Before you fill out the contact form…

I’m 

Thanks for landing here, at my contact page. But before you hit send, let’s make sure we have the potential to be a good fit for each other, because, it’s not a one size fits all situation here.

If you don’t read the following, and your email makes it obvious you haven’t, I may not reply. Not to be a jerk, but because – like you – I’m personally and professionally very busy.

Now… so you can decide whether or not filling out that contact form below is even worth your time, I’ll run through some reasons you would engage my services, and some reasons you wouldn’t.

We’d be a great match because:

• I’m a one-man team. I do it all. The meetings, the plan, quote, the work on site. I’m the one who will answer the phone and reply to the messages. It’s all on me. That means communication has a one stop shop. I’ll know what you want and I’m the guy who will execute it. Also, I’ll be the only one on site, so you know who is on your property and when.
• You want a bespoke, beautiful garden, built with care, pride, and love. Yep, I love my job and my gardens. And that’s partly why I’ve integrated this list you’re reading: I want jobs that feed my soul and not only add value to your life long-term, but add value to me as a human while I’m building them. I want to feel good at work.
• I really care about soil. There are plenty of versions of the adage, but it goes something like it’s better to put a one-dollar plant in a ten-dollar hole, than a ten-dollar plant in a one-dollar hole. If you don’t work on your soil, your plants will suck. (Just recently I pulled four-year-old Camellias out of the ground with root balls that looked like they were planted a few months prior!) If your budget won’t let you have all the nice things you want, don’t stinge on soil. Cut back elsewhere.
• You want a tradie who shows up or communicates if they can’t.
• You’re a good person. I want to work with good, kind people. That doesn’t need further explanation.

Yeah, I’m probably not your guy because:

• I’m a one-man team. Your job might need to be done quick: in and out, hello goodbye. It could be a new-build investment that you just need done fast to get someone in there ASAP. Because it’s just me, things take longer. Also, bigger crews are more likely to have employees that are guns at, say, paving or carpentry. I have to be a Jack-of-all-trades. I think I’m pretty good at what I need to be good at, but with my all-round skill set, there’s a level of perfection I can’t match with someone who just lays pavers 40 hours a week, for example.
• You want artificial turf. I have and can lay this, but I don’t want to. A) it’s heavy and awkward which isn’t great when you work alone, and B) I’d rather use living lawn and plants than plastic stuff. And this isn’t to say that I don’t think it has a place, it does. It’s just not my jam.
• You want me to build the garden, but you want to do the planting. I’m The Planted Space, not the Empty Garden Bed Space. I want to build beautiful things for nice people to completion. There are plenty of landscapers in and around Geelong who’ll happily do it all and leave the planting to you: but that’s not me.
• You want large scale work: Things like big decks, elevated decks, high or long retaining walls. It’s simply that it doesn’t make sense to engage a one-man crew to do this when there are teams of guys and girls who own large machinery and who do this stuff every day. And you’ll want a registered builder for a lot of that stuff.
• You want a landscaper who is not actively competing on price, doing it fast and cheap. I don’t believe I’m expensive, but I’m not trying to be budget. Budget leads to fast, fast leads to mistakes and poor quality. Poor quality leads to unhappy clients!
• I’m a father! As a single dad my fortnight is balanced between a 9-10 day work week (which generally includes working through the weekend) when the kids are with their mum, and a long weekend off-site when it’s all about being a dad. My two eldest spend more time with me and require less hands-on parenting, but stuff does come with them where I might be need to be off-site meeting their needs. My kids come first. I guess my point is, I won’t be there Monday to Friday, 7-3… my hours need to be a bit more flexible than that.

With all that said, if you still think we could be a landscaping match made in heaven, please fill out the contact form. Pop in some details about the nature of the work as well as your suburb. A bit of info about your timeframe would help, too. With any luck, it’s the first step to the garden of your dreams.

I try to get to emails weekly. 

*This contact form is for potential clients, not marketing experts etc. As such, I don’t respond to those solicitations.