A lifelong gardener branches out into landscape design

by Sally Bouorm | January 1, 2011 9:11 am

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By Kristine Archer

Jeannette French’s passion for gardening and landscaping started out as a hobby. Today, the owner of Daisy Designs, a landscape design and consulting firm located in St. John’s, Nfld., has built a successful business out of the pastime she’s loved her whole life.

A lifelong passion

“I grew up gardening, from a very young age, with my mom,” says French, a Newfoundland native. “I raised and tried to grow everything from seed—we even had a greenhouse. I just loved it. My favourite memories of childhood involve gardening with my mom.”

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French’s journey from hobbyist to professional began in Mississauga, Ont., where she had moved with her family and established a garden of her own.

“I wanted to be around like-minded people,” she explains. To that end, French decided to take what she calls an ‘intense test’ to be accepted into the Master Gardeners. “It was a really fun group, and it did a lot of things with very little money,” French says of the nonprofit organization. “We had fun and learned a lot.”

The group soon uncovered French’s talent for painting watercolours, at which point she began painting pictures of designers’ finished landscapes and grew increasingly impressed with the work she was capturing. Having already started Daisy Design as a part-time venture, offering graphic design services, French decided to branch out into landscape design and consulting.

“I did some courses at the University of Guelph and started from there,” she says, noting she oversaw a few projects in Mississauga, learning as she went along. “Then my husband got transferred back to Newfoundland, and I started working part-time while I was raising our children. I started up full-time after the kids were old enough that I could leave them for a little while.

A new market

When French made the move back to Newfoundland, she thought it might to tough to break into the industry. As a result, she concentrated on preparing herself for getting established in a new market.

“I did a lot of research and joined the Newfoundland and Labrador Organization for Women Entrepreneurs (NLOWE); they kind of helped me get started,” she says. “Then I joined Landscape Newfoundland and Labrador and became a board member in the first election I could run in. I’ve been a board member ever since.”

In addition to her board duties, French also serves as the certification representative for Newfoundland with the Canadian Nursery and Landscaping Association (CNLA), a role that keeps her travelling quite a lot. French is also a judge for the CNLA Landscaping Awards of Excellence, which will be handed out in Vancouver this February.

“I’m really excited to judge landscapes from across Canada this year,” she says. “I judged last year as well and it was fantastic.”

What she does

Through Daisy Design, French offers consulting services, which range from simple advice and recommendations to full design consults.

“I often leave the client with a sketch, maybe of some trouble areas of their garden that could be improved. Sometimes, I give them a list of places I know that provide good service and products,” she explains. “A lot of clients just have no idea how much things cost and what’s available to them.” French can also provide clients with colour or black-and-white designs using Garden Scape computer-assisted design (CAD) software.

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While French does not do buildouts herself, she has formed a successful partnership with Mark Bowring of Bowring Ponds and Gardens, who handles the majority of the construction work on her projects.

“When we first moved home, I hired Mark to put in some limestone steps for me,” she explains. “We really got along and eventually found out that we actually met about 15 years prior. We had something in common, we’re about the same age and he has an attention to detail and eye for quality.

“He is interested in making sure customers get top quality and their products are going to last, which is something I haven’t seen in any other professional relationships,” she continues. “His passion blew me away. I knew his work was something I could highly recommend to my clients.”

French and Bowring’s approach varies from project to project; at times, she handles all aspects of design, while at others, the process is more collaborative.

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“I do a lot of project management with the client,” she says. “I stay on board right from beginning to end.”

Daisy Design is a home-based business, which allows French the flexibility to spend time with her two kids, ages six and four. As an independent designer, French can also tailor the project to the customer’s needs and preferences.

“I want to make sure the client gets what they want,” she says. “If they want to go to a certain place because they like their materials, then that’s great.”

Embracing technology

In addition to the software she uses to create clients’ landscapes, French has also embraced other forms of technology to help grow her business.

“Social media, like Twitter, Facebook and my blog, are my main source of marketing. It’s free and I can monitor how many hits I get on my website, so I know it’s working. Even though landscape contractors may not be a computer-oriented, their clients are. It’s very important for the contractors to realize they may be missing out on this.”

While French admits that the learning curve on computers, social media and other online resources can be steep in the beginning, learning more about these tools can provide a great benefit. For example, when her services became so popular that she hired another designer this past season, see found him online—Tom Lacey, who owns his own company called Milestone Landscape in Roanoke, Va.

“I found him on the Garden Scape bulletin board,” she explains, noting that the pair takes advantage of technology to bridge the distance between them. “We do everything via Skype (an Internet-based phone service). A lot of times, I’ll videotape and take photos of clients’ home so he can get a really good idea of what it’s like. He’s really learned a lot about Newfoundland’s climate!”

These innovations have also helped French cast her net to a wider customer base, outside of the metro St. John’s area.

“I had a client who was on the west coast of Newfoundland this year and I didn’t even get to go out and see it. It was all done via Skype, video and remote work. It kind of excited  me, because I could probably do a bit more of that—as long as I knew the contractor was reliable. It’s hard for me to recommend someone to do the install, but I would love to do more remote work.”

Unique challenges

French says operating out of Newfoundland gives rise to some interesting obstacles.

“In Newfoundland, the availability of products is quite different than anywhere else, because we’re an island,” she says. “Shipping makes things more expensive and selection is more difficult, especially when people want something that’s unique and not like what their neighbours have.”

French’s experience in Ontario, while valuable, also set her up for some frustrations when she returned to Newfoundland.

“In Ontario, there’s so much readily available. You didn’t have to wait weeks and weeks for things to come in. Here, if I design with a particular type of stone, by the time the contractor can get to that project it could be sold out.”

In any landscaping business, success is often influenced by the seasons. This is even more challenging for French and her colleagues in Canada’s easternmost province.

“Our season is so short,” she says. “You can’t really break ground until May.” French says that once the season is over, she typically works with four to six clients, designing over the winter to ensure work can start right away when spring hits.

She also notes that scheduling can be next to impossible, given the island province’s climate.

“If a contractor does three big jobs in a season and the weather slows them down, a three-week project might end up taking six weeks because it rained for three weeks,” she says. “You have to really plan your material and we have to consider the weather in our scheduling. It can be very frustrating to me and to the client, so keeping communication lines open all the time is imperative.”

Continuing to grow

French says one of the industry’s most dominant trends is toward eco-friendly options—native plants, local rocks and the like. She says her clients are also looking for low-maintenance options and gravitating towards structures, such as garden rooms.

“People are trying to build pergolas, gazebos, screened-in porches or things that suit our climate, and making modifications on the garden room,” she says.

She adds that many homeowners who want landscaping done do not even realize they can hire an independent designer to run through their ideas before hiring a contractor. Since most people begin doing research on the Internet these days, French makes it a point to keep her site up to date and functional to ensure customers can easily locate Daisy Design online.

French is also an advocate of association membership, noting the contacts and connections she has gained as a member of Landscape Newfoundland and Labrador.

“Knowing your colleagues and making different relationships and referrals—that is very important to me.”

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