After reading Anthony
Bourdain’s accounts of life in the trenches of a New York City restaurant, I
was filled with sardonic pride for a career filled with hard work and
camaraderie, but no, I am not a chef. I am a landscape designer. I’ve worked in
both industries and know that they can each be full of lazy drunks and
hot-tempered artists, having to rely on a colorful immigrant workforce. Neither
requires a college degree and both are often the last resort of the nearly
un-employed. Real self-sacrificing, love it or leave it kind of work, we didn’t
get into this for the money. Both are
low-paying professions that cater to the rich. As Mr. Bourdain pointed out,
many chefs could not afford to eat regularly in their own restaurants, I too
have designed and managed residential projects that cost more than my home.
Where chefs wield knives, we wield shovels and backhoes, equally dangerous
tools. That is not the only difference though.
We can all relate to food, it is a daily necessity, but landscape is a luxury. While an extravagant meal may cost hundreds of dollars, but even a simple landscape will require thousands. Some people hate to spend time outdoors, but few actually hate to eat.
I know of no maintenance superstar with his own line of
pruners and soil amendment “essence”, no garden center bearing the name of a celebrity
horticulturist and no network featuring the installation of landscapes by the
most famous designers. Only a few landscape architects are even recognized by
name outside of their peers. I am
jealous frankly at the glorification chefs have gotten for their work.
Why did chefs become rock-stars while the
landscape professional still toils away in anonymity?
I think much of it can be attributed to the understanding that
no industry has a bigger identity crisis than the landscape profession. If you
tell someone that you are a chef, they will know that you work with food. Tell
them that you are a landscaper and they may ask if you cut lawn, plow snow, pour
concrete or arrange flowers. It is a hard title to define. On any given day I
may be asked to diagnose a sick plant, design a lighting system or co-ordinate
the flowers to the furniture. But by and far when I explain what I do, most
respond that it sounds like fun! So where
are our fans?
We also suffer from the timeframe of our work. Dinners take
hours to prepare, a landscape may take weeks or even years to develop. It has been said that a house never looks
better than on the day it is built and a garden never looks worse. The same
analogy applies with a plate of food, “BAM” just doesn’t cut it when unveiling
a landscape. Even when using large plants (and I always suggest using the
largest available and affordable) a new landscape can look diminutive. That
costly 10” caliper Zelkova, planted with a tree spade is still a few years off
from shading the backyard and the groundcover needs to grow before it can
actually cover the ground. In this industry “before and after” could be better
portrayed with time lapse photography, maybe “before and three years later.” We have drama, it just doesn’t happen quickly. Materials are delayed, weather is
unreliable and ideas must be re-considered in the face of reality, occasionally
we even fight, curse and break things but that is not what you want to see in
your yard!
When I first made the leap from cooking to designing, I was
frustrated by the on-going nature of the work. A restaurant patron never
returns weeks or months later to tell you that he is no longer full enough,
each day the process just begins again. Homeowners though have tracked me down
years later with a new employer to tell me a tree has died or a shrub has just
not lived up to its potential. Of course some of their complaints are the
legitimate result of a learning curve early in my career and I appreciate their
observation and constructive criticism, but I honestly hate the fact that my
bad choices can live on for years. Frank Lloyd Wright once said that “A doctor
can bury his mistakes, but an architect must plant vines.”If that is the case,
a landscape designer has nowhere to turn.
Beautiful garden also require maintenance. I have watched in despair as some of my best
designs have been abandoned to face drought, weeds and overgrowth or even
worse, pruned by the maniacal Edward Scissor Hands himself. Chefs, thankfully,
do not have to see what becomes of their efforts.
So why aren’t the channels filled with multi-tasking designer
divas and their loyal talented crew of misfits? I long to follow in the globe-trotting
footsteps of Anthony Bourdain as he scours the world in search of the perfect
meal. Travertine Limestone is quarried in Turkey, fine garden tools are
manufactured in England, rare and exotic plants are cultivated worldwide and I
am really longing to visit the source
of Mexican beach pebbles, surely someone would be interested in tuning in to
watch a sarcastic landscape designer critique the famous gardens of the world. Soon we too may have our own network.
HGTV has offered us a nod of acknowledgement with “Designers
Challenge,” but frankly that sort of attention is unwelcome. Nothing dissolves
my inspiration faster than a client who informs me they are hiring three
companies then choosing their favorite design. Why would I give my creative
best when there is a two out of three chance that I will see it being executed
by someone else? Of course you should interview several firms, get referrals
and look through portfolios, but you should choose a designer you feel
comfortable with before they begin to draw. There is a designer for every
comfort level. Whether you want a dominating designer to insult your ideas and
dictate how it should be done or a coddling, hand holding brown-noser to affirm
your brilliant taste. Somewhere in between are many talented designers capable
of combining your tastes and needs with their knowledge to create a beautiful,
comfortable and usable landscape.
But alas, landscaping is not a glamorous career. We need to understand our importance first and take pride in what we do. Even the lowliest landscaper gets to be outdoors in the sunshine and fresh air. Of course he often has to be out in the snow and rain too, but we should take pride in that too. Like the chefs and kitchen staff who have come realize a burn can be a badge of honor, a calloused hand is a secret sign of allegiance to all who those who scrape beauty and a living from bare soil.