Learning Gardening Services was a #1 move
Recently I’ve become a provider of gardening services. And though I’ve been doing it for a few months now, I was told very recently that I still can’t refer to myself as a gardener. I’ve been informed that a clear distinction exists between gardening services and landscaping services. Gardeners both maintain outdoor areas, while at the same time are experts in plants and their environments, knowing which plants will fare well in different environments. Landscapers, I was informed, only keep up with existing areas. All that aside, learning how to offer landscaping and gardening services was one of the best things I’ve done this year.
If a person spends enough time at it, gardening will show them almost all they’ll ever need to know in order to keep up with home repairs. Repairing broken sprinklers, building apparatuses for ponds and waterfalls, and setting up retaining walls, one gets to try their hand at plumbing, carpentry, and masonry. Though I’m still far from being an expert about plants and their optimal habitats, I’ve learned many of the skills necessary for keeping up with a deteriorating home. Those I’ll hold onto and refine as much as I can.
Another good reason why learning an assortment of gardening services was so fulfilling was because it gave me a connectedness to that good old master/apprentice style of working. Doing work for a friend of mine who owns his own gardening business, I was taught gardening firsthand by a man who’d been in the business for over thirty years. Being younger, I have very much enjoyed spending time with a person who is a master at his craft. There’s just something special and rare about that style of learning in our modern day and age. You don’t it much anymore. It’s something I think we’ve lost in this country. Maybe I’m being overly nostalgic. I’m not sure.
On the more current, economic side, the demand for gardening services has seen a sharp decline, especially in the state of California, where I reside. During tough economic times, gardeners are seen more as a luxury than a necessity. Add to that the current water crisis in southern California, and you’ve got a very tricky situation for landscapers and gardeners. But lawns still grow as fast as ever, and hopefully people will soon begin to miss their gardening professionals. I’ve seen quite a deterioration this year in the upkeep of outdoor landscapes. It seems as though a simple enough thing to maintain a yard, but surprisingly, even keeping up a green lawn can be a formidable task. It’s a shame, not only that gardening services are on the decline, but also that yards are losing their landscape lustre. Once things start to bounce back, hopefully we’ll see a change.
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Tags: gardening, gardening services, landscaping, landscaping services