[00:00:20] Keith:
[00:00:33] Keith Ramsey with garden supply company. I've got Steven Petrilliac here who works with Garden Supply CO as well. He manages our nursery. Today, we want to bring people up to speed on the art and the science of landscape design. The importance of getting good advice before you start to spend money and make sure that the money that you're spending is investing money in your property and not just throwing it down the drain.
[00:00:59] picking the right plant for the right location. There's so much science behind plants. There are plants that need to be in the shade, but need to be wet. There are plants that need to be in the shade. that need to be dry. There are full sun plants.
[00:01:13] There are plants. That'll cover both of those ranges, but if you go in and you invest in 10 or 12 plants for a screen planning and you put a full sun plant in the shade, in the end, you've basically got nothing. And then just, getting good sound advice, working with a professional somebody that you know, is going to back up what they're, if they're installing it or if they're making recommendations that they're going to guarantee those plants and follow through.
[00:01:36] I had a customer the other day that actually did the consult with us and ran into somebody in the neighborhood, decided they were going get a second quote from them, got the second quote. And it was the exact same price as what we were had quoted, but the guy was there and we've done multiple projects for him.
[00:01:54] And they're a really good customer, he just decided to pull the trigger. He liked the guys, he seemed nice. The guy came in and put in a few plants. He spent a couple of thousand dollars and the plant dies when he called them back for the warranty, he didn't warranty it.
[00:02:09] They don't warranty plants, it's we sell bees and because bees are flying insects, we don't warranty them, plants are main business and we feel like that, know, if you get the right person, the right plan and you get it in the right spot, that we can warranty it.
[00:02:23] And we do warranty, all of our trees and shrubs for a year. He came back to us and he was, very discouraged. He couldn't understand why this got in warranty, his plants. And I explained to him that, they're living beings. , it is easy to lose them.
[00:02:36] If it's not part of their business model, then they may not be able to afford to warranty, or they just may not want to warranty, but, picking the right person to do the job and then getting the right advice. I think
[00:02:49] Steven: there's a lot of factors that come into play when determining the right plant for the right spot.
[00:02:53] Like you said, if you're going for a screening plant and you're not well informed on how large the thing is actually going to get. There are some screening plants where you just want to have a drug, that's going to get 10 to 12 feet tall. So you wouldn't need something like larger growing arborvitae and that is a lot where people have come in and chosen something or a spot because they liked the color or they liked the texture.
[00:03:14] And it performs well where it is, but it gets to a point that has just completely outgrown its space. And then you've got to start back at square, one again.
[00:03:21] Keith: When you're talking about, a screen or a privacy hedge picking the right spacing is another thing.
[00:03:26] It's 10 feet works as good as seven. But it's going to be three or four years longer. Three feet, the plants they're going to crowd each other out and the root zones are going to compete. You can take a Burford Holly or a needlepoint, Holly, and you can put them three to four feet on center and the plan will thrive in that environment.
[00:03:44] You take something large, like arborvitae and you cram them together and they're going to age out twice as fast as they would. You've spent twice the amount of money going in, and it's going to last half the time, even though it's a perfect plant, maybe for the location. all of these factors and it's so inexpensive to have a landscape designer come out when you start factoring in, it's going to be a fraction of the cost of the whole project, it's always bothersome me when you pull up into a neighborhood, And somebody's piecemealed it. They put a plant here and a plant there, my yard tends to be that because I'm a plant person and I collect plants and I want one of these and one of those, a lot of times a new plant will come out and I'll plant three of them in the yard so that I can test them out.
[00:04:24] And I can actually give people definitive answers about that plant, but when somebody is doing design work, we're not recommending putting in a hundred different types of plants. We want to do it more like you paint a house, you pick a couple of colors or
[00:04:36] a piece of stone and a piece of Hardy board, and then this color, and then a trim color, you want it fairly simple so that it's big and it's bold and it's impactful.
[00:04:45] Steven: And that's where I think going back to the spacing is important. Not only of course, with screening or head rows, any bed that you're planning.
[00:04:52] I always stress to the customer over planning as an issue. You might want all this color, you might want all these different things. But before long it's easy to get overwhelmed and overcrowded in the garden. And next thing you're leading yourself to failure. So I always tell people, get all your bones in and that gives them the opportunity to come back seasonally and, find new things that they can add to the garden.
[00:05:12] And of course, yeah, we can go ahead and do a full-blown design. That's. Turnkey done. You don't have to add to it cause you got plenty of customers that just want to come in and they want their yard redone. And that's great, but doing it little pieces at a time and having somebody give you the right advice on the spacing so that you don't end up, killing yourself, trying to maintain it,
[00:05:30] Keith: and as far as the cost goes it's, it's a fraction
[00:05:33] if you do a $3,000 landscape install, it's less than $300 to do an on-site consult at your house. So it's 10% of the cost, but it's everything. As far as the outcome of the project you wouldn't build a building without having an engineer or architect look at it. It's the same kind of scenario.
[00:05:51] You're throwing money away when you don't have a good plan. You look at it, if it's a six or $10,000 job, it's you're down to three or 4% of the cost of the whole project and it's a project that's going to work, landscaping's never a hundred percent even if we're putting in, say like a hedgerow, We get one plant that's too close to a large tree and either gets too much shade or it gets too much root competition and it doesn't do as well as the others, but getting the right plant in the right place, we can usually make adjustments to that plant.
[00:06:20] More water, more fertilizer a little more light and we can have that plant come back around, but there's nothing a hundred percent about it. It's not as cut and dry as painting a house. And that's why it's even more important. To really get that advice. When Steven was talking about spacing, one of the things that you're, when you're talking about costs, he's talking people...
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