LJN Blog Posts

Welcome to my Landscape Juice 'How to start and run a gardening or landscaping business', online course.

The current recession (I'm writing this whilst the world tries to recover from the worst financial crisis since the greatest depression of 1929) has caused rise to the number of men and women starting out in the gardening and landscaping business and pitching for work in an already congested market place; this has led to businesses failing, with others finding it difficult to attract enough work to keep their businesses healthy and viable.

Whilst the business articles I've published through Landscape Juice since 2005 has helped many hundreds (if not thousands) of garden and landscaping businesses, I'm aware that none of this has been collated into an easy to find index - this ongoing business and development course will hopefully help you in your quest to start, run and profit from working in horticulture.

All of the following is based on my experience through my 30 years working in the gardening, landscaping and turf care industry. Much of what you'll read is based on what went right and what went wrong for me during my 21 years owning and running a landscaping and gardening business but I hope, through readers' comments and email snippets as well as links out to information in our members' forum, I can pass on enough help, advice and knowledge to help you avoid mistakes an help you succeed.

I will try to keep the information as crisp, clear and positive as I can but there will be digressions into personal experiences and opinion - like how when three employees handed in their notice on the same day to start their own business caused me to re-evaluate, leading me to sell up - I will delve into what can and did go wrong and what it's like to work with and for other people during the course of you business.

New post will come out every Friday morning so that you will have time over a weekend to read and digest before (hopefully) putting some of the ideas into practise the following week. Don't worry if you miss a post - there will be a full index as well as make new posts available through RSS.

This course will also remain fluid and flexible in the sense that at times I will go backwards in the sequence - this might be stimulated via an email question or reader comment.

Asking questions - never be worried about leaving a comment or asking a question. In my time on Landscape Juice I have found that many people stay silent because they are afraid that they will make a fool of themselves and seem unprofessional but let me tell you something - in my experience - only a very small proportion of business owners are equipped with all the knowledge, experience and skills to run a successful business. I don't know it all and there's no reason you should feel you should either.

I appreciate that not everyone will be at the start of their journey but I hope that whatever stage or even if you've been in business for many years, you'll find the information useful and as the course matures I'm sure there will be something for everyone.

If there's a particular subject that hasn't been covered but you feel will be useful then leave a comment or send an email and I'll add it to the list.

Here's the first part (6 weeks) of 'How to start and run a gardening or landscaping business'

Part 1.

Business idea and evaluation - asking yourself some tough questions
Business plan - how to plan a business plan
Determining your market and finding customers - finding your rightful place on the ladder
Advertising your garden business - understanding the basics before you start


Download the full ebook now for just £1.60