With the right knowledge under your belt, setting up your gardening business will come as naturally as your green thumbs – so read on to learn the ins and outs, including how to:
- Write a business plan
- Choose appropriate equipment for every job
- Get to grips with socials
- And prepare for the seasons.
Setting up a gardening business
Setting up a gardening business starts with a solid plan – it doesn’t need to be fit for the next business empire, but it does need to cover the basics soundly.
Basics such as:
- Choosing an appropriate, memorable business name – whether it does what it says on the tin, like “Spellbrook Garden Services”, charms with a pun, like “Blooming Brilliant Lawns”, or has a human touch, like “Joe Bloggs Gardens & Landscaping”.
- Deciding the area you will cover – you can’t be everywhere all at once, so choosing an area you know well, with customers within the income range to afford your services, and without too much competition, will form part of your recipe for success.
- Deciding on the scale of your gardening business – will you go it alone, with a business partner or with employees? Knowing where you aspire to end up will help you make decisions at the start.
- Making yourself discoverable – it sounds obvious, but you could be the best gardener and landscaper in the world – if customers don’t stumble across you, you’ll never see the work. Set up an Instagram and Facebook business account to reach potential customers, take the time to put fliers through doors, speak to locals and be seen.
Choosing the right gardening business equipment
If you want to offer a service that keeps clients coming back for more, you need to use commercial gardening equipment that can keep up with your skills as a professional gardener.
That means investing in your business by purchasing great pro lawnmowers and pro power tools.
Commercial lawnmowers for businesses
Commercial lawnmowers are typically more powerful than residential options, boasting longer uptimes due to the larger fuel tanks of commercial petrol mowers or better battery systems of commercial battery mowers.
They also come chock-full of innovative features informed by real-life conversations with gardening pros, such as the Harrier® 56 PRO’s Crank-Safe Blade Brake Clutch system.
This thoughtful addition allows you to stop the blade without turning off the engine – perfect for traversing garden paths and delivering a pitch-perfect finish for clients.
Available in varying cutting widths, you need to make sure you choose a professional lawnmower that meets the needs of your clients’ garden sizes:
- 41cm cutting width | Up to 300m2 – Harrier 41 PRO / Harrier 41 PRO 60V
- 48cm cutting width | Up to 500m2 – Harrier 48 PRO
- 56cm cutting width | Up to 1000m2 – Harrier 56 PRO
Strimmers for businesses
A good strimmer for a gardening business should be high-torque, low-vibration, and comfortable to hold for all-day use.The Toro® Revolution® 60V String Trimmer delivers all this and more, offering:
- A high-efficiency brushless motor
- Variable speed trigger
- Flex-Force compatibility with all Hayter® battery mowers
- Compatibility with the Toro Backpack & Powerlink Tether for comfortable weight distribution when cutting all day.
These brilliant tools will help you neaten any border, ensuring a perfect cut.
Hedge trimmers for businesses
Professional hedge trimmers should be purpose-built for groundscare maintenance professionals. This means robust dual-action blades, ergonomic handles and next-level comfort, allowing you to trim hedges without strain.
The Toro Revolution 60V Hedge Trimmer delivers on these goals whilst offering the added convenience of low vibration, quieter performance and a rotating handle for full control of vertical and horizontal trimming.
Leaf blowers for businesses
Leaf blowers are essential for the autumnal months in the back end of the cutting season, and as a convenient way of cleaning up post-job.
The Toro Revolution 60V Blower Cannon is powered by a comfortable backpack for all-day blowing and improved weight distribution, ideal for those who need high-performance without the strain.
Utensils for tidying gardens
As well as the leaf blower mentioned above, did you know that Hayter®’s entire range of pro lawnmowers can be used to collect leaves, doubling as a utensil for tidying gardens?
Simply raise the cutting height of your mower to be above your freshly cut grass and watch as the leaves are sucked into the grass bag.
Social media for gardening businesses
Social media, at its core, is a visual form of communication – great images, videos and a slick, branded page will always stand above the crowd.
To cultivate a strong audience, focus on these steps:
- Get the branding right – Take the time to design (ideally with help from a professional designer) the perfect branding for your profile pictures, cover photo (on Facebook), and highlight icons (on Instagram). These are the first things newcomers to your page will see, and you know what people say about first impressions.
- Post good quality content – If the content posted is poor quality, with low-res imagery/videos, poor audio and no caption – you may as well have not posted at all.
The best gardening business social media accounts post a range of visually pleasing content, from POV mowing videos to before-and-afters of customer lawns, information content on how to mow lawn stripes, get greener grass and more.
Try and post a range of content to keep things fresh.
- Post consistently – While you don’t have to post daily, posting ideally three or more times a week will remind followers you’re still there, improve your monthly reach and help you be discovered by potential clients.
Just be sure not to post more than once a day, as it may become aggravating for followers if you’re flooding their timelines!
- Tag Hayter® – The Hayter® Instagram and Facebook pages promote gardening businesses, dealerships, and gardeners who use Hayter® products for their beautiful lawns. All you have to do is tag for your chance to feature on our page.
If you need more help on mastering the art of the gardening social media account, consult our blog on influencer gardening.
Prepare for seasonal work
Gardening businesses are affected greatly by the seasons, with less work outside the cutting season when mowing is not encouraged It’s important to financially plan for these months, and offer services that can be performed in winter, such as:
- Lawn aeration and scarifying services
- Leaf/debris clearing
- Plant, tree and shrubbery pruning
- Bulb planting
- Lawn feeding
- Landscaping projects
- And more.
This will help steady your income in the less busy months of the year.
Starting a gardening business FAQs
Do I need to be a gardener full-time if I decide to start a gardening business?
No! You can run a gardening business part-time, just make sure you don’t take on more than you can chew. Just carefully consider how many clients you can realistically take on and make sure the workload does not impede the quality of your gardening work.
How do I get customers for my gardening business?
A good balance of social media marketing, traditional marketing from fliers, posters and even work van decals, as well as positive word-of-mouth, will help attract more customers.
It’ll be a slow burn at first, but the better reputation you receive for quality work, the more your reputation will snowball in the local area.
How do I stand out from other gardeners?
The best way to stand out amongst the competition is to know your competition!
Do thorough research into the other gardeners in the local area, discover what they do well and carve out your own niche unique to your skills – or – simply do what they do better.