Paving the Way for Patios

A drab concrete patio quickly transforms into an urban oasis with a few strategically placed planters and baskets brimming with annual and perennial color. Noise, pollution and city activity melt away. Commercial complexes become more comfortable, entrances more welcoming. Apartment buildings and condominiums feel more relaxed and friendly.

A touch of color is powerful, especially when it brings life to areas that usually cannot support plant material, says Ann Wickenhauser, director of interior and four-season landscapes at Mulhall’s Nursery in Omaha, Neb. Outdoor patios and courtyards, entrances and walkways, pools and spas, to name a few, present abundant opportunities for add-ons like containers and hanging baskets.

Such trimmings are limited only by the designer’s imagination and, of course, the client’s plant budget. Most of the time, though, it’s a pretty simple sale because existing clients like the one-stop shop approach to purchasing their plants, adds Terry Whitney, owner, Branching Out, Omaha, Neb. "From a client’s perspective, one of the benefits is that they can use one vendor for all the work they would like to do," he says.

The benefit for Whitney is that the service generates some extra revenue – "patioscaping" services are sold primarily as add-ons to existing customers. This is a common approach for others, as well.

Clearly, patio pots and plantings offer plenty of perks, but these high-style creations must be designed, priced and maintained carefully to maximize profits and efficiency. Crafting haphazard color creations, pricing work too low and underestimating maintenance commitments are potential pitfalls that can be avoided with thoughtful planning and attention to detail.

SALES APPROACHES. Color is catchy. When sprinkled elegantly in patio plantings, it’s practically irresistible – a no-fail sales tool. "Color is the key," says John Kruzshak, owner, Ever-Green Interiors, Newtown, Conn. "Clients get a lot of bang for the dollar as far as the color that’s involved in patioscaping," he says.

The instant gratification of containers and baskets makes these add-ons have even more sales appeal, adds Marcia Weber, owner of Gardens to Love, Atlanta, Ga. Emphasize the instantaneous color aspect for best results, she advises. "It’s an instant thing you can do that doesn’t take a lot of planning and design work," she says. "You can quickly send someone out and put something together in a few hours and there’s a big impact very quickly vs. working out a big design and getting materials and pricing and budgeting. This is a good source of revenue with a quick turnaround for the client."

Even better, the field of prospects to target for patioscaping sales is wide. Residential and commercial prospects abound, but the best place to start is with the existing client base, Kruzshak says. If clients trust their current landscape contractor, they are more apt to listen to the patio sales pitch and spend.

Generally, Kruzshak scopes out clients who have done their own small-scale landscaping and does some suggestive selling. "Maybe they have a boring-looking entrance, so we say, ‘Boy, would it look great to add a couple of nice pots of flowers here,’" he says. "Maybe we also show them a couple of pictures."

Wickenhauser pushed her patio sales with a little creative promotion of her first few high-profile jobs. She left cards at restaurants’ and offices’ front desks, and the phone just started ringing. "It was almost too much," she says.

"We started out little and did that restaurant, and we had a few homeowners we were doing," she continues. "We just kept growing, and we have already doubled what we did last year. There are just two of us who do this and we have sold $300,000 in patioscape annuals."

The containers also have provided an opportunity for up-sells on patioscaping work, Wickenhauser says. "We have a retail store where if we can get clients in, we usually can upsell the planter," she says, adding that when the client sees what options are available, they usually want the pricier, high-end selections.

MAINTENANCE & PRICING STRATEGIES. While the patioscape sale might be relatively simple, the maintenance can be anything but.

The most difficult part is watering. Plant needs can change rapidly based on heat waves, downpours and frosts – and when plants go down, it happens fast. In 90-degree weather, a plant may be lost in as little as one day.

A maintenance strategy is a must to prevent such foliage casualties.

Containers, especially, dry out faster than landscape beds, and they need to be fertilized more often, says Kerstin Oullet, author of Contain Yourself and president, Pen and Petal, Fallbrook, Calif. "I recommend fertilizing every three weeks with a good all-purpose fertilizer," she says. "If regular maintenance is not scheduled, or if clients are unlikely to fertilize themselves, make sure to add slow-release fertilizer. Deadheading or trimming periodically also enhances continuous bloom production and a tidy look."

Pots and patio plantings certainly require a lot of water, Kruzshak adds, noting that three weekly visits – Monday, Wednesday and Friday – is ideal but not always possible. "That tends to get expensive for the customer, so a lot of them have us do it once a week and then they have a maintenance person or somebody on site doing the watering," he says. "That’s the way it works quite a lot, and we don’t have many problems with it. It actually takes some of the heat off of us if they have a problem."

A typical maintenance routine, which the account’s seasonal color or landscape employee performs, includes weekly deadheading, pruning and watering, Kruzshak says. The majority of customers purchase this weekly plan, but his upgraded watering plan still sells. "We do have some customers who have us go three times a week – if they can afford it, they do it," he says.

Foster adds that he offers customers two levels of service – a platinum service and a basic service, which is less costly. As part of the platinum service, clients pay more for more frequent maintenance visits. Pricing is time-based, Foster says. "We’re selling our time," he says. "We estimate how long it will take to service the account per visit and charge for travel time. With our platinum service to high-end clients, we give them one or two visits per week, depending on what we deem necessary, and they’re billed the same monthly fee, whether we have to service them once or twice a week."

If a heat wave hits between service visits, Foster says clients are trained to handle in-between watering to prevent parched plants. Because more than half of his clients are residential, usually the property’s gardener or housekeeper will handle this task. "Usually, somebody else is there who waters every other day, and they handle it just fine," he adds.

For extra insurance, Foster uses subirrigation or drip irrigation on most accounts. "We show the gardener how to fill the Mona systems and monitor the sprinklers to make sure they come on," he says. "Terrace gardens need watering every day and on most accounts, they need watered twice a day."

Wickenhauser, on the other hand, tries not to leave watering in her customers’ hands. "If you’re not providing the watering service and the customer has to water, they better have a good grasp of how to do it," she says. "When potted plants go down, they go down fast. We’ll come around however many times it takes – if there are a couple of 100-degree days, we’ll be there."

But these visits aren’t free. Wickenhauser has figured a rate of $35 per hour, including travel time, and bills the customer monthly, based on how much additional service time the account requires.

DESIGN DOS & DON’TS. Patioscape pricing might be a black and white issue for some landscape professionals – either charge enough or don’t offer the service – but designs allow more creative leeway. In fact, the possibilities for pots, patios and pools are practically limitless.

Still, the best in the business follow some basic design rules. Oullet lists these in a question format.

• What materials and colors go well with the existing design of the property?

• What are the budget constraints of this project?

Who will take care of the containers, and will they be watered by hand or on automatic irrigation?

• Do the specified containers have drainage holes or can holes be drilled into them if they don’t?

After a careful assessment, it’s time for plant selection. Oullet warns designers to exercise restraint when using color, though this can be tough. "Once you get into designing container gardens and working with colors, it’s easy to get carried away," Oullet says.

Color, of course, is the element that usually catches the eye first. Choose colors based on the individual situation, Oullet says. "Blue tones, for example, are very popular because they are so serene and calm – they’re great near a pool," she says. "Warm, bold colors – reds, orange and yellow tones – are very temperamental and have high impact. Monochromatic designs are very elegant and trendy in Europe these days."

No matter what the trends are, don’t just consider the aesthetics of a plant, Oullet says. "You have to make sure that the plants you choose have similar requirements for light exposure and water," she says. "They also should have similar growth vigor, otherwise the more aggressive ones might outgrow the slower-growing ones."

For a well-balanced design, she adds, be sure to use upright or taller-growing plants, mounding or medium-height plants and trailing elements. "Working your way from the center to the rim, place the upright ones in the center, medium-height plants around them and trailing elements along the edges," Oullet says. "Or if the planter is going to be placed against a wall or in a corner, work your way from back to front, starting with the tallest plants in the back and finishing with the trailing plants in front."

Other important elements are proportion and texture, she says. Aim for the plant portion to take up to 2/3 of the entire design and 1/3 for the visible part of the planter, keeping in mind that trailing plants hide part of the container. "But if the planter itself is a showpiece, you may use plants simple to accent the container," Oullet says.

Texture is needed to create a natural design, she says. Incorporate foliage plants for a design rich in texture and work with different foliage and flower shapes and sizes. Oullet’s favorites include purple fountain grass – regular and dwarf forms, New Zealand flax, Mexican feather grass and sedges. Or try perennials with intriguing foliage, like Hosta, Heuchera, Ajuga, Euphorbia, Sedum or ornamental herbs.

"Besides using perennials and herbs for foliage, there are other excellent foliage plants, such as coleus, English ivy, ornamental sweet potato, Strobilanthes, Plectranthus and many more," Oullet says, adding that novel flowering choices abound. She suggests trying Angelonia, Nemesia, Bacopa, Calibrachoa and Cleome ‘Linde Armstrong’ for interest.

Clearly, the number of plant choices abounds, but landscape professionals usually limit complete changeouts to two to four times a year – typically geared toward a season change. "Most of the time, we try to make the entire design last the entire year, but we have had a few that wanted fall planting," Whitney says. "When summer wears on, sometimes they aren’t looking as good in September, so we’ll do a fall planting."

Kruzshak also sticks with two changeouts – once in spring and once in fall. The fall changeout usually includes some evergreen material for winter interest, he says.

Foster adds that he changes out color seasonally, choosing bromeliads over annuals for their longevity. "We use mostly perennials and try not to use too many annuals to keep down on the changeouts," he says, adding that none of this material is covered under a replacement guarantee – when the plant needs changed out, there will be a charge.

PATIO PROFITS. Maintaining a profitable patioscaping service means one thing: "Know your costs," Foster says. "Charge a premium for your work because it’s not easy work and it’s not something you should give away."

Whitney agrees. "Once you’ve figured out your costs, add 20 percent and then add 20 more to it," he says. "It always takes more labor hours than you think and more cleanup than you think it’s going to take. Sometimes when you look at how a project went, you realize that if you hadn’t added a little bit more, you wouldn’t have made anything."

Price to cover all the "ifs, ands or buts," Wickenhauser adds. "Mark up your work appropriately," she says. "We have a 2 to 2½-times markup. You just have to remember all the stuff you’re doing and start charging for it, like picking up the plants, driving to the account and installation."

In addition to proper pricing, maintaining consistent, quality work is key to retaining patioscape customers. Kruzshak says: "I can’t reiterate enough the importance of watering. The wilted flowers in the pots by the entrance will draw a quick complaint, so make sure your work is maintained regularly."

Quality soil is a must, as well – select a brand with moisture-holding capabilities, Wickenhauser says.

Foster adds that properly trained employees also are a requirement for doing the job right. "You can’t just send anyone in there to do it," he says. "It’s much more personal and you have to be a good communicator.

"Terrace and patioscaping has been great for us," Foster continues, "but it’s not going to be a fit for most companies, just like residential work isn’t. Use it to differentiate yourself from your competition. All small companies need to have a niche – create a little niche and value for yourself."

And be patient if some experimentation is needed to learn what types of plants, maintenance tactics or pricing strategies work, landscape professionals advise. Stick out those challenges for the patio payoff. "If you love plants and have an eye for color, you will be successful," Wickenhauser says.

The author is a contributing editor to Lawn & Landscape magazine and can be reached at acybulski@lawnandlandscape.com.