landscaping as a job.

mike hilux

Hello.

I'm looking at a career change and was wondering about landscaping. I'm currently a dairy farmer but don't like it so I'm going to go into suckler farming. In order to cover loss in earnings I need to get a supplementary job.

I don't know much about gardening reallybut I'm fairly handy at building walls and know about plumbing and I'm ok with machinery. Basically iv learned from maintenance on the farm but don't have an actual trade.

I suppose I'm a bit of a jack of all trades but definitely a master if none. I'm used to being outside and like a bit of design. Iv had people say that I should go back to collage ans do some sort of engineering but I'm not set up to do so.

I would probably like to start off working with someone and see what I could learn and also see if I actually took to it but before I do I was just wondering if there was a viable future in it as people have said that it's no longer in its heyday.

Any information regarding the information above would be appreciated and also info on weather to do a course in horticulture or anything else would be recommended or essential.

Thank you. Mike.

mister gullible

Hi Mike, I grew up on a farm myself and subsequently did gardening work for a few years before going a semi-desk route. Your general skill set from your farming background gives you a great basis for the construction side of landscaping but there would be a lot more to be learnt unless you just want to be a 'garden trimming' merchant. Best route would be to try to get some work, casual or otherwise, labouring for a decent landscaper for maybe a year, this will give you a hint of what is required as regards other aspects of landscaping, plant id and knowledge, tree and shrub maintenance, various design options and materials, costs etc. If you are still interested you could probably identify some sort of online course to expand your knowledge in the evenings. Once your interest is in it you will get masses of information from reference books and online. Even simple books like the 'Garden Expert' system will help you start to identify most common shrubs, trees and annual and perennial flowers. Best of luck if you go ahead with it.
Incidentally a qualification would help but I've done landscaping, facilities management, and organised tenders and contracts at a decent level without any 3rd level qualifications so it's not impossible.