Panel talk exploring the importance of gardeners and garden aftercare post design. The focus is on actions we can take as an industry to increase the value placed on proper aftercare. (This version is for after the event)

1. MAINTENANCE MATTERS
Capel Manor College, Regents Park
18th January 2018 6-8 pm

2. AGENDA
• INTRODUCTIONS (6pm - 6:15pm)
– Nicola - Open event and explain the process for those watching on Facebook
– Shoot update
– Summary of last event, today and next time
– Panel introductions – Each panelist to introduce themselves
• THE PROBLEM (6:15 - 6:30pm)
– Helen & John - Recap the ‘issue’ and ‘challenges’. SGD support.
• HIRING A GARDENER (6:30 – 7:15pm)
– Tom & Nicola (audience participation and discussion)
• WORKING BETTER TOGETHER (7:15 -7:50pm)
– Nicola – Karen McClure’s process flow as described in her blog
– Jeff – How designers can better work with gardeners
– Sophie – What to look for. Encourage more collaboration during education.
• NEXT EVENT: SAVE THE DATE
• SUMMARY OF ACTIONS & CLOSE (7:50pm)

3. SHOOT UPDATE

4. WHY SHOOT?
Garden designer Home gardenerGarden aftercare
After
care
team
Supports communication: Gardener(s), Garden Designer & Client

5. WHY SHOOT?
Types of communication content
Your own documents
Brief
Other
(Concept
plans & 3D
renderings)
Backstory
Shoot: Plant lists (groups and notes)
Add personal notes and care tasks: e.g. height on hedges
Shoot: Operation and maintenance manuals Shoot: Planting plans to scale

6. NEW SHOOT UPDATES
 New care calendar
• You can now 'COPY' any
of our care calendar tasks
to amend as you wish
and apply to different
months if you wish as
well.

7. NEW SHOOT UPDATES
 New care calendar
• Also for any new care
tasks you create, you can
now also 'APPLY TO ALL
GARDENS' if you wish as
well. This should save you
a lot of time if you want to
add the same task to many
gardens.

8. HOW WE HELP GARDENERS
 Working with garden designers & educating clients
 Setting tasks to do for your team
 Checking tasks are done
 Bringing on apprentices or untrained staff

9. PREVIOUS EVENT, TODAY AND NEXT TIME

10. CHALLENGES / ISSUES
Previous event Blog review at:
http://blog.shootgardening.co.uk/2017/08/25/maintenance-
matters-event/
Discuss today:
 Recap the issues and challenges from a designer p.o.v
 Hiring a gardener
 The client/designer/aftercare relationship
 Education and professional development
Discuss in the future:
 Role of the garden designer after handover
 Terminology
 Hard to find gardeners
 Role of the media
 Role of technology (Shoot, Facebook, Online Databases
etc.)

11. NEXT TIME: THE ROLE OF THE GARDEN
DESIGNER
Get to know
the client
Design the
garden
Build the
garden
‘Handover’
Evolution of the garden
SAVE THE DATE:
Gardener
Garden Designer
What is the
ongoing role of the
garden designer?
When is the garden
vision ‘delivered’?
Is there a ‘garden’
at the ‘handover
point’?

12. PANEL INTRODUCTIONS
Sophie Guinness
Capel Manor College
Helen Elks-Smith
MSGD
John Wyer
FSGD, MBALI, CMLI
Jeff Stephenson
Dip.Hort. (Kew) Hons & 29 years exp.
Thomas Stone
(MCIHort) & 28 years exp.

13. THE PROBLEM: WHAT DO WE DELIVER
TO CLIENTS?
HELEN ELKS-SMITH & JOHN WYER

14. GARDEN DESIGNER
CLIENT PROMISE
“As designers, we sell the idea of a beautiful
garden …

15. BUT WE DELIVER THIS
… (yet) we leave clients with … a sense of anticipation and a lot of bare soil.”

16. SGD BEST PRACTICE
Helen and John Action:
Speak to the SGD about including ‘proper aftercare’ as part of the best practice
processes designers follow

17. HIRING A GARDENER
NICOLA GAMMON & THOMAS STONE

18. HIRING A GARDENER
1. Who to hire - Make it EASY for the home owner to buy the right services and pay the
correct amount

19. HIRING A GARDENER
Confusing array of qualifications, memberships and apps
RHS Level 2 or 3 and 5 years work experience
Head gardener or assistant head gardener
experience
RHS Level 2 or 3 with more than 3 years
work experience
RHS Level 1 or 2
CIH Associate
CIH Member
CIH Affiliate
Gardeners Guild
Professional Gardeners Guild
Apps: e.g. Fastgardener
?

20. HIRING A GARDENER
Large (more than 0.5 acre) Small / medium (less than 0.5 acre)
Skilled work:
Pruning
Hedge Trimming
Weeding
Soil management
Lawn management
Staking
Vegetable tending
General work:
Lawn mowing
Lawn strimming
Chainsaw
work
(certificate needed)
Pesticides &
chemical work
(certificate needed)
Q2. What type of gardening tasks do I need doing?WHO TO HIRE
CIH Associate, CIH Member or above
(You need a qualified and experienced garden
aftercare professional and ALSO someone
who is a very good project manager)
WHO TO HIRE
General gardeners
CIH Affiliate or
above
WHO TO HIRE
CIH Associate, CIH
Member or above
Specialist jobs:
Plant material &
soil/building waste
removal
(Environmental
agency license
needed)
RHS
qualifications?
Written
test?
Discussion
Q1. What is my garden’s size?
(CIH Associate 5-11 units: RHS Level 2 (3 units)+ 3 years experience or RHS Level 3 (4 units)+ + 2 years experience)
(CIH Member: 12 units e.g. RHS Level 3 +8 years experience)
Garden Designer?
Garden Manager?

21. HIRING A GARDENER
1. Who to hire - Make it EASY for the home owner to buy the right services and pay the
correct amount
2. Give pricing guidelines – minimum £ values ??
3. Educate the home owner on the complexity of gardening tasks
4. Make it easy for home owners to find gardeners
5. Marketing collateral – e.g. flyers to pass onto home owners
Will higher average business
charges/rates help encourage
more gardeners?

22. WORKING BETTER TOGETHER

23. GARDEN DESIGN PROCESS

24. WHAT DO GARDENERS REQUIRE FROM
GARDEN DESIGNERS?
JEFF STEPHENSON

25. PROLANDSCAPER ARTICLE

26. WHAT DO GARDENERS REQUIRE FROM
DESIGNERS?
• Good Design …
… keep the gardener in mind.
• 1) Planting Schemes:
• Plants suited to actual site conditions -
(right plant, right place. Where is the
sun?).
• Consideration of spacing -
(immediate effect/
show garden or long term).
• Lawns –
(not under trees,
effect of wear on desire lines).

27. WHAT DO GARDENERS REQUIRE FROM
DESIGNERS?
• Good Design …
• 2) General layout:
• Serviceability/ergonomics.
• Access – walls, borders etc.
( … make it sensible)
• Provision of taps –
( … efficiency)
• Provision of compost bins - ( …
less waste)
• Cutting heights of pleached trees/ hedges
- ( workable for safety and frequency).
… keep the gardener in mind.

28. WHAT DO GARDENERS REQUIRE FROM
DESIGNERS?
Inc.
• Useful Contacts
( … client, PA, contractor,
suppliers etc.)
• Project History / Backstory
(… provides understanding)
• Clear Communication ... Handover Packages;
• Client Brief
(… this informs)
• Design Intent
( … this assists decision
making and shapes practices)

29. WHAT DO GARDENERS REQUIRE FROM
DESIGNERS?
Inc.
• Planting Plans }
• Plant Schedules } (… understanding)
• O & M Manuals }
• Concept Plans }
• 3D Renderings
(… helps visualization)
• Clear Communication ... Handover Packages; cont’d

30. WHAT DO GARDENERS REQUIRE FROM
DESIGNERS?
• Clear Communication...
… or you may leave things open to
interpretation!
4 candles
Fork handles

31. EDUCATING GARDEN DESIGNERS
SOPHIE GUINNESS

32. EDUCATING GARDEN DESIGNERS
What to look for in a college:
 A decent plant collection
 Regular plant identification
 Tutors who have good experience in garden maintenance
 Regular visits to gardens
 Make sure that writing a planting maintenance plan is on the programme
 Very short courses don’t allow students to see plants through the year

33. EDUCATING GARDEN DESIGNERS
How do we teach maintenance?
 Through plant identification, we talk about plants and how to look after
them
 Through observation of planting, we have projects in which students
observe and analyse a planting throughout the year.
 Horticulture teaching, we are convinced that basic horticulture is important
and we teach it. This is classroom based for some of our qualifications.

34. EDUCATING GARDEN DESIGNERS
How do we teach maintenance?
 Students write maintenance plans for their design projects
 There are opportunities for students to volunteer on site and therefore
learn about maintenance through doing…
 We get shoot to talk to our students about their product
 Quite a lot of our students are gardeners so we use their experience
mercilessly

35. EDUCATING GARDEN DESIGNERS
What else?
 We would like to get you professional
gardeners to talk to our students
 We believe that maintenance is
important and can be beautiful!

36. SUMMARY
– Hiring a gardener
– The client/designer/’aftercare’ ‘gardener’ relationship
– Education and professional development
SAVE THE DATE:

37. THANK YOU
Email: shoot@shootgardening.co.uk