You walk into one of your clients buildings and you notice they have some exterior containers.  It is Spring and their landscape firm has installed the usual geraniums and petunias.  They are small, they are ugly.  Hmmph, you think.  I can do better than that.  And so, an exterior container/beds division is started for your company.  Actually, it is a slam dunk.  You are the expert in Instant Gratification .  You use 6", hanging basket material, filling the container with lush color sure to stop a visitor, sure to set off that logo. 

Time goes by.  You’ve learned to mix in some tropicals in the Summer, some hardy greenery in Fall and Winter.  You’ve learned to light exterior bushes and topiaries for the Holidays.  In fact, you’ve gotten pretty good.  The client notices.  He asks you, "Joe, we really like the work in the planters.  Can you do our other landscape work?"  Aha!  A whole other kettle of fish.  Do you want to, Can you, do MOW, BLOW, and in some parts of the woods, SNOW?

Lets look at the situation, shall we?  For containers and beds the heaviest, largest equipment you need are some trowels, shovels, a rake, and some tarps.  For Mow, Blow and Snow, you need large, heavy EXPENSIVE equipment.  I attended a seminar at ALCA some years ago where the presenter was an exterior guy going over his financials.  He had TWO whole pages dealing with the costs, repairs, and upkeep of large equipment.  Riding mowers, Blowers, tillers and tree spades.  Hundreds of thousands of upfront and ongoing costs.  Plus, he had a crew that spoke little English so he had on staff a bilingual interpreter.  His insurance costs were astronomical, ditto his workmen’s comp costs.  Hmmm.  Did I want to go into exterior?  The answer was NO!.

I watched with interest several of my ’scaper friends in other parts of the country, excitedly go into exterior.  Some are still doing it today, others are long out of that business and took quite a financial hit.

So is this for you?  I suggest you do some homework by attending a PLANET seminar for exterior and talk to the others already in the biz.  You will find it is not a "boutique" kind of business like interiorscaping.  Their employees trim using large shears: ours use scissors!  Get it?  Do your homework and limit your services til you see how profitable it is …or isn’t and how adept you are at managing such a business.  Just because we "do plants", does not mean we can do it all.  Now, have a good day and go get ‘em, Tigers.