(Plant and) Rock Stars

TBT - Written in early 2008, before reality television was so ubiquitous and earning a show would have been an real accomplishment and was a goal of mine. I did radio but I'll stick to print, now thanks.

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.