about this and remember not long ago feeling insulted that someone would want to use me to tart up their home with plants just so they can sell it to someone else who doesn't care about plants and end up ripping them out again when they die through neglect. I mean I am all for gardening and greening up areas but money ought not to be a motivating factor. So I thought well you just don't know who you dealing with.
Anyhow, will just keep doing what I'm doing, which is growing spring onions, you can just chop the roots off the ones you buy in the supermarket and put them in the ground to grow new ones. I've also potted up spider plants so, if anyone would like a spider plant (I looked in Kings, they sell for at least $12) you can just ask me. You can pay me back later in plants.
