Building Client Trust:

Earlier when you mentioned that your crew has a really good construction background and knowing those municipal setbacks and all those requirements, what are some things that homeowners don't necessarily know about, but you notice as a landscaper, a professional landscaper coming onto a site for the first time?

I think there's a few things.

like the first and foremost is always drainage especially because working in a lot of homes these days properties are getting smaller and smaller you know a typical suburban home is no longer you know a massive lot in the suburbs it's it's probably a very small lot in a condensed neighborhood so anything that you do anything your neighbors do doesn't necessarily just affect you and the neighbor.

It could potentially affect the entire survey or the entire row of townhouses or the entire row of semi-detached houses.

So drainage is the first one.

The reason I say that is because you don't want to drain water onto your neighbors.

You don't want to impact or go against any municipal bylaws because that can be a problem down the road.

But the other reason is when you're thinking about drainage, you're automatically thinking about potential grade differences in the property.

So if the backyard is a blank slate and it slopes from the back of the house down to the fence line, if I'm thinking about proper drainage, I'm kind of thinking that I can't build a patio right up to the fence and I have to stay a certain amount back, which means if the patio has to be somewhat level, Now I need a retaining wall.

So if I'm thinking about drainage when I walk on the site, that automatically means that I'm thinking about other costs, time and work implications, like the need for retaining walls around a patio, like proper planting placement of trees and privacy and those things.

The biggest thing that we see as we go into a row house in a townhome or a semi-detached in a newer development, And everybody always wants the biggest patio possible and they want privacy because there's no trees that are in the neighborhood.

They want columnar trees to block out their neighbors.

So right away, they want a patio that's basically fence to fence that goes all the way back.

And there's usually a swale back there and they want trees right back there.

Well, one, you can't put the trees in the swale because the swale has to be maintained.

and the trees would probably die from all the moisture so right away we're five or so feet off the back fence line that we can't work in so now the trees are here we can't build our patio right to the fence you need to stay at least a foot off in most municipalities not just for drainage patterns but also for proper granular over base under your your patio and your edging you can't go right up to the wooden fence so a homeowner might have a vision pre-meeting with us of what they're hoping for But we kind of need to squash that a little bit, unfortunately, to say, hey, this is the realism of the space that we can work within.

Does that affect your goals? Do you want to look at some other ideas now and just kind of talk through those processes?

Yeah, there are a lot of those hidden elements that, you know, we don't think about when we're trying to design a visual product and all that underground infrastructure and those setbacks.

Those really make a lot of decisions for us.

For sure.

And that's where clients might have awesome ideas because I mean, Hey, they're the ones that live in the space.

They're going to be the ones that are enjoying it, hopefully for decades to come, but it's just about educating them on what's feasible, what makes sense and how to work all that into their budget, their timeline goals, everything else, figure out products are going to work for that.

And I think we do a pretty good job of, of kind of navigating all those different constraints.

Earlier when you mentioned that your crew has a really good construction background and knowing those municipal setbacks and all those requirements, what are some things that homeowners don't necessarily know about, but you notice as a landscaper, a professional landscaper coming onto a site for the first time?

I think there's a few things.

like the first and foremost is always drainage especially because working in a lot of homes these days properties are getting smaller and smaller you know a typical suburban home is no longer you know a massive lot in the suburbs it's it's probably a very small lot in a condensed neighborhood so anything that you do anything your neighbors do doesn't necessarily just affect you and the neighbor.

It could potentially affect the entire survey or the entire row of townhouses or the entire row of semi-detached houses.

So drainage is the first one.

The reason I say that is because you don't want to drain water onto your neighbors.

You don't want to impact or go against any municipal bylaws because that can be a problem down the road.

But the other reason is when you're thinking about drainage, you're automatically thinking about potential grade differences in the property.

So if the backyard is a blank slate and it slopes from the back of the house down to the fence line, if I'm thinking about proper drainage, I'm kind of thinking that I can't build a patio right up to the fence and I have to stay a certain amount back, which means if the patio has to be somewhat level, Now I need a retaining wall.

So if I'm thinking about drainage when I walk on the site, that automatically means that I'm thinking about other costs, time and work implications, like the need for retaining walls around a patio, like proper planting placement of trees and privacy and those things.

The biggest thing that we see as we go into a row house in a townhome or a semi-detached in a newer development, And everybody always wants the biggest patio possible and they want privacy because there's no trees that are in the neighborhood.

They want columnar trees to block out their neighbors.

So right away, they want a patio that's basically fence to fence that goes all the way back.

And there's usually a swale back there and they want trees right back there.

Well, one, you can't put the trees in the swale because the swale has to be maintained.

and the trees would probably die from all the moisture so right away we're five or so feet off the back fence line that we can't work in so now the trees are here we can't build our patio right to the fence you need to stay at least a foot off in most municipalities not just for drainage patterns but also for proper granular over base under your your patio and your edging you can't go right up to the wooden fence so a homeowner might have a vision pre-meeting with us of what they're hoping for But we kind of need to squash that a little bit, unfortunately, to say, hey, this is the realism of the space that we can work within.

Does that affect your goals? Do you want to look at some other ideas now and just kind of talk through those processes?

Yeah, there are a lot of those hidden elements that, you know, we don't think about when we're trying to design a visual product and all that underground infrastructure and those setbacks.

Those really make a lot of decisions for us.

For sure.

And that's where clients might have awesome ideas because I mean, Hey, they're the ones that live in the space.

They're going to be the ones that are enjoying it, hopefully for decades to come, but it's just about educating them on what's feasible, what makes sense and how to work all that into their budget, their timeline goals, everything else, figure out products are going to work for that.

And I think we do a pretty good job of, of kind of navigating all those different constraints.