AALD Newsletter: News and Information from the American Academy of Landscape Design

January 24, 2008

Recipes For Success

In This Issue

Bake A Cake!

"I Already HAVE Landscaping!"

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Greetings!
Wow, it's cold outside here! It's Lambeau Field cold this week! Hope winter is treating you all well and that you are getting recharged for spring. Those of you in warmer areas don't get the "down time" we get here in the north, but I suppose the rest of your season is also less of a sprint as well. If I'm wrong, please enlighten me.

Bake A Cake!
One of my hobbies is magic. I'll work a trick or two into lectures and will take any opportunity to show a trick to a friend, colleague or even strangers! Anyway, I was doing a little magic demonstration for my son's Cub Scout Den last week. One of the effects is that of taking a bunch of cake ingredients and mixing them up in a pan and instantly producing a dozen cupcakes. Of course the kids wanted to eat them right away, but that's not the point. But cooking is. Stay with me.

Let's say you have a bunch of ingredients: Flour, eggs, butter, frosting, and sprinkles (gotta have sprinkles!), and you toss them in a pan. Does that make a cake? Unless you are a magician, most likely you have a mess. Okay, now take some bricks, some perennials, sand, a couple trees, and some compost and toss it on the ground. I think you can finish this on your own. The idea is, the ingredients don't make a composition.

"I Already HAVE Landscaping!"
Have you ever heard that one? Wow. I've heard it way too many times. People just don't understand what we do. Is that their fault or ours?

If what we "sell" is bushes and grass, then it's our fault. To quote a mentor of mine, the late Harry Schuster: "All other things being equal, an ugly landscape costs just as much to install as an attractive one." Harry had a number of sayings, many that I wouldn't repeat here, but underlying their sometimes "crusty" phrasing was a ton of experience and wisdom.

To parse Harry's words, with a given set of materials (ingredients) you can design a space, or you can create a collection (or a mess). Same materials, different result. The real secret is learning the tools and methods to put the pieces together.

Of course it's not just landscape design I'm talking about. Same goes for cakes, clothes and a poem.

Now consider how many people in our industry present their products. Many a landscape truck states very clearly the "things" you can buy from them: "Brick paving, trees, shrubs, black dirt, design." Why not "We Sell Dreams!" Or, do like Steve Boese: "Making the world a more exquisite place. One yard at a time." If you have some other examples, please share.

Read some more thoughts on this topic here.

Academy News
There is still room in the courses listed below.
The format for these courses is very hands-on, and material is presented in a REAL WORLD context. AALD courses are NOT LIKE OTHER COURSES, so if you are looking to ramp up your skills, enroll now!

Design Studio I
February 4, 5, 6
Tuition: $695

Grading and Drainage I
February 12-13
Tuition: $495

Grading and Drainage II
February 14-15
Tuition: $495

For those who are traveling, all courses are taught within easy reach of O'Hare International Airport in the suburbs of Chicago.

Happy 2008 and stay warm.

Sincerely,
Tim