Garden Assessment and Putting It All Together

  1. Learning objectives
    1. Estimate age of garden
    2. Identify plants, soil type, irrigation, and client needs
    3. Estimate overall health of garden and individual plants
    4. Identify problems: pests, pruning, watering, soils, mulch, etc.
    5. Troubleshoot problems
    6. Create a cost analysis of work plan
    7. Promote your certification and talk with clients
    8. Know how we will promote the certificate
    9. Know what to charge and what to expect
  2. Homework review
    1. Compare flashcards groups, discuss patterns, what surprised you?
  3. Discussion: Garden assessment
  4. Discussion: The checklist
  5. In-class exercise 1:
    1. Work on a maintenance plan based on two gardens of different age, one at installation and one two years later
  6. Discussion: Client needs
  7. Discussion: Action plan
  8. In-class exercise 2:
    1. Develop a work plan, estimating how many hours will be needed to bring site into good shape
  9. Discussion: Troubleshooting
  10. Discussion: Cost analysis of work plan
  11. In-class exercise 3:
    1. Pricing worksheet
  12. In-class exercise 4:
    1. Natives versus turf; challenges and differences
  13. Discussion: Best practices
  14. Discussion: Signs of success
  15. Discussion: Communicating expectations to owner
  16. Discussion: Opportunities for fee-based work
  17. Key figures, graphs, and concepts
    1. See Lesson 8 handouts: Client Landscape Evaluation Form

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