Your career as a landscaper involves the creation, modification and refinement of outdoor spaces to match client requirements either for aesthetics, construction or environmental engineering purposes. Let’s have a look at what a career as a landscaper actually involves as where your career as a landscaper can take you.
Working as a Landscaper
A landscaper works generally in the post-construction environment to provide a landscaped natural environment to complement construction work. As a landscaper your work will generally involve:
- Meeting clients to discuss their requirements and advising them
- Assessing the potential of the site for landscaping requirements and how they can be fulfilled
- Taking detailed measurements and dimensions of the proposed site and discussing how the project can best be fulfilled
- Selecting materials that will best suit the job
- Planning the logistics of the work, including sub-contractors, materials and logistics
- Clearly communicating any issues to the clients to resolve
- Carrying out foundation work such as a the laying out of drainage and irrigation systems
- Reworking and reshaping lawns and natural features with the surrounding environment in mind.
Career Path
In your career as a landscaper you can be involved in large scale construction projects on one hand and on bespoke small-scale domestic landscape roles on the other hand. Some of the other roles you may work alongside would include:
- Land surveyor
- Architect
- Draughtsperson
- Foreperson
- Finishing foreperson
- CAD technician
- Health & Safety
- Project engineer
- Carpenter
- Construction labourer
- QA/QC engineer
- Site clerk
- Civil engineer
Professional Qualifications
A landscaper will often have a third level degree, or level 7 qualification, in an area such as horticulture, agriculture or botany. Also important is a sense of design and artistic flair, aligned with a strong affinity to the environment and creating a project that delivers for both the clients requirements and to the benefit of the local environment. A knowledge of tech systems such as CAD would be a strong addition to your skills to start your career as a landscaper.
How your Career can Develop
Once you have established yourself as a landscaper you can seek to join the Association of Landscape Contractors of Ireland (ALCI), which is a representative body for the landscaping sector and seeks to improve quality and standards across the sector. Many landscapers work on a freelance basis for construction contractors and also for domestic and other contracts, so a good reputation is vital, as is a solid and dependable professional network within the sector and related in industries.