If you are passionate about gardening and have good garden maintenance skills, you can also undertake. From Tradeizze, we tell you how to set up a gardening company and get clients. Starting a landscaping business and maintaining a garden is not like maintaining a machine. It requires taking care of trees, pampering plants and flowers. If you like nature and you like to arrange outdoor spaces, this is your business. Start and create your own gardening company as a freelance gardener or by forming a company.
How to start a gardening business?
If you want to know how to start a gardening business, read on. Discover how to get clients for gardening.
Be a gardener. To be able to work as a gardener it is not necessary to have any official qualifications. However, it is advisable to have basic training in order to offer a more professional service. The better your training, the more you can differentiate yourself from your competitors.
In 2010 a new title of Professional Training of Medium Degree of Technician in Gardening and Floristry was established. This title gives the skills and knowledge necessary to produce flowers and plants; install, conserve and restore gardens using specific machinery; or maintain the lawn of sports facilities.
Services of a landscaping company
The main services performed by a gardening company are:
- Garden design.
- Construction and maintenance of gardens.
- Garden reforms for individuals, companies and communities.
- Creation of vertical gardeners and green roofs.
- In these services, the activities of fertilization, pruning, irrigation, fumigation, soil preparation, fertigation, plant control, etc. are carried out.
In recent years, innovation occupies an important place in the gardening sector. New formats have appeared such as vertical gardens or green roofs. For specialized companies, it is a profitable service as can be seen in our guide on how much vertical garden costs.
In providing the gardening service, its quality and the relationship with the client are essential. The client must feel involved in the design of the garden. In addition, the service must be personalized taking into account their tastes and opinions.
There are aspects that are not directly related to gardening but that must be taken into account to offer a good service. These are punctuality, treatment, communication, advice and meeting deadlines.
Many clients also request the service of clearing plots and removing weeds, as well as the services of palm tree pruning, since qualified material and operators with experience in pruning at height are needed.
Business plan to start a gardening company
Here we give you everything you need to get an idea of how to start a gardening business.
Legal form
Before setting up a gardening company, it is important to choose what legal form the company will have. The procedures that must be carried out to set up the company will depend on the legal form. You can be autonomous, create a limited company, a community of goods, a cooperative society, etc. Before choosing the legal form it is important that you take into account these factors:
- Type of activities to develop.
- A number of partners.
- The responsibility that you are going to assume.
- Initial capital.
- Fiscal obligations.
If you want to see what are the different legal forms that you can apply to your gardening company, you can find out about the digital platforms of the Public Administrations.
Administrative transactions
The administrative procedures to create a company force you to go through the different windows of the entities. That is why the Single Business Window was created.
To create a gardening company the administrative procedures are:
- Request the license of activities and facilities.
- Obtain the name of the company that is not already registered. This is done at the Mercantile Registry.
- Obtain the Tax Identification Number (NIF) with form 036.
- Settle the Tax on Patrimonial Transmissions and Documented Legal Acts with model 600.
- Make the Inscription in the Mercantile Registry.
- Make the census declaration of the start of activities.
- Register the center in the Economic Activities Tax.
- Register the message center with Social Security to obtain the Social Security Affiliation number.
- Acquire and legalize guest books. Actually, since the end of 2016, it is not necessary to use the guest book.
- Register personal files with the Spanish Agency for Data Protection.
Necessary personnel in a landscaping company
A landscaping company can be made up of 3 or more people. To set up a gardening company it is necessary to have at least:
- Landscaper: This professional is needed in full-service landscaping companies offering interior and exterior design.
- Gardener: He is in charge of planting, conservation and garden improvement operations.
- Nursery and garden operator: Responsible for plant production operations working outdoors or in greenhouses.
Depending on the tasks to be carried out, bricklayers may have to be hired.
The initial investment to start a landscaping business
To carry out this activity, it is necessary to rent a place in which there is an office to serve customers, a warehouse to store machinery and tools, and toilets. If you wish you can also build your own greenhouse.
Conditioning of the premises
The conditioning of the premises can be both external and internal. To give you an idea, the internal conditioning usually includes the installation of toilets, electricity, plumbing, installation of air conditioning, demolition and previous actions, masonry and painting.
As for external conditioning, it has to do above all with the work that the facade needs. The cost of fitting out the premises is approximately $ 6,000. This figure depends on the state of the premises.
Furniture
The goal is always to get a good image of the business. That is why you have to have quality furniture and decoration. The cost of this will depend on the quality of the furniture. The office furniture will be composed of:
Table.
Executive chair.
Chairs for customers.
Wardrove.
The warehouse furniture will consist of:
Shelves.
Mural to hang tools.
Work tables.
The cost of all this can be $ 2,100.
Transportation elements
To create a gardening company it is necessary to have at least one vehicle that allows you to transport materials and tools. The cost of this will depend on the type of vehicle that is chosen. We have estimated that for the purchase of a basic vehicle the price will be approximately $ 7,000.
To start the activity, you have to buy machinery and basic tools. For specific jobs, it is better to rent the machinery than to buy it. Here is the necessary equipment to create a gardening company:
- 1 walking tractor.
- 1 phytosanitary treatment equipment.
- Mobile irrigation.
- Localized irrigation equipment.
- 1 backpack sprayer.
- Pneumatic scissors.
- 2 metal trolleys.
- 2 chainsaws.
- 1 scale.
- 1 binocular loupe.
- Grass trimmer.
- Hedge trimmer.
- 1 seeder.
- 1 manual spreader.
- Shovels, rakes and brooms.
- Pruning shears.
- 1 handsaw.
- Watering cans and face shields.
- Glasses.
- Harnesses and ropes.
- Boots.
- Paper diver suits.
Consumables
It is not necessary to make a large purchase of products since they will be bought as you have jobs. It is important to have some supply agreement with a nearby greenhouse to get good prices. Yes, it is advisable to have a minimum of materials for the first jobs:
- Seeds.
- Substrates.
- Pots and planters.
- Gardening elements.
- ertilizers.
- The cost of these would be more or less $ 180.
Informatic team
It is important to have a computer and printer whose cost will be at least $ 1,300. The total initial investment required to create a landscaping business in 2019-2020 is approximately $ 23,000.
Many entrepreneurs question whether a gardening business is profitable. After analyzing several business plans and numerous active businesses, we can conclude that the profitability of a gardening business is a good investment in the medium term, once the business has been established and the breakeven point has been reached. During the third or fourth year of activity, the initial investment is recovered.
Financing
The initial investment may be scary at first, but there are many ways to get help and not just take it on your own. First, you have to take into account the percentage of owner financing and the percentage that will be debt with third parties.
From here, we recommend that the debt percentage does not exceed 60%. The main source of financing that entrepreneurs go to start a gardening business is family and friends. You can ask them to contribute capital to your business.
The sources of financing most used by SMEs are:
- Loans.
- Credit account.
- Leasing.
- Confirming.
- Renting.
- Commercial discounts.
To finance you and create a gardening company, there are also grants and subsidies offered by public bodies to promote the creation of companies and employment.
Aid to companies changes every year in terms of amounts and conditions. The calls are published in the Official State Gazette and in the Bulletins of each Autonomous Community.
Public aid can be:
- Non-repayable grants.
- Financial grants.
- Free training.
- Technical support.
Location
When choosing a location for your landscaping business, it is best to run away from the competition. In almost all cities, the world of gardening has developed a lot since gardens and ecological decoration are in fashion. What you have to try is to look for locations where there are almost no established landscaping companies.
To create a gardening business and have many clients, you have to locate it in an area on the outskirts of the city where there are many potential clients. If your potential clients are going to be private gardens, you must locate yourself in areas with many villas or with large neighborhood communities.
It is advisable to locate in new residential neighborhoods (townhouses, urbanizations, residential, chalets) when starting to get the first clients. You can also decorate your premises differently to attract more customers.
Insurance
In a gardening company, as with any business, it is advisable to have a series of insurance. Here we talk about the most common.
The most common coverage is that of Civil Exploitation Liability. It is responsible for business activities. It also covers damages that employees may cause while carrying out their work.
The Employers Liability covers the owner of the business in the event of worker injuries or dies as a consequence of an accident.
Multi-risk Trade Insurance
This insurance covers the damages that may be caused by a fire or a flood in the goods that are insured on the premises. It also covers broken glass, moons, mirrors, etc. It is the insurance company that is responsible for the expenses that the repair of the affected goods may entail. The theft coverage is also very important because a landscaping company may have material great economic value.
Licenses and authorizations
Before starting to develop the activity, you must process the activity or opening and operation license at the City Council of the municipality in which you have decided to create a gardening company. The Activity License can take between 3 and 12 months depending on the City Council.
Competition
To analyze the competition, you have to distinguish between the different types of customers you may have when creating a gardening company:
Competitors with the same services: These are all landscaping companies that offer similar services. Direct competitors are those in the same geographical area. That is why you have to study the chosen area and know what the competition does and see how you can do it differently.
Construction companies: The construction companies that offer gardening services are competitors. These can become the direct competition.
Professional gardeners: These are gardeners established individually, self-employed and who have clients from the community of neighbors or individuals.
