Landscape Lament

This is the time of year I do NOT miss being a landscape designer any longer. As the weather turns cold and the days dark, I feel a familiar old panic descend upon me. To me this is still the time of year to cut back - not just ones waning perennials - but on life itself. Winter brings heating bills, insurance renewals and payments on equipment sitting idle. The three months ahead were lean times with many hardships and little reward.

In years past I would now be struggling to eke one more job out of my client's whose attention was fast-turning to the joyful holidays ahead, and one more job from my crews who, after a long and hard-working nine months, look to the coming season of layoff with relief. I knew that any jobs not yet complete would stretch into the winter and too often drag out longer than their prescheduled payments could support them. Each day spent on the job would be cold and wet with each task taking three times as long as it was planned to. In the Mid-Atlantic states winter alternates between ground too frozen to dig and too wet to work.

Snowfall is a mixed blessing; landscape companies have the vehicles and labor needed to remove it, but the act itself requires additional insurance and equipment, including plows and salt spreaders. These take a toll on the equipment which one depends on for their livelihood the rest of the year. Each season, each storm, is a gamble. A company may call in its work force, prepare its vehicles and position its crews for the impending storm, then never see a flake fall. Other times the blizzard comes and the team is out for days on end.

Winter has had its rewards too. When I was a junior designer working for a large firm that saw much of its income from the retail garden and gift emporium, I enjoyed a year-round salary and looked forward to winter almost as much as our video-game loving crews. With no one in the office I was free to catch up on the books I had been gathering all year, file important  articles for reference and attend continuing education events. Winter, then, was a time of creativity and preparation.

Today I am no longer sure how to feel about winter. As a magazine editor my job follows monthly cycles of stress and downtime. The seasons mean nothing aside from the special advertising sections. I once again enjoy a salary, though with my partner yet active in the world of landscape these months still take their financial toll. I do love Christmas and relish a good snowstorm, but I have yet to embrace the winters here.

This year I am finally looking forward to doing some south-bound travel. I have friends who winter in Tampa, FL and a college roommate in Austin, TX who I have not seen in years. Another good friend of mine was recently sent on an assignment in Brazil and my fingers are crossed for an invitation. Perhaps this year winter and I will reach an uneasy peace, though I am still hoping for the groundhog not to see his shadow.