Live Blissed Out

044 - Landscape Planning

July 07, 2020 Marisa Huston & Jessi Burg Episode 44
Live Blissed Out
044 - Landscape Planning
Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

Joining me is Jessi Burg, Founder and Head Gardener of Pears To Perennials.

Some people garden as a hobby, but for Jessi it is a way of life. As a native of Pennsylvania, she had to learn new ways to maximize her garden production when she moved to Colorado. After years of gardening in the challenging, alkaline soil common to Colorado, she is now an expert. After getting her M.A. in Environmental Leadership from Naropa University, she turned her gardening passion into a business. Her goal is to advance sustainable practices while helping others build and maintain outside spaces. Jessi grows, cans, and preserves her own food, so she can eat out of the garden year round. Now, she can feed three adults for the year on her 150 square foot plot. She is happy to share her knowledge and experience with others.

To learn more visit https://pearstoperennials.com

To download your free landscape planning guide visit https://pearstoperennials.com/landscape-project-planning

In this episode we will cover:

  • When To Consider A Professional
  • Locating A Company That Provides The Service You Need
  • Outdoor Remodeling
  • Consultation
  • Budget Considerations
  • The Right Fit
  • Plan Ahead
  • Break It Up & Design Ahead Of Time

Thanks so much for tuning in again this week. I appreciate you 🙂

Have some feedback you’d like to share? Leave a note in the Feedback section.

Special thanks to Jessi Burg for being on the show.

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So long for now and remember to keep moving forward!

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Marisa Huston :

This is Episode 44 on The Live Blissed Out podcast. Spending time outdoors has a variety of health benefits and a beautiful yard inspires us to go outside. Did you know that there are no native trees to the Denver area? As a short grass prairie ecosystem our native plants are primarily grasses, shrubs and herbaceous perennials. Hello Action Takers! Welcome to Live Blissed Out. A podcast where I have authentic conversations with business owners and subject matter experts to help us get the scoop, the 411 and the lowdown on a variety of topics. Tired of hesitating or making decisions without having the big picture? Wanna be in the know? Then this is the place to go. I'm your host Marisa Huston. Helping achieve bliss through awareness and action. Thanks for joining me. The information opinions and recommendations presented in this podcast are for general information only and any reliance on the information provided in this podcast is done at your own risk. This podcast should not be considered professional advice. Joining me is Jessi Burg, Founder and Head Gardener of Pears to Perennials. Some people garden as a hobby but for Jessi it's a way of life. As a native of Pennsylvania she had to learn new ways to maximize her garden production when she moved to Colorado. After years of gardening in the challenging alkaline soil common to Colorado, she is now an expert. After getting her MA in Environmental Leadership from Naropa University, she turned her gardening passion into a business. Her goal is to advance sustainable practices while helping others build and maintain outside spaces. Jessi grows cans and preserves her own food so she can eat out of the garden year round. Now she can feed three adults for the year on her 150 square foot plot. She is happy to share her knowledge and experience with others. To learn more visit www.pearstoperennials.com. To download your free landscape planning guide visit www.pearstoperennials.com/landscape-project-planning. Searching for a minimal versatile handheld tripod? Look no further. Switchpod works with any camera from a phone to a DSLR and simplifies video making. Switchpod is lightweight, compact and nearly indestructible. It will save you time between shots so you can focus more on shooting and less on messing with your gear. Just head over to the partners tab at www.liveblissedout.com and click on the Switchpod link to let them know I sent you and help support the show. Hi, Jessi. It's great to have you here today.

Jessi Burg :

I'm excited to be here!

Marisa Huston :

This is such an opportune time to talk about landscaping because we are getting into the summer months here and as we know everybody wants to go out, have a barbecue, enjoy the outdoors with the birds chirping and all this wonderful stuff that happens in the summertime, and as a result, we start thinking about our yards and everybody has different goals. You know, some people want to hang out and just lay there and enjoy the sun. And some people have grand plans. They might want to create a garden bed, you know, with vegetables and fruits and other people want low maintenance garden that they can just enjoy whenever they want. So everybody's got their own idea as to what they think the ideal landscape is for their homes. And with us being home a lot now, people are really looking into how do they make their gardens more enjoyable so that when they're home, they can really take advantage of the beauty of their yards and feel like it's an extension of the inside of their homes. There are choices that we make when we decide to work on our yards. It's either we do it ourselves or we hire a professional and we may do small portions of that ourselves and sometimes we will do a large portion of it and other times we will just leave it all to a professional to take care of because it's too much of a headache. So I wanted to start by asking you what you feel the pros and cons are of a DIY project versus hiring a professional.

Jessi Burg :

I would say that one of the biggest questions, especially when someone is thinking about doing it themselves is what do they want that end product to look like? And what is their comfort with the skills that they need to get there? So if you are looking at a large project, and it requires any sort of structural engineering, you need to build terracing walls, you need to build a retaining wall, you're having drainage issues, you think your house has an irrigation system, but you haven't turned it on in the eight years that you've lived there. You don't know if you have a backflow valve, which is the thing that prevents water from going into the sewer system or into your house when there's a problem with your irrigation and something overflows, if that happens. Those are all things that require really specialized knowledge. You need engineering knowledge, you need plumber knowledge, sometimes you need architectural knowledge. All of those pieces. And so if those aren't skills that you have, if you are not an engineer on the side, or if you don't know someone who is, then those things absolutely should go to a professional, hands down. Because you want something that will last and you want something that if it's going to be hazardous or something that needs to be permitted or has to be inspected by the city.

Marisa Huston :

And I would assume that you also need to consider longevity. So for example, if you're trying to maybe sell your house in the future and you want it to really look good than having a professional landscape, that area is probably going to look a lot better than trying to DIY it. That is going to help you decide then whether or not you want to tackle it on your own versus hire a professional.

Jessi Burg :

Yeah. And then once you determine those pieces of all right, what we really want here is we're going to remove the sod and then put in plants and there's no structural things involved in that you have an existing irrigation system or you are already wiring another area by hand and you think it's going to be fine. So a lot of this area by hand, and it's all what we typically refer to as fairly unskilled labor, which is a term that actually drives me insane. Because not everyone is capable of digging out a bunch of sod and adding in extra plants or a wide variety of reasons. So it's still a skilled labor thing. Are you physically capable? Or do you want to do that kind of work? A lot of people might be physically capable of doing that type of work, but they may not want to and hiring out that manual labor portion may be a decision that people make because it's either physically strenuous, and they don't want to because of time because of any number of reasons. They might have children, they might be busy. And so making sure that if they want to do some of those more just straight up manual labor, dig their own holes, they can certainly do that. And the big question there becomes what are the plants that they want to go in and there are a lot of websites around. My personal favorites are www.plantsleft.com and www.waterwise.org ,both of which are great Colorado resources for what do you plant in the Colorado, right? And so you can find those things, but we have a really particular ecosystem. And so if you don't have a fair amount of knowledge about what plants will live, or you haven't had success in the past, hiring someone to help you with that planning stage, how do I get to the garden? What plants are going to work in my area? So you might decide to hire somebody for the design and then do the actual install yourself? So those are all the pieces you have to weigh of what information can you get? How much time do you want to invest in it? And then what do you want to outsource to somebody else? So it really becomes in part a comfort level and being realistic about what is your time. I have hired my own company to redo my front yard because I was busy running a company and while I can dig out my own sod and plant my own plants, I didn't want to and so I hired myself to do that work.

Marisa Huston :

From a consumer standpoint...Okay, you are needing a particular service. Let's just assume I need a new sprinkler system. Well, that seems pretty straightforward. It's not because there's definitely going to be digging involved, there's going to be planning involved in that process. So why is it that when you call a particular landscaping company, they might say to you, no, we don't do sprinklers. As a consumer, then how do I locate the people that I know are going to be able to offer the service that I need?

Jessi Burg :

So landscaping is really a bunch of smaller industries kinda all rolled into one. So the same way that when you call on HVAC company, and they say, this guy does the heating, this guy does the air conditioning, this lady does the electric and that lady does the plumbing, landscaping kind of works the same way. We don't have necessarily all of the ability to do all of the things. My company for example, we handle plants. We are really really good at talking to people about low water, low maintenance plants and what's going to work in a particular area. And how to maintain that. Well, I don't have an engineer and I don't have a plumber on staff, so when somebody says we need a terrace built, we work with another company that does that and they only do rock. So together, we can provide both of those services. But not doing both of those things under one company means we can be really, really good at the one thing we do. So a lot of companies make that decision. Some of it is also overhead, I in part keep my company at the size that it is because I don't want to have to handle heavy equipment. I don't want to have to manage plumbing certifications. I don't want to have to manage engineer certifications. And that's a decision that we've made as a company. Other companies decide what they really want to do is build outdoor rooms. They're going to build your flagstone patio, they're going to build your firepit, they're going to build your terracing, and then they're going to put all the plants in they're going to run your electric lighting and all of your pieces but that means they have to hire an electrician and a plumber and it's a stone mason and people to do all of the lifting and so they're deciding that as a company of how much they want to manage. So it becomes the difference between doing one particular skill or really being a broader project manager for a lot of different things. And so not all landscaping companies want to do it. Some landscaping companies really like the commercial aspects. In Colorado, there are some particular laws around who can work on a commercial property that require a different set of certifications and those types of things. It really depends on what the company wants to take on. And so when you call a landscaping company, it becomes a lot about does that company mesh with the type of work you want done? And so that's always a question to ask, and a lot of times those things are available on a company's website. They'll tell you what their specialty is, or they'll have a project gallery. If it's not in that company's project gallery or looks like the type of project you're looking for, then that's probably not going to be a good company for you and you can set up an estimate with somebody else. The other thing to think about on that front is you don't have to know exactly what you want. But you do need to have an idea of the scale of your project. Are you looking for just plants? If so, when that person comes to the estimate to talk about just plants, then talk to them about just plants. And if you have other questions about your deck or your fence, you might ask for a recommendation for that. You want to tailor your conversation to the type of project that you're doing. If what you want is for somebody to redo your whole backyard, you need to do that you need a new fence, you would like a new patio built with a fire pit and an outdoor kitchen and you want plants you have to decide do I want to talk to a company that does all of these things? Or do I want to schedule an estimate with a company that builds out their kitchens? A company that built the deck? A company that does fences? A company that does plants? And then you talk about just those things? So then it becomes a question of do you want to project manage your own backyard? Or do you want to hire a company that will subcontract all of those different pieces and they'll manage it for you. So you'll have one point person that you'll talk to you but then it becomes much like a home remodel more of a conversation with a general contractor as opposed to an individual company.

Marisa Huston :

And now that you mentioned that it sounds like a home remodel, except it's in the exterior. And oftentimes we don't think about that. Inderstanding that and telling yourself, look, I'm remodeling the exterior of my home and how much of that do I want to do? Am I going to do one area? I'm going to do the whole thing? And what's my ultimate goal? And then those questions will help direct you to get what you need.

Jessi Burg :

Absolutely. It kind of runs the gamut from am I doing the equivalent of a fresh coat of paint? Or am I gutting everything down to the studs and starting over from scratch? And then there's a lot of range in between. And so your outside is like that as well. How much do you want to do? And then what's the order? And then the thing that people really often forget is that in terms of landscaping that really comes last. It is the equivalent of a fresh coat of paint or hanging some stuff on the walls so your desk goes in first, your patio goes in first, your terracing goes in first, you're irrigation goes in first. All of those things happen before you plants. Plants come last. This is the biggest visual impact a lot of times. That's the thing that people really want to start with. Oh, but if I just had some flowers, it would really look nicer. But if the actual issue was that you need a whole new retaining wall, do the retaining wall first, and then put the flowers in, because when you do the retaining wall later, you're gonna have to do the flowers again.

Marisa Huston :

There's obviously consultation that needs to happen, because when I speak to somebody like you, for example, you have a very different perspective. Because I may not really understand all these things that you're sharing with me now. So when somebody calls you and says, hey, I want to achieve this in my garden, and you set up a consultation, what does that look like? I mean, do you go to their house and then just sit down with them and ask them questions to get a better understanding as to what they'd like to achieve.

Jessi Burg :

Actually, the first step even before that is when somebody calls or fills out the information form on our website, the first thing we say is have you looked at our website and project gallery? And there's a couple of reasons for that. One is we want to make sure that that client understands the style of projects that we do. And then one thing that's true about our website that is not necessarily true of everybody's website is we include pricing. So what we want to do is make sure that the amount of money you want to spend matches about the cost of the project that we do. So if you're thinking, oh, yeah, I have a $30,000 budget for this project and you look on our website, and you see that most of our projects cap out at 10 or 15, grand, we may not be the right fit for you, because you might have other things that you're thinking will be involved. If your budget is $1,000. And you're looking at our website, you're seeing that that style of projects that you want on our website is usually $5,000. We want to know that right off the bat, because we're not going to be a good fit for you. How much you want to spend doesn't match how much we charge and that gap is large enough that it doesn't make sense for us to come up. So we do a little bit of that kind of filtering in advance to just say, hey, are you aware of how we work and what our pricing is? Do you still want to go through with this estimate. Does that sound good to you?

Marisa Huston :

What do you feel is a minimum amount that somebody should set aside if they're even going to look at professional help as an option for them?

Jessi Burg :

It depends on what type of product you're looking at. So if you are looking at doing a small area of your yard, and you are willing to do some amount of the work, you might be able to do a project for 500 to 1000 up. If you're looking for help getting a cleanup done, depending on how big the area is, and how densely those weeds are in you could be looking at anything from a couple hundred bucks to a couple thousand dollars depending on really how big the area is and how overgrown it is. We talk to a lot of clients who think that their yard is really overgrown, but compared to some of the other things that we've looked at, it's really not that bad. But generally speaking, if you're going to hire a professional, you need to be willing to part with at least a few hundred dollars at minimum. And then if you're looking at a bigger project, if you're doing something that involve plants, if you're looking at something that involves planting, if you need to do both cleanup and removal before you can get to the planting, or if you need irrigation work, and you should be prepared to spend a few thousand. It's pretty rare that we do a job that involves planting, cleanup and irrigation that comes in for less than two or $3,000. And that goes all the way up to if you are thinking about a whole yard project, those types of projects typically come in for us between 10 and $15,000. And we don't do any of your structural engineering. So if you need stone work, terracing retaining walls, patio any of those kinds of things that cost just kind of goes up from there,

Marisa Huston :

Just like in any other industry, you go on line and you look at websites, and there are so many different options to choose from, and you get overwhelmed. You just don't know who to even look for, aside from the fact that obviously you're going to read the information on the website and see if they even offer the service you're looking for. How do I know who to trust? What's the protocol in terms of when I contact somebody, what should I be looking for as a consumer to feel good that this is the right person for me.

Jessi Burg :

A big thing is when you look at the websites, and when you talk to different people on the phone, try to match the scale of your project to that average scale that that company does. So if you're looking at a company's website, and all of their pictures are of a big outdoor room, but you want a front garden area just in the front of your house, that's probably not going to be a great fit. So they might be a really great company. But your step one is make sure that the company you contact you the kind of projects that you wants to get done. And then you can ask questions and pay a lot of attention to how they answer them. One thing that is true is a lot of companies don't want to give you any sort of pricing information over the phone. It's still appropriate to ask, on average for a job that is a full backyard remodel, what's the price range on that what you really want to know is how many zeros does that company charge? You can also ask if they have a minimum. Some companies won't do a job if it's less than $10,000 or $30,000. So ask those questions and pay attention to how they answer them. So if they're answering them in a way that feels informative, they're probably a pretty good company. But if they're answering them in a way that makes you feel like you're just $1 sign, then that may not be a great fit for you. One of the things that you want is to really pay attention to how much transparency is that company really willing to give you? A lot of people will download a list of these are the types of questions you should ask a contractor and they'll say things like, are your staff employees or contractors or does your company have insurance? And those questions are important, but you can go a little deeper than that to. How many of your employees did you retain from last season to this season? What is the average length of time an employees stays with you? What is the starting pay for your employees? Find out if they pay their employees well? Do they have workman's comp will that cover if someone gets injured on your property doing this project. What types of screenings of your staff people have? All of those are questions you can ask to get a feel for how the company works.

Marisa Huston :

Those are things that I would never have thought to ask. And I think that's helpful to know because you're basically recommending that we communicate with them and make sure that we're interviewing them. We're asking them if they are the right fit for us. And they're doing the same. They're trying to identify if they can serve us in the way that we expect to be served.

Jessi Burg :

Right. And it becomes a lot about being realistic about your expectations and making sure that they match the company that you are choosing to work with. And then also, are they treating you like a person? Are you getting answers to questions in a way that feels informative? When you have a question because most people don't know how the landscaping industry works and they don't know why something happens in some way. Are they providing you that answer with information? Or are they giving you kind of a non answer about that? A good company interested in having an informed consumer. I want to make sure that my clients are really clear on what is the product that they're getting? And what can they expect from us? And that's a key part of our service model. Other companies don't have that. So if someone's unwilling to explain how their pricing works, or they're unwilling to explain where they get their stuff from, or they're unwilling to explain aspects of their business, or if they seem really disorganized, those are all big red flags for me.

Marisa Huston :

Because we don't know what you know, oftentimes, you just feel like they're talking to you in a different language. And that's very frustrating. When you have somebody sitting down with you and talking to you at your level to help you understand exactly how your work is going to impact their needs, then you feel comfortable you feel at home, you can ask questions, and you can really collaborate. Whereas when they're talking over you with lingo that you don't understand or it's just so complicated, then it's almost overwhelming for a consumer because they're not really clear on exactly how this is all gonna work.

Jessi Burg :

And if someone is the kind of person where they really want a lot of that information, they want to really understand the process, they want to really understand where they're going, their best bet is always going to be to schedule things, scheduled their estimates, schedule their conversations, work on their designs, in what we consider the offseason. So the middle of April until probably the middle of July is really really busy for landscapers in Colorado. That's when we're at our busiest. So if you want to really get good information, schedule your estimate and start thinking about your project in August or September or October or January. Sometime when there isn't as much going on and those companies have the time to really sit down with you. And then when that busy season rolls around, you've already gotten all your questions answered. Because I know for us our response time goes from within a couple hours in a slower season to sometimes a whole week during our busiest season and we do our best to mitigate that. But anybody who really wants a lot of questions, answers gets frustrated, because it takes up a little bit to get back to them with detailed information when we're really busy.

Marisa Huston :

If you plan ahead, you have more time to go through everything and not rush yourself and then you would get the attention that you'd like. You're setting unrealistic expectations, then you're basically going to be very disappointed with the outcome.

Jessi Burg :

In Colorado is very true that a lot of the companies that do really good work and have really great customer service, they tend to bulk up. And so if you're trying to get a project done at the end of May, and you want it done by the end of June, your choice in companies is a lot smaller.

Marisa Huston :

And these are great tips, by the way, because this is so helpful. I don't think that most of us think about these things. Because again, we're not living in that world. This is a one off thing, usually right? You live in your house. Hopefully you live there for many, many years. And this is a major change or decision that you make and it's not something you do every day. So of course we're not experts in exactly what we should be thinking about which is why we're having this conversation because hopefully somebody listening today is going to go, I am right now thinking about doing this for my landscaping. And now I know exactly what I should be doing and thinking about and how to plan ahead for it so that I can be successful with the process.

Jessi Burg :

It's really hard to think about your landscape when it's wintertime, even though that's the best time for planning. Because it's human nature. You go outside in the spring, and you're like, oh, I really wish I had some flowers right here. Or it hits early summer and you're like, ah, I really wish that you know, my patio wasn't all wibbly wobbly so my grill, sits straight on it. We think about these things in the spring, because that's when everything's blooming back when winter is relaxing a little bit. So it's very human nature to think about it when you want to get it done. But like many other things is that planning ahead can really lead to a much better product.

Marisa Huston :

Better outcome and less stress overall. That's a wonderful suggestion. I love that idea. Because again, it's not something we think about and now that we know. Especially if it's on the back of your mind you want to take action but you're like, Is it gonna be this year or next year? Well now you know. If you really are serious about it, the worst that can happen is plan now and then when you're ready to take action, then you know exactly what you need to be doing, because you'll have the plan set already.

Jessi Burg :

And you can always break things into pieces. Any company will charge for designs. And everybody has a slightly different method that they charge for garden design. Some people do hourly some people do square footage. So it kind of depends on the company and how they structure it. Our company does by square footage. And so there are a lot of projects where we do a design, say this year, but then we do the install next year. And so you can always revisit that design once you have the overall plan. You can implement it in pieces. We did a project earlier this year where we did the design for both the front and the back yard and we're going to install the front yard this fall and we're going to do the back yard next spring. So then they get to spread out the cost.

Marisa Huston :

You can revisit it because maybe you were thinking one thing this year and then by the time you actually decide to do something about it, you wanted to make a change and so now you have the time to do it before the project even starts and that's better, right? Because you've given a lot of thought to the process beforehand. If people want to get a hold of you could you share with us how they get more information about your company?

Jessi Burg :

So a great place to start is on our website which is www.pearstoperrenials.com. like the fruit PEARS to perennials like a perennial flower. And so you can always start on our website and that has information about our products. It has information about our new indoor plant program that we just launched earlier this year. So if you have questions about your indoor plants are looking to do some indoor landscaping, that's now something we do. And then there is also a resources page that has a pile of different stuff from free landscape designs and plant lists to free resources that the Front Range cities offer to pictures of installed xeriscaping to just some maintenance. How you set up a landscaping project is a handout that is now on our website as well. So if you want to delve into this a little bit more and you want an actual timeline of How do I think about my landscaping project? that's on our website. So that's a great place to start. And then anyone can always call us at 720-443-2228. And then we're also on Instagram and Facebook, both @pearstoperrenials for Instagram and pearstoperennials on Facebook. We are really involved in our local community as a company and we hold that really strongly and so for July, we are actually running a fundraiser for the Cottonwood Institute, which is an organization based in Denver that works to empower youth through civic engagement and connection with nature, and they are really spectacular. So for the month of July, we are donating 50% of our garden design revenue to the Cottonwood Institute. Anybody who wants to learn more about them can check that out on our website. If you're interested in getting a design done and contributing some of that money to a good cause, give us a call and we can get your started.

Marisa Huston :

Oh, that's great. Jessi. Thank you so much! Listening to what you shared with us today helps me really understand how to go about hiring somebody or making even the decision to act when it comes to working on your landscaping and your garden. I am just so grateful that you joined us here today and thank you again for sharing all your knowledge with us.

Jessi Burg :

Absolutely. I really enjoyed being here. Thank you for having me.

Marisa Huston :

That's all for this episode of Live Blissed Out. Thanks for listening and thanks to Jessi Burg for being my guest. If you find value in our show, please visit www.liveblissedout.com to reach out, subscribe and share on social media. This show is made possible through listeners like you. Thank you. So long for now and remember to keep moving forward!

When To Consider A Professional
Locating A Company That Provides The Service You Need
Outdoor Remodelling
Consultation
Budget Considerations
The Right Fit
Plan Ahead
Break It Up & Design Ahead Of Time