What Does A Garden Consultant Do?
Gardening is a healthy hobby but the busy routine of today's era makes it hard for someone to start such a fun activity. Although many people step up to become a gardener, only a few know the exact method and technique to be successful.
Gardening is not very difficult but you will be growing life. A little bit of guidance is needed here especially if you are new to gardening. The directions and advice from experienced experts and professionals will greatly help you achieve your gardening goals. All you need is to talk to a garden consultant.
Wondering what a garden consultant is and what they do? Keep on reading the article and find out about the garden consultant.
What Is A Garden Consultant?
A Garden Consultant is a passionate and experienced gardener who maps out a plan, teaches, coaches, and mentors beginner and intermediate gardeners so that they can achieve the desired results in their own garden.
You might also know them by the name Garden Coach or Master Gardener. A garden consultant will guide you and answers your gardening questions. You can discuss any garden-related issue with him/her.
Garden consultants willingly help beginners to start and manage their gardens. They know that their job is done only when the beginner gardener gets the pleasure of picking produce and flowers from their home-grown garden.
A garden consultant earns from her job but she gives more than what she earns. She shares her experience so that her client can improve her production. Her aim is only to make her clients satisfied and happy with her services.
What Does A Garden Consultant Do?
Garden Consultants work with you to tailor a plan that will help you achieve your gardening goals based on your experience or skill level as well as your time availability.
When someone plans to start a garden, they usually visit big plant nurseries and pick the most attractive and common plants. What ends up happening is that they want is to grow a huge 100 square feet of plants in a single bed which can lead to failure and frustration.
Before starting your garden, it is important to develop a strong foundation of gardening knowledge and have a plan for what you want to achieve. For this reason, you need to hire a good garden consultant that can help you with her knowledge and experience.
If you ask a garden consultant, she will advise you to start and practice gardening at a smaller scale before planting in a large area.
If you’re not ready to take the leap, they would encourage you to visit with local gardeners who have been gardening for a long time. Spend time with them and practice with them.
Once you get familiar with the basics, then the garden consultant will further guide you on how you should proceed with the garden. But with a garden consultant and coach, you get all of this knowledge and support PLUS the benefit of having your very own garden all wrapped up in one package. 🎁
You might wonder then why there is a need for a garden consultant or to ask some nearby gardener when you have the advantage of the internet.
Online articles are written by different people, who discuss gardening techniques and methods according to the weather conditions of their cities or countries. This can become confusing as timings, seasons — even the seeds used — differ from one region to the next. You, living in a different location will have different requirements for your plants to grow well.
This is also a reason why the beginner gardener gets so overwhelmed by the available possibilities and advice on the internet. Therefore, it is always better to hire a garden consultant instead of searching on the internet.
So what's the logic behind working with a local gardener?
A person who shares the same climate as you is much more familiar with the weather conditions of your area. Therefore, she can help you the most with the right timing for planting and seeding. She knows when it's raining and how much it rains, she knows about the sunlight, the storms, and frost.
A local gardener even knows about the pest issue in your region and how you can prevent or limit the effect on your plants.
If there is no gardener nearby then the garden consultant will provide you with all the possibilities according to your specific region. First, she gets familiar with the growing seasons of your area and then advises you on which plant you should grow.
She always recommends plants that are easy and quick to grow. Another important benefit of garden consultants is their high level of knowledge regarding gardening with which they help their clients.
How Does A Garden Consultant Help Clients?
The following are some of the ways a garden consultant helps you:
Provides A Step-By-Step And Easy Guide
Your garden consultant professionally helps you and provides you with a step-by-step guide. She will give you easy directions to grow your garden successfully.
Gives Your The Training To Work Independently
The garden consultant will train you and provide garden coaching so that you can manage your garden better. With the help of an expert garden consultant, you will also grow a better garden in less time.
Provides The Best Possible Advice
The garden consultant will give you the best advice by keeping your location, available space, weather, and seasons in mind. She acts as a mentor and gives advice keeping in view your garden setup. She will map out everything that you need to do so you will be able to know your goals and get proficient even before you put your hands in the soil.
Tips And Tricks
The consultant also provides beginners with some useful tips and tricks to ensure that their clients grow a flourishing garden. She will help you with installing, planning, planting, community designs, and many more. She can even tell you which plant you should grow and what conditions they need.
Answer Your Questions
Your garden consultant is available to answer all your questions even after you start gardening. You can ask anything if you are stuck at some point during the project.
Other Services
The garden consultant does not only work with or rely on her own experience. She offers every possible and best advice to satisfy the client's wishes. This can involve working with other experts. In this way, she creates a step-by-step plan for beginner gardeners.
The garden consultant visits the client personally or through an online video call to observe the amount of sunlight, available water resources, the location of the home, and aesthetics. In this way, she can determine the ideal location for your garden.
He uses her own experience of gardening and gives the best advice accordingly. She knows what needs to be given priority over other things, after which she sets the layout for your garden.
Some garden coaches also offer additional services to their clients like "turnkey services" — also known as "turnkey installation". In these services, the garden consultant manages and/or supervises the heavy lifting, garden installation, design assistance, and planting for her client.
Some garden consultants also offer one-to-one coaching sessions and video workshops if their client needs mentoring and wants to gain hands-on experience.
Key Tasks Of A Garden Consultant
There are four main tasks of a garden consultant. These are as follows:
1. Design Your Garden
Garden consultants consider their client's goals, wishes, and the style of their houses. After this, they figure out all the possibilities in your outdoor space to design an ideal garden layout just for you.
2. Installations
Garden consultants also help with installation. She clears the space, carries out the heavy lifting, and constructs the raised beds with their best soil blend, irrigation, and more.
3. Plant and Maintain
Garden consultants either work with their clients or guides the client on how to start planting. She can also visit your garden at regular intervals to perform regular maintenance.
4. Coaching and Advice
Your garden consultant recommends the ideal plant to grow every month. She also gives tips on how to manage and handle garden pests. She also guides us about the right time to perform several tasks such as digging, watering, picking, planting, and weeding.
What Is A Garden Coach
There may be some confusion about whether garden consultants and garden coaches are the same, but there is a key difference between them. A garden consultant provides information and guidance, while a garden coach does her job practically.
A garden coach shares her knowledge, experience, and training with the clients. She is like a mentor or personal trainer who gardens with the trainee.
On the other hand, a garden consultant usually starts with a consultation. She visits your garden space personally or over online video chat and asks about your personal experience gardening, garden goals, and your garden successes and failures. Then she advises you on how to improve your gardening experience.
The garden coach then guides you to choose the right plants and how to grow them in their local weather conditions. In case a client needs to start a new garden, she will help you to select the best location based on the plants you wish to grow.
He carries out all the measurements and finds available areas and then provides you with possible options accordingly. The initial consults last for an hour or two and after that, the consultant maps out a custom plan to accomplish your garden goals.
They can also help you by recommending and/or providing materials based on your location and growing conditions. She also provides valuable information about the best plant nurseries in town and other helpful information.
It is important to know that some Garden Consultants and Coaches specialize in different areas. You want a consultant that would provide for your needs - Your consultant may specialize in kitchen gardens or cut flowers for example.
Some of them are proficient in kitchen gardens and raised beds, while others focus on butterfly and pollinator gardens. Some garden consultants focus on annuals and perennials and others on balancing ecosystems. Therefore, before hiring any consultant, don't forget to confirm if their specialty can meet your garden goals.
Benefits Of Hiring A Garden Consultant
Hiring a garden consultant is practically a good decision to gain success in the garden. The top reasons you should hire a garden consultant are:
1. Knowledgeable About Your Particular Climate And Growing Conditions
Your local garden consultant knows the weather condition of your area and tells you if the tomatoes, for example, grow well in hot and dry weather or cool and wet climates. She knows how long the growing season lasts and how it's going to affect the growing ability of your plants.
He will be familiar with the first and last frost dates, the common garden pests in your region, and native plants. She is full of gardening knowledge and can happily share it with her clients.
2. Have Experience Growing Plants And Being A Gardener
A garden consultant knows the best plant nurseries and where you can buy seeds that grow in your local environment. With her advice, you can buy the best seeds in the town. She will also guide you on how much space you should leave between the plants.
3. Able To Customize A Gardening Plan For You
Some people set easy garden goals and want to grow good tomatoes and salads simply and easily. Garden consultants consider your goals and map out a custom plan accordingly. Your success is their main focus.
In case the clients want to grow a variety of fruits and veggies in a smaller space, she also has a solution for this. She will continuously guide her clients and keep track of the growing season to ensure the success of your garden.
Conclusion
Hiring a garden consultant is practically a good decision if you want to achieve success with your garden. Before hiring any consultant though, don't forget to confirm if their specialty can meet your garden goals.