Let’s Hear it From...
for everything we do, so if I said to a designer I wouldn’t work below a certain price I think there’s something wrong with that. If you price sensibly and keep control of your staff, you should be able to make a project profi table, even if it’s as simple as just planting a window box. Most of the projects we win now are done with a little cost engineering requested by the client or designer – it is possible to fi nd ways to build a garden at a sensible price, sometimes with a little re-thought into how things are done.
Where do you stand on the plant debate? I feel the designer should pick their plants and tag their trees, and put their own mark-up on the prices with the client having full knowledge of this – or they get paid for sourcing the plants for the client. We charge for receiving and carrying them to the location and planting them.
Presumably your dedicated soft landscape team are well trained in handling plants and trees which avoids any problems? Yes, for example, the biggest tree we have planted was an oak tree 30 metres tall and 7.5 tonnes which was the largest the German tree grower had ever exported to the UK and had to be
craned into place. So this is really refl ective of our company – we will work on projects as small as window boxes to big, long term projects lasting up to three and a half years.
If you price sensibly and keep control of your staff, you should be able to make a project profi table
How does your order book look going forward?
We’re pretty busy until the end of the year. We’ve been asked to look at three Chelsea gardens for next year but much as I love it I’ve decided to take a year out from Chelsea. It’s a hard slog and always comes at the busiest time of year and the business tends to get put on hold.
Do you do Chelsea gardens to make money or for the love of it? I do really love Chelsea but it has to be
commercially viable – some landscapers are sold the idea that they will get lots of work from it but the jobs we have got from Chelsea are very infrequent. We use all our own staff to build the gardens, although last year we needed extra help because the designer lost her sponsor so we put an advert out through Andersplus for volunteers; they had over 70 offers of help which was fantastic!
When did you do your fi rst Chelsea garden? The fi rst one for gardenlink was in 2009 and was for designers Angus Thompson and Jane Brockbank. Prior to that I had built fi ve main avenue gardens for Clifton Nurseries.
Are you still quite hands on? No, but that’s probably why I like Chelsea so much because you do get back on the tools and drive the forklifts etc. That’s the only time I get involved in the construction now though.
1 Future gardens. 2 Essex Villas. 3 Private garden in Guernsey.
4 Private garden in Kensington, London. © Charlotte Rowe Garden Design/Light IQ
4
www.prolandscapermagazine.com
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