Recently I've become a provider of gardening services. And though I've been doing it for a few months now, I was told very recently that I still can't refer to myself as a gardener. Apparently there's a clear distinction between gardening services and landscaping services -- gardeners not only maintaining outdoor areas, but being experts in plant know-how as well, able to discern what plants will do well in different environments and so forth. Landscapers, I was told, merely maintain existing areas. All that aside, learning how to offer landscaping and gardening services was one of the best things I've done this year.
If a person does it long enough, gardening will teach them just about everything they need to know to keep up with the repairs of a home. Repairing broken sprinklers, building apparatuses for ponds and waterfalls, and setting up retaining walls, one gets to try their hand at plumbing, carpentry, and masonry. Though I'm still far from being an expert about plants and their optimal habitats, I've learned many of the skills necessary for keeping up with a deteriorating home. Those I'll hold onto and refine as much as I can.
The other reason why building a collection of gardening services was so satisfying to me, was because it made me feel connected to that old-fashioned master/apprentice model of learning. Doing work for a friend of mine who owns his own gardening business, I was taught gardening firsthand by a man who'd been in the business for over thirty years. Being a younger man myself, I really enjoyed being around a person who's a master at their craft. There's just something special and rare about that style of learning in our modern day and age. You don't it much anymore. It's something I think we've lost in this country. Maybe I'm being overly nostalgic. I don't know.
On the more current, economic side, the demand for gardening services has seen a sharp decline, especially in the state of California, where I reside. During tough economic times, gardeners are seen more as a luxury than a necessity. Add to that the current water crisis in southern California, and you've got a very tricky situation for landscapers and gardeners. But the grass still grows as fast as ever, and people will hopefully soon start to miss their landscape professionals. I've seen quite a deterioration this year in the upkeep of outdoor landscapes. It seems simple enough to take care of a yard, but oddly, even maintaining a green lawn can be an arduous task. It's a shame, not only that gardening services are on the decline, but also that yards are losing their landscape lustre. Once things start to bounce back, hopefully we'll see a change.