Best Guide to Gardening

  

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Gardening & Landscaping - A Lucrative Career Option

By Mahima Kini

Do you love taking care of plants? Are you always busy decorating your garden and making it look more exotic? Now you can develop your hobby into a career and set up your own business. The demand for landscape artists and gardening experts is rising constantly.

More and more people are seeking the services of professionals to plan, maintain and decorate their private, public and business gardens. Gardening and Landscaping are fields which offer stable employment and wonderful financial opportunities.

Nature of Work:

  • Landscape gardeners work to develop muddy fields into beautiful gardens full of flowers and plants.
  • They work for private gardens, public parks, golf courses, greenhouses, and terrace gardens to create exotic flower beds, lawns, and trees.
  • They use their knowledge of botany, landscape installation, plant materials, soil science, and pest and disease identification and treatment, to create wonderful landscapes and gardens.
  • They prepare the ground for planting, transplant nursery plants, use fertilizers and pesticides and sow seeds.
  • Trim and prune hedges, trees, and shrubs.
  • Install rock gardens, ponds, decorate, and maintain drainage systems.
  • Retain walls, fences, and planters, and advise clients on plant care.
  • They often work with tools ranging from small trowels to large lawn mowers, tractors, loaders etc.

Landscape and Gardening are tough jobs involving a lot of creativity and knowledge of plants. There will always be lucrative job potential for individuals with the interest and proper training in landscaping.

Career Opportunities in Gardening & Landscaping:

Landscaping professionals mostly work outside in nurseries or botanical gardens. They can choose to become Horticulturists, Countryside Rangers, Garden Managers, Landscaping Architects and can start their own business too. Landscape gardeners can find employment in:

- Retail gardening centers
- Landscaping and lawn care agencies
- Indoor gardens and botanical centers
- Tree farms
- Cemeteries
- Greenhouses
- Government departments

Skills Required for Gardening/Landscaping

Though there is no particular academic qualification for being a landscape gardener yet a few qualities can prove beneficial. These include:

- Love for nature
- Good understanding of plants
- Artistic flair
- Good eyesight
- Physically strong
- Hard-working

Landscaping Business

To start any business one needs to make arrangements for the basic assets required. For Gardening & Landscaping, acquire the following -

Gardener: A truck or trailer to carry your equipment and debris. A lawn mower, rake, broom and other small hand tools will also be required.

Landscaper: Basically you need hand tools and a truck or trailer. While starting, try getting most of the equipments on rent. Once your business is well-set, you can consider buying your own tools and machinery.

InteriorScaper: A truck or other heavy vehicle is necessary. Apart from that, you might need watering cans and other assorted small hand tools.

Start small and then slowly move forward. This way you will not be investing too much and the profits can provide for buying tools and other expenditure. Use word-of-mouth, flyers or classified ads to sell your services.

Gardens and Parks are gaining popularity. The top five botanic gardens alone generate over three million visitors per annum. The total number of businesses operating in the landscaping sector is predicted to rise by 45% in the coming years. So get ready to turn your hobby into a full-time employment opportunity that will give you guaranteed returns !

Mahima Kini has written a wide variety of Career-based articles and created content for Educational websites. To learn about various Unique, career-oriented Online Courses, visit http://www.careerchoicewizard.com

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For more on Gardening and Landscaping, see www.bestguidetogardening.com.


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