Having a penchant for being outdoors in the natural environment and a deep-seated passion for gardening are two excellent prerequisites for a career as a landscape gardener.

So, whether you have been working for another company for some time now or else have just completed professional qualifications and are ready to start working, here are the top three things you have to know when starting your own landscaping business.

1. Understand What the Job Actually Involves

As with many other career pathways across the spectrum of industries, often the real-life, daily life of a landscaping job is far from what you may imagine, and this is why it is important to understand what daily life as a landscape gardener actually involves.

The key, fundamental elements of a career as a professional landscape gardener include the following:

• Creating and delivering detailed sketches, plans, and blueprints to clients
• The construction of water fountains and features
• The accurate calculation of individual cost breakdowns
• Ensuring you and other contractors under your supervision stick to the budget
• Ordering garden furniture, planting trees, shrubs, and flowers, and planting new turf

It would also be important to point out you do not need any formal qualifications to pursue your dreams of starting your own landscaping business. 

2. Ensure Every Legal Box is Ticked 

Another principal starting block of launching your own landscape and gardening business is to ensure that you, your business, and any employees you intend on hiring are entirely legally compliant, for obvious reasons. 

Furthermore, make sure all tools and equipment you use and, indeed, any of your employees use are from a reputable and renowned trade supplier such as arbourlandscapesolutions.co.uk. 

Whilst some landscape gardeners, usually when they have their own professional experience under their belt, prefer to operate alone and therefore have the easiest route when it comes to registration, there are other options.

However, regardless of whether you want to be a sole trader or form a limited liability partnership before you begin trading, you will be required to arrange National Insurance, tax, and VAT with HRMC. Additionally, it is also crucial to take out comprehensive public liability insurance, and if you intend on having people work for you, you will need employer’s liability insurance. 

3. Focus Your Efforts on Advertising and Marketing 

The third most important consideration when preparing to launch your brand-new landscape and gardening business is to spend copious amounts of time focusing on advertising and marketing your new company.

Logic dictates that, especially during the first few months, you concentrate on targeting homeowners in your local area, instead of catching your net too wide. Repeat business is often the mainstay of landscaping companies, and ensuring that you always present a professional approach, are friendly and courteous to customers, and that you always leave the job completed and looking that way. 

Just a selection of the most prominent ways to win customers for your new landscape and gardening business includes building a portfolio, both to show off online through your official website and your social media platforms and building long-lasting relationships with your customers.