An Alien Landed in My Garden

This is a brand-spanking new install in San Jose.  The big idea was succulents with the tagline: The Weirder the Better.  We had so much fun doing this garden.  No drawing, not even a doodle!  We set out on day one with a can of landscape paint with the homeowner and mapped out the bones.  Came back with soil and boulders for mounding and contouring...

After the canvas was properly prepared, we brought in the anchor plants: a wickedly cool Acacia, a Cercidium, and a Chilopsis.  The rest was a mix of tough native plants and succulents.  Set on a backdrop of black mulch and granite, as the plants fill in their colors will pop like fireworks.

And as for the rest of the neighborhood and their lawns, we would love to come back and help you out as well!

Networking and Netresting

This is more of a To Do list, than a blog entry.  I cannot generate the narrative at this time, so here is the unpolished version of what is going on:
-wrapping up 2010 and getting started with taxes
-working with designer on branding
-getting through some significant wintertime repairs and machine maintenance
-cleaning the shop
-renewing just about everything from CLCA membership to truck insurance
-editing copy and photos for website
-and all the day to day biz: designs, bids, project management, field work, project tracking

I am going to add cloning.  If I could just clone myself, or, better yet, hire someone who is able to work twice as hard in half the time...  Ethics and labor laws would have to be rewritten.

An Epic Transformation

   The company truck is a humble machine, a Toyota 1ton.  They don't make them anymore because powerful and fuel efficient is not something the American people need as an option.  The truck is a member of the small truck brigade that litters the highways throughout the day hauling cardboard, supporting the various endeavors of gardeners and jacks and jills of all trades, and getting people and stuff from point a to point b.  I love this little truck.
   When I purchased it a few years ago, I thought that I was temporarily trading down from the F150 that I was driving.  Not so.  Fuel efficiency, load capacity, and upkeep for the 1ton have exceeded the F150 in spades.  I feel like the business has a secret weapon.  Even so, up until recently I was struggling with the 1ton.  For as much as it has been one of the most valuable assets to my work, I still felt ashamed to pull up for a meeting in it.
   This truck had serious damage to the body when I bought it and the paint was getting to look like someone pulled it out of sand dune.  For three years, finances barely covered wages and overhead.  There was no room for glamour.  The truck had a few costly repairs, but they were all mechanical.  Runs great, but looked like holy hell.  A few months ago, I started perusing the vehicle carcasses at the local pick & pulls.  It was hopeless.  People before me had already cannibalized the few 1tons that were no longer on the road.  I was ready to sell it for another set of unknown problems or hand over my list of improvements to a professional.
   Craigslist was the deciding factor.  I clicked around the selection of trucks and saw no decent replacement.  What I did see were folks offering trucks that my little 1ton could out perform every day of the week and twice on Sunday.  And they were not cheap.
   With the help of Ray at Unimax in San Leandro, I had the truck bed replaced.  He did a great job dealing with the parts supplier who was less than skillful in setting expectations or communicating clearly with employees responsible for pulling and delivery the bed.  Ray set a price and stuck to it.  And when we talked about paint, because the truck was in sore need of painting, he recommended Macco.  I appreciated his honesty about my truck needing a basic paint job instead of talking me into one of his custom super high end bullet proof paint services.
   Macco did not pan out.  Their math was sketchy and I was not in the mood to negotiate with someone who blatantly misrepresented posted pricing tiers.  So, I randomly stopped in to a another body shop who also had the integrity to turn away my business.  This body shop recommended Earl Scheib on 9th & International. The truck got a solid work truck paint job.  The scope of work and price were clearly explained and put in writing.  The work was done over Thanksgiving weekend.  When I picked up the 1ton, I choked up a bit.  It was so shiny and clean.
   And when I got rear-ended less than a week later, Ray repaired and painted the bumper like new for a reasonable price and Earl Scheid did the touch-ups (including a couple scrapes from the accident) for free.
   I have not considered myself preoccupied with status symbols or material wealth.  I'm hardly ever distracted by money in the form of ostentatious accumulation for the sake of accumulating.  Even when it comes to business, each purchase is considered based on usefulness and return on investment.   And so, it surprised me how much happiness I felt when I loaded up the 1ton for the first time after getting it fixed up.
   Personally, I love eating good food, taking off to visit friends and family, and having nice tools and nice socks.  And I l-o-v-e love the TLC-look of my smart, little, light blue 1ton.

Groundhog's Day for the Rainy Season

   I am not complaining, you should know that straight away.  As the rainy season sets in around the SF Bay area, the forced shifting of gears and juggling of schedules gets me a bit punchy.  Luckily, going into this winter my work has thinned out just enough to afford me time to take on projects that I had only talked about in years past.
   Today, I decided to develop a test for the length and severity of the rainy season with the help of my office assistant, Simian (a.k.a. Monkey Kitty).  If I am to effectively line up projects and activities for the indoors, it is essential to have an idea of how sizable that block of time is.  So far, I find a weak correlation between the three minutes Simian withstood rain this afternoon and the three more days of rain we are to have.  I may have to dust off my old TI calculator for some inverse logs as it just does not compute that my cat's capacity to sit outside during a deluge should indicated how much rain we have in store.  I have tried the Farmer's Almanac, but this global warming has worked a great deal of inaccuracy into the mix.
   I cannot speak for everyone, but I assume landscapers and trades that rely on good weather have a hard time keeping momentum when weather keeps them indoors.  This year, I have it sorted... sort of.  There is the usual battle to dominate Quickbooks that gets amped toward the middle of December, the sorting of photos in iPhoto and onto the website, and keeping up with the CEU's for various certifications.  This year, oh my, I am breaking the sound barrier of productivity by working with a graphic designer.
   "But don't you do design?" you ask.
   "Landscape design," I reply.
(I had to look up rules for punctuating quotations.  I am so ashamed.)
   Susan Asher, the graphic designer, has taken me on as a client.  She was recommended by Don Asher (no coincidence when marriage is involved) from Golden Gate Litho.  They will do the print production once the materials are ready.  The first meeting reassured me that this will be a great addition to winter business building projects.  I am so excited to see her first pass at color and font alternatives that I have hit cancel on at least three giddy e-mails.
   Small steps such as hiring even a part-time employee or purchasing a specialized piece of equipment commit time, energy, and resources in a certain direction.  For me, I knew early in starting this business the direction that I wanted it to go.  In the last couple of winters, the clarity of intent and action has finally come around.
   Now if I could just get my rain-soaked assistant to keep me apprised of events on the deck I may have a meteorological framework within which to conquer the Winter To Do's.