Careful!
I could easily tell from my client’s text message that she was very upset. With snow on the ground, her courier rushed across the lawn in a straight line to her door. Unfortunately, he stepped on her Berberis thunbergii ‘Concorde’ and half of the plant went missing.
Now she needed a quote to replace two of the plants so she could try to get the delivery company to pay for it. Which company was responsible for this mistake isn’t important to this story. Let’s just say the man didn’t wear brown shorts.
The plants are only available in #3 pots at the moment and run at $25 each wholesale. That’s what it costs me as a business to buy them. A five percent mark-up wouldn’t be unusual, plus delivery. I have to drive to Langley, which is about a thirty minute drive. This time will be added to my labour charges. The actual planting time is very quick.
Big picture
It’s important to think bigger. Can you see the bigger picture? Yes, your only job is to deliver a package as quickly as possible but you can’t cause damage while you do it. I know from experience that people are strongly attached to their gardens; and plants especially. This client paid me in after-tax dollars to change over her front door area. All she wanted was for the plants to start maturing.
First, we removed the cedar hedge (Thuja occidentalis). We did it more for security reasons than plant health. The hedge looked fine but the client worried about people hiding behind it. So, I ripped it out.
Second, I installed new Berberis thunbergii ‘Concorde’ plants which cost $15 each wholesale.
Third, I top-dressed the planted bed with new soil and watered the plants in with a slow soak. When the lady came home later that day, she was ecstatic. That’s the exact moment when I invited her to pen a Google review for me.
Attachment
People love their plants and it hurts them when they’re destroyed through carelessness or through ignorance. This driver crushed new plants under his foot; and sometimes landscapers remove plants they thin are weeds. I’ve been there, especially early in my landscaping career.
One example is Oxalis, a shady groundcover plant with nice flowers. Without flowers it can look like clover and we removed it diligently from under rhododendrons. The owner wasn’t impressed and we got a nice lesson in plant identification. This is just another reason to brush up on your plant identification skills. I hate making mistakes.
Conclusion
People buy plants they like and when those plants are abused through carelessness or ignorance, they get upset. The client in this blog post will get two new specimens as soon as it’s warmer out. It’s not a total disaster. Nobody died. But it is a lesson for people to think on bigger scale.
