Things You'll Need:
- a love of plants, design, and gardening
- good connections with your local nursery and landscape contractors
- the willingness to work hard at building the groundwork for your new career - it isn't a dream, it's a real job!
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Step 1
Love gardening? Have you created your own gorgeous garden at home, and do you dream of ditching your day job to become a landscape or garden designer?
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Step 2
Remember that designing for other people takes a totally different skillset and knowledge base than designing for yourself. Firstly, you need to be familiar with a variety of plants and styles - even ones that you wouldn't put in your own garden.
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Step 3
The best step you can take towards this goal is to get out and work for a landscape contractor or a landscape maintenance firm for a year. Even if you want to sit at home and plan gardens, not install or maintain them - you need a working, in-the-field knowledge of what professionals encounter during everyday maintenance and installation of many styles of gardens (for many styles of people). (If you don't want to quit your day job, see if you can find your own garden maintenance clients on the weekends to begin gaining real-world landscaping experience.)
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Step 4
The next obstacle is your knowledge base. Once you have some real-life experience under your belt or are working with a landscaping firm, you can begin taking classes at your local community college in Plant Identification and Landscape Design. Remember that these are targeted classes and won't cover your entire education, so do read magazines like Fine Gardening and check out Horticultural books from the library. Aim to read two books and two magazines a month to build your knowledge.
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Step 5
Once you have developed enough practical experience and book-knowledge to feel comfortable talking with clients, drafting a written plan, and coaching clients through a landscape installation, interview landscape contractors locally to see if there are any who do a fantastic job of installing gardens, but don't enjoy designing themselves. Try to develop a referring relationship with a contractor so you can trust their installation work and recommend them, and vice versa.
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Step 6
Remember, the biggest hurdle for you to jump through is that clients do not want to deal with multiple people when they could get a firm that does it all. You have to sell them on the idea that you are a specialized expert, the contractor is an expert, and by working together you provide a better finished result than one person who may be mediocre at both tasks.
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Step 7
When you are new to designing, you'll need projects for your portfolio. Offer to help friends for free or cheap in exchange for testimonials and honest appraisal of how you could improve.
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Step 8
In order to help people find you, take great photos of your work and make brochures to hand out. Write gardening articles for your local paper or nursery newsletters in exchange for a byline to make people aware of you and your services. Make friends with your local nurseries and give them your business cards to hand out.
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Step 9
Landscape design is a wonderful career, but remember, even though it's a dream job, it takes the same hard work to get established as in any career. There aren't any shortcuts to experience and knowledge, and you'll find that even if you're a fantastic home gardener, the learning curve from home gardener to professional designer can be steep.
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Step 10
But if your passion for design is strong, you'll be willing to overcome any obstacle between you and your new career.
