Help Grow Some Gardeners - Start Coaching Now

by Susan Harris, originally posted July 7, 2007
Here's a quiz:  The June 15 New York Times story about Gardening Coaches and the story's aftermath are examples of 1) the reporting of new career, 2) the creation of a new career, or 3) pack journalism in action.  Answer below.

Norma Gladden, a Master Gardener and retiree in Michigan, was sent the Times article by a friend, who encouraged her to become a coach herself.  Because Norma had enjoyed helping friends and neighbors get started in gardening over the years, she promptly posted her availability as a gardening coach on Detroit's Craig's List and created a flyer to post around town.  (How's that for ease of entry into a new career?!)  And a quick Googling for gardening coaches reveals Normas popping up all over the country to offer their services via Craig's excellent Lists.  And I suspect there are lots more just using the flyer technique and not popping up on the Internet - yet.

But not everyone calling themselves a gardening coach just sprang into action three weeks ago. The coach at GardenMentors.com was featured in the article, and the domain name TheGardenCoach.co.uk takes you to the site of a landscaper in England.  There's also GardenCoach.com, and if you can find the coach's name anywhere on that site, let me know.  All sorts of qualifications are revealed, however, including her employment by DavesGarden.com (not surprisingly listed as her favorite gardening site).

And since writing about coaching myself I've learned that Pam Penick in Austin and Billy Goodnick in Santa Barbara do a bit of garden coaching on the side.  Billy calls these one-time consults a "brain dump." Stuart Robinson in Australia - same deal.

So here's something new on the coaching front:  I've contacted everyone I could find working as a gardening coach or mentor and offered to list them on my site's new Worldwide Directory of Gardening Coaches. Not because I'm all that eager to give free web advertising to total strangers but because I'd really like to see this coaching thing take off.  It's SO NEEDED. 

• Take the first-time homebuyers who've acquired a yard with their new house and doesn't know  a weed from a keeper or anything at all about taking care of all that alien green stuff out their back door.
• Take the vast majority of homeowners who have no idea how to prune their shrubs and small trees.  Evidence of this is rampant.
• Take the actual case of a nongardener who ventured out to the local nursery, bought 50 or so assorted plants (and I do mean assorted), and called me two months later because he had no idea where to plant them.  Or how to plant them.  Or how to water them (and it was now mid-summer, of course.)

Gardeners, how long did it take YOU to produce a garden you're proud of?  It took years of actually gardening, right?  We know that gardening isn't learned by reading or sitting in classrooms.  We know that HGTV is no help at all.  We know that Master Gardener training just scratches the surface, despite the misleading name.  We know that nurseries don't offer much help, certainly not enough help for the newbies who wake up one Saturday in June and decide to go buy themselves a garden.

So experienced gardeners of the world, help them out! Offer your services, create not just gardens but gardeners, and make some extra money while you're at it.  YOU ARE DESPERATELY NEEDED.  I'm not kidding.  Use Craig's List.  Get included on my Directory.  If you're not sure your services are worth anything, start out cheap (I started at $35 an hour) and raise your rates as you gain experience and confidence.  I think you'll be surprised how valuable your guidance and hands-on instruction really are to the clueless public.

And why aren't nurseries offering these services, or at least publicizing the availability of independent coaches to help turn homeowners into regular customers?  I'm going to go right over to Open Register, the blog of the retail nursery industry, and suggest they do just that.  Nurseries are INTIMIDATING places for beginners.  Imagine if there were someone to lead them through the process of not just choosing plants but going home with them to show these poor folks where and how to plant them.  Then tell them the part they're always shocked to hear - that they have to water the damn things or they'll up and die.  After which, the customer returns to the nursery for their guaranteed replacement plant, of course. (Man, that's gotta gall nurserypeople!)

Now it's time for the Answer.  1 and 2 are correct because the handful of garden coaches in the world were reported on, and the story created more of them.  But how about number 3, pack journalism? For this gardening coach the Times story has led to an upcoming feature on "CBS Sunday Morning" and a story by the wire service Agence France-Presse, and I bet the other coaches in the original story have experienced similar journalistic pilings-on.  And for a story like this it's a good thing.  (When covering people in power, not so much.)

So unless you'd be competing with me in the Washington, D.C. area, drop me a line and get listed - quick, before the next wave of garden-coaching publicity.  Let's ride this wave as far as it'll take us.  Email me.

Photo: Taken just this morning of Kirra Jarratt - an outstanding garden coachee - singing the praises of garden coaching to Agence France-Presse reporter Virginie Montet (who hired me to consult at her own garden tomorrow morning.)  I'll tell the story of Kirra's garden soon.  Hint: A gardener was born!

But not everyone calling themselves a gardening coach just sprang into action three weeks ago. The coach at GardenMentors.com was featured in the article, and the domain name TheGardenCoach.co.uk takes you to the site of a landscaper in England.  There's also GardenCoach.com, and if you can find the coach's name anywhere on that site, let me know.  All sorts of qualifications are revealed, however, including her employment by DavesGarden.com (not surprisingly listed as her favorite gardening site).

And since writing about coaching myself I've learned that Pam Penick in Austin and Billy Goodnick in Santa Barbara do a bit of garden coaching on the side.  Billy calls these one-time consults a "brain dump." Stuart Robinson in Australia - same deal.

So here's something new on the coaching front:  I've contacted everyone I could find working as a gardening coach or mentor and offered to list them on my site's new Worldwide Directory of Gardening Coaches. Not because I'm all that eager to give free web advertising to total strangers but because I'd really like to see this coaching thing take off.  It's SO NEEDED. 

• Take the first-time homebuyers who've acquired a yard with their new house and doesn't know  a weed from a keeper or anything at all about taking care of all that alien green stuff out their back door.
• Take the vast majority of homeowners who have no idea how to prune their shrubs and small trees.  Evidence of this is rampant.
• Take the actual case of a nongardener who ventured out to the local nursery, bought 50 or so assorted plants (and I do mean assorted), and called me two months later because he had no idea where to plant them.  Or how to plant them.  Or how to water them (and it was now mid-summer, of course.)

Gardeners, how long did it take YOU to produce a garden you're proud of?  It took years of actually gardening, right?  We know that gardening isn't learned by reading or sitting in classrooms.  We know that HGTV is no help at all.  We know that Master Gardener training just scratches the surface, despite the misleading name.  We know that nurseries don't offer much help, certainly not enough help for the newbies who wake up one Saturday in June and decide to go buy themselves a garden.

So experienced gardeners of the world, help them out! Offer your services, create not just gardens but gardeners, and make some extra money while you're at it.  YOU ARE DESPERATELY NEEDED.  I'm not kidding.  Use Craig's List.  Get included on my Directory.  If you're not sure your services are worth anything, start out cheap (I started at $35 an hour) and raise your rates as you gain experience and confidence.  I think you'll be surprised how valuable your guidance and hands-on instruction really are to the clueless public.

And why aren't nurseries offering these services, or at least publicizing the availability of independent coaches to help turn homeowners into regular customers?  I'm going to go right over to Open Register, the blog of the retail nursery industry, and suggest they do just that.  Nurseries are INTIMIDATING places for beginners.  Imagine if there were someone to lead them through the process of not just choosing plants but going home with them to show these poor folks where and how to plant them.  Then tell them the part they're always shocked to hear - that they have to water the damn things or they'll up and die.  After which, the customer returns to the nursery for their guaranteed replacement plant, of course. (Man, that's gotta gall nurserypeople!)

Now it's time for the Answer.  1 and 2 are correct because the handful of garden coaches in the world were reported on, and the story created more of them.  But how about number 3, pack journalism? For this gardening coach the Times story has led to an upcoming feature on "CBS Sunday Morning" and a story by the wire service Agence France-Presse, and I bet the other coaches in the original story have experienced similar journalistic pilings-on.  And for a story like this it's a good thing.  (When covering people in power, not so much.)

So unless you'd be competing with me in the Washington, D.C. area, drop me a line and get listed - quick, before the next wave of garden-coaching publicity.  Let's ride this wave as far as it'll take us.  Email me.

Photo: Taken just this morning of Kirra Jarratt - an outstanding garden coachee - singing the praises of garden coaching to Agence France-Presse reporter Virginie Montet (who hired me to consult at her own garden tomorrow morning.)  I'll tell the story of Kirra's garden soon.  Hint: A gardener was born!