[Aaron Thacker]

I went thorugh a similar change a year or so ago. I had been doing planting plans, but found I needed to expand a little for the residential market. I try to get out to nurseries and botanic gardens to better my plant id skills and to keep things creative, but the biggest coordination item for me has been developing my xcel bid sheet to have a core palette I can work with. I don’t think home owners/clients expect you to know everything, but they do expect you to know what you are proposing. If you have confidence in that it will make all the difference.

I stick to my core palette, which is catagorized by sun/shade/water/etc., to keep the design process efficient and reliable. Warranty work will kill you faster than reusing the same plants on the next project. I mix things in as needed because I saw something I think would add more interest, but in the end I stick to what I know and build on it. Besides, if you have 15 trees, 25 shrubs, 10 grasses and 25 perennials, just for example, you have all sorts of combinations you can come up, not-to-mention you will be able to id them.

What I did my first winter, when I had some down time, was look through plant catalogs, books, google image search for plants (or planting plans) and organize the plant list so that come spring you know what you want to use. I think a class might help, but if you are back in design-build, save your money and use your time to stoke your curiosity, it will work itself out. At least is did for me.

[Aaron Thacker]

Well, I would never pay good money to have someone slap a plan together that they think would work, but maybe in some parts of the world people do that..? Who am I kidding? That has apparently happened all over the place! With the help of poeple who have no business reviewing plans or approving them. I think they call it “Tomorrows Ghettos Today”.

Planting isn’t just about making it look pretty, or just not having dead “stuff” everywhere. Any good LA knows that.

I think the orginal point of this discussion was more in line with LA’s not supporting their own due to some theorizing that it doesn’t really make a difference as long as they can draft and design. And, I don’t think it really matters what your background is in as long as you have put forth the effort to be trained to do what you are doing (for any job). If a firm needs to fill a specific type of position they will do it. But, that doens’t mean that any person that can click a mouse and read someone elses plan can do it too.

We certainly don’t need to “beautify the world at all cost” by any means, but at some point it will have been landscaped, or untouched in an act of preservation, or because the ROV was crap. I just hope that the people that play a part in the continuing emergence of that phenomenon, regardless of economic markets, know what they are doing because it is safe to say that the old philosopy has had a few shortcummings.

[Aaron Thacker]

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