Activity

 
Relax, think clearly, and don’t panic. If you like cad, then civil engineering is similar to LA.  You can do bridge design, factory layout, road design, dams, drainage systems, waste water treatment, water treatment plants and the list goes on. Electrical engineering is really big in the computer field. My sister-in-law designs electrical cir…[Read more]

The effects of the national economy on our profession is real. Its severity is regional. The Midwest, where I’m located, has weathered the storm much better than either coast. There certainly have been layoffs at some of the larger firms that employ landscape architects. At the same time, I am personally aware of a half dozen new LA companies that…[Read more]

I’m pretty convinced I shouldn’t go into LA but I’m still not completely sure.  I was never so sure about LA or A its self but I figured I knew a pretty good amount of it.  I’m looking more at architecture and wondering if thats doing better then LA.  I was stupid and didn’t complete my other college applications once I got accepted into my fa…[Read more]

I agree with Andrew.  The unit price method gets you in trouble on the extremes.  As a young man I supervised a landscape crew and we got a job to put in 200, 3″ caliper trees on a horse farm.  My boss got the work using the basic 3.5% rule and was pleasantly surprised at the small fortune he made in profit– because we installed with machinery an…[Read more]

My formula is not to give a price to install, but to estimate the price of someone else to provide and install based on collecting bids and dividing the planting portion of the bid by the total cost of the plants from a particular wholesale catalog. I’ve done this for ten years and it is very consistent…. in my area it is 3.5X the wholesale…[Read more]

I don’t know about the actual manufacturing, but I can address the durability question.  If you are looking for lights on a smaller scale, the low voltage industry is quickly moving to LED’s.  The underwater LED’s are usually completely sealed–no removable portions/gaskets in the casing or wiring– which is where water usually leaked in the old…[Read more]

If I buy a plant from a wholesale nursery for $10 and sell it for $30, the final price is where I get my labor, overhead and profit?

But if I buy the same plant for $20-25 from a retailer, where do I earn my labor, overhead and profit?

So should you take the wholesale cost and bring it to retail before applying you overhead and profit?  Everything else costs retail.  Seems as though it would be better to purchase materials from a retailer.

yes.  but anything beyond the plant itself would be extra (earth moving, drainage etc)

Does this 2.5-3 x markup include overhead and profit, labor and amendments?

My understanding is that the “draw” considerations required for an indoor fireplace are not needed in an outside one, because temperature and pressures differences don’t exist like they do inside a structure..  All of the pre-manufactured outdoor fireplaces I have installed or seen reinforce this:  they are really simple— nothing but a s…[Read more]

I don’t think it will be useless…but many of the government cut backs directly affect us. LA is often seen as the icing and is the first to go. I am not sure anyone in my studio has a job in LA that hasn’t left the country, and I graduated in 2009.

I would pick another major. Check where you want to live for what health care jobs are available…there are nursing gluts. Also, law grads are struggling to find employment. I would look into science and medical fields…that is just me though. Of course you want to do something that makes you feel fulfilled as well…but if you are looking for a…[Read more]

 
“MHO..Little gardens are nice, and I hope some people make a living at it, but far far more people are working away at Visual Impact Statements and Stormwater pollution requirements”  hmmm…………..
what about big gardens? 
 
Medium gardens?…………….
 
what about HUD housing? What about Oregon Plan…[Read more]

Hi Crystal,
Check out the posts by Jennifer De Graaf on the Land8 Blog.  Here’s one she wrote a while back titled 8 Resources for your Printed Portfolio that may be of immediate interest.  
I hope this helps!
Andrew

I like your positive attitude and what you say happened around 1982-1983 during this recession. The development activity slowly came back. If you could weather the storm you were fine.

Agree completely.

LOL, I shouldn’t write about communication when I’m multitasking on my iphone.

To clarify, I think a design education does two things for you other programs don’t.  The first is you learn how to solve problems using a design process.  This can be applied successfully to non-design problems.  You don’t learn to solve problems this way in a so…[Read more]

My point is that fulfilling the requirements of CEQR and NPDES are huge employers of LA’s, and will only continue to get bigger in the design process for all projects, unless you are on a very small scale. If you do not enjoy filling out forms, filing forms, and public meetings, you may have trouble getting work.
These laws have nothing to do w…[Read more]

A yard with a draft pipe and depth of a fireplace.
Several thousand years ago folk decided that it was a good idea to put a hole in the roof of their roundhouse to let the smoke out but, fireplaces as such did not really get going until a thousand years ago.  Quickly then, however, they found that one of the most important things to put in a…[Read more]