The Landscaping Podcast

This week I speak with Andrew Smith from Warners Nursery in Melbourne. Andrew has worked at Warners since he left school 36 years ago, and shares some of the tips in this episode about how Warners is so good at retaining staff. Warners are also a significant contributor to the success of The Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show each year, and Andrew is hugely involved in that too, so he...

This week I speak with Tom Humphrey from Landscapists in Berry, New South Wales. Tom is one of four directors at Landscapists, and last week I spoke with Lloyd Sharpe who's one of the other directors there. Tom controls the office/design side of the business and has an interesting and varied path to get to where he is today, including working in garden maintenance, remedial building, studying...

In this episode I speak with Lloyd Sharpe of Landscapists, a landscape design, construction and maintenance company based in Berry, New South Wales. Lloyd is one of of four directors of Landscapists and is in charge of the construction side of the business, and on next week's episode I'll be speaking with the director who looks after the design side of the business, Tom Humphrey. Lloyd e...

In this weeks episode I speak with Mitch Kushturian of Exotic Living in Sydney. Exotic Living do Landscaping design and construction, but also Carpentry and Garden Maintenance, and while Mitch runs the Landscaping and Design side of the business, his brother runs the Carpentry and their best mate runs the maintenance. So we discuss how that all works. We also talk about Mitch's two times work...

In this episode I speak with Mon Palmer from Bare Cabo based in Perth. Mon also has a number of other business she runs including SGO Outdoor Showers, a luxury accommodation experience called Sebatikel, and she also runs a SkethUp course. So she's clearly knowledgeable about business and shares some tips in this chat, including that she's still learning despite being in business for more...

In this episode I speak with Dan Foreman from Danscapes. Dan is a landscaper and designer based in Melbourne and we've had this chat planned for a few months, but I wanted to wait until he'd built one of the show gardens at this years Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show before chatting to him. The garden he was construction manager for won the Mark Bence Construction Award. Da...

In this episode I speak to Sean Collinsgru of Premier Outdoor Living in New Jersey, USA. Sean runs a successful deck and patio business of which he attributes about 90% of the source of work from his hugely popular social media accounts. He currently has 82,000 Instagram followers, 165,000 on TikTok and 196,000 YouTube subscribers. Throughout the chat, Sean gives some great advice about his most p...

In this episode I speak with Ben Hutchinson from Ben Hutchinson Landscapes based in Melbourne. Ben is a great example of how you can be a landscaper and not do all of the various roles within landscaping. Ben's niche is native/natural gardens, usually featuring an amazing water feature/pond. He's a certified Aquascape contractor and has travelled to the USA to hone his skills and make va...

In this episode I speak with Ian Barker from Ian Barker Gardens and it's one I thoroughly enjoyed recording. Ian runs a landscape design, construction and maintenance business based in Melbourne and will celebrate 25 years in business later this year. Ian has designed and built multiple show gardens at both The Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show and the Chelsea Flower Show, winnin...

In this episode I speak with Clint Adams of Hectogon in South Australia. Clint runs four different businesses under the one umbrella including an irrigation supply store called WaterPro, landscape supply yard called Railways, lawn fertiliser business called LawnHub and is about to release an app called Dirt Cart. So with all of this in mind, it's obvious Clint knows a thing or two about busin...

In this episode I speak with Meg Geary from MG Gardens, a landscape design company based in Melbourne. Meg is not only a landscape designer, but also a plant nerd, and they're a great guest to have on as they're always passionate about what they do. We talk about how Meg started in the industry and how she got her name out there so that people knew she existed, and we also discuss the st...

In this episode I speak with Joel Kean from Aquadreamz, a boutique pool building company based in Melbourne. Joel is a well respected person within the pool building industry and is currently the President of the Master Pool Builders Association of Australia. There are many parallels in this chat with Joel between the pool building and landscaping industry, such as when Joel mentioned how he chang...

In this episode I speak with world renowned Landscape Designer Paul Bangay of PRB Design. Paul has been a landscape designer based in Melbourne for more than 25 years and is easily the most well known Landscape Designer in the country. Paul's home garden, Stonefields, features in this chat a few times and I had a guided tour of it in 2016 and it is the most amazing garden I've ever been...

In this episode I speak with George Jones of Matipo Landscaping. George is a landscape designer and builder currently based in Stafford in the UK, but spent the first 5 years of his landscape career in New Zealand. So we discuss the differences between the two as well as his perception of the Australian landscape industry. As well as having his own podcast, The Matipodcast, George also has a YouTu...

In this episode I speak with Jason King from King's Pools and Gardens. Jason is based in Geelong and is one of the premier landscaping companies in the area, and recently added swimming pool construction to the business, and promptly won multiple awards for the pools he built. We discuss how he went about adding pools to his services, as well as the reason why he no longer has a commercial si...

In this episode I speak with Mitch Davies of Sand and Stone Landscaping. Mitch runs a landscaping business in Adelaide, South Australia and has been working for himself for around 6 years. Prior to that he worked for a couple of high end landscapers and also obtained his building licence in structural landscaping. In the episode Mitch shares a bad experience he had with a client, which will hopefu...

In this episode I speak with Caleb Auman of Auman Landscape, all the way from Ohio, USA. Caleb and his wife Brittany run Auman Landscape, along with a few other side businesses such as The Hardscape Academy (which is an online training course, soon to be in person), The Kid Contractor Podcast (for which they create three episodes per week), they do business coaching for landscaping businesses and...

In this episode I speak with Bonnie Stacey of Bonnie Stacey Landscapes. Bonnie is a landscape designer based an hour north of Perth in Western Australia, and while she's only been running the business for around 18 months, she's quickly built a loyal following and provided plenty of value in that time. Not only is she Booked out months in advance, but Bonnie has released an e-Book called...

In this episode of the podcast I speak with fellow Geelong landscaper Peter Shaw of Ocean Road Landscaping. ORL are a design, construction and maintenance company based in Anglesea, Victoria. Peter has recently release a book titled Soulscape, so we discuss the contents of that, as well as the path Peter took from starting out working by himself, to running a team of 20+ staff. There are quite a f...

In this episode I speak with Rich Wigley of Bluesky Landscaping. Rich is currently based in Sydney but about to move to the Central Coast of New South Wales, and runs a design and construction company. I enjoyed my chat with Rich so much that we kept talking after I'd wrapped up the episode, and there was so much value in that 'after' chat that I've put it into the episode as w...

In this episode I speak with Jac Semmler. Jac formerly worked at the Diggers Club and recently started a new role with The Plant Society as Head of Plants and Strategy. We discuss her current and previous roles, as well as her work writing articles for The Planthunter. Jac's own garden in Frankston, called 'Heartland' is open the weekend of the 4th and 5th of December 2021 as part o...

In this episode I speak with Sam Collie of Esjay Landscapes and Pools. Esjay is based in Melbourne and are a one stop shop for their clients, doing design, landscape construction, pool construction and maintenance. We discuss how Sam keeps on top of all of this. Sam mentions who he worked for when he started out in the industry, including two Icons of the industry. We also talk about some advice S...

In this episode I talk with Mark Cvetkovski of Top Buxus Australia. Mark and his business partner operate a garden maintenance business in Melbourne and after struggling to find a suitable solution to the lack of health with Buxus plants, they discovered Top Buxus and started importing it into Australia to use on their clients gardens. After a year of using it they decided to be the Australian sel...

In this episode I speak with Alistair Hutton of Everscapes. Everscapes is a landscape design and construction company based in Brisbane and Alistair also runs Infinity Pool Builders. In this chat, Alistair mentions how he started in the industry, by pushing himself to do new things as clients asked, which allowed him to grow his skillset. When I ask about how he grew the business to the size it is...

In this episode I speak with Steven Wells. Steven is a horticultural therapist and nurse, and has combined his love of horticulture and caring for people by designing and implementing a beautiful gardens built across three Austin Hospital sites for the benefit of patients, visitors and staff. I found this chat to be great for reflecting on the way I think and act in business and life. Steven speak...