A rare, behind-the-veil look at running a niche garden design firm
with three leaders in artful and ecological landscaping.

Growing a Natural Garden Design Business

January 25, 2024
1:00-5:00pm (cst)

Seminar limited to 50 registrants

UPDATE 12/4/23 -- The seminar filled up in less than a week and we are now wait listing. If you ask to be wait listed by sending your email address, you will be the first to hear about a possible second run of this course later 2024. Thank you all!

Have you ever thought of starting a side hustle creating natural, plant-based gardens for others – or even diving headlong into a career change, wondering if it’s even feasible? What about leaving another firm and starting your own? And just exactly how do you do all of that?

In this half-day seminar learn from three independent business owners who will pull back the curtain on everything from forming an LLC to insurance and payroll, to sourcing and managing plant inventories and finding contractors, to communicating successfully with clients about design, install, and management, and finally how to price and market your services while fostering multiple revenue streams. And yes, we’ll also explore hard lessons and help you try to navigate some of the growing pains, including the never-ending imposter syndrome.

What will be a unique aspect of this event is the coffee-shop-style conversation in which all three business owners will openly discuss single topics with one another, followed by Q&A after each segment, before moving on to the next subject. This organic back and forth will provide for more authentic and empowering information as you start, grow, or pivot your career.
Register
Topics
  • Exploring income potential, personal finance, making the leap.
  • Knowing your niche, what kind of designer you will be and who you will serve, your skill sets and where you need help.
  • Business formation, entities, taxes, licenses, insurance.
  • Business management: cash flow, inventory, scheduling, estimating, plant sourcing, record keeping, contract labor.
  • Working with clients: initial meeting, expectations, contracts, design, management, how to avoid tire kickers.
  • Pricing: overhead, markups, buffer income, what you need to make to pay the mortgage.
  • Marketing, brand building, platform.
  • Building multiple revenue streams for the off season and how they can aid in marketing / brand building.
  • Early yet inevitable mistakes in a new biz and how to minimize them.
  • Imposter syndrome: its pros and cons, how to harness and navigate.
Who Is This Seminar For?
  • Designers and architects looking to start their own ecological niche firm.
  • Passionate, knowledgeable gardeners wanting to build a side hustle.
  • Employees or business owners in allied fields developing a new business wing.
  • Community activists hoping to learn more about the practical business side of design to help them initiate local projects with community members.
  • Anyone ready to push boundaries, take risks, and garden with empowerment.
Are you ready
to invest in
yourself?
Presenters
Benjamin Vogt | Monarch Gardens

Benjamin is owner of Monarch Gardens, a prairie-inspired design firm based in Nebraska. His work has been featured in The American Gardener, Dwell, Fine Gardening, Horticulture, Midwest Living, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. Benjamin is the author of A New Garden Ethic: Cultivating Defiant Compassion for an Uncertain Future and the best-selling Prairie Up: An Introduction to Natural Garden Design.

Ben O’Brien | Wild by Design

Ben is the owner of Wild by Design, a naturalistic garden design business in Prince Edward County, Ontario, that specializes in artfully crafted, richly planted, lovingly tended gardens. Since 2014, Ben’s passion for plants has informed every project, from small town gardens to large rural properties and urban public spaces. Ben’s trial garden research explores innovative ways to create beautiful, biodiverse, and resilient plant communities.
Ben Futa | Botany

Ben has more than a decade of experience in public garden leadership. In late 2020, he left the public garden world to launch Botany, a multi-faceted plant-based business featuring natural landscape design and installation, destination retail (The Botany Shop), media (Let’s Grow Stuff, a web series produced in collaboration with PBS Wisconsin), and events and learning resources for his hometown of South Bend, Indiana.
Lindsey Spaulding | Botany

Lindsey is a self taught landscape designer with a background in education and a passion for native plants. She pivoted her career in March of 2022 to join the Botany Landscape team. She now runs the landscape division for the company and enjoys identifying spaces with untapped potential and creating beauty that doubles as an ecological refuge.

We won't hold anything back! We need more natural design firms!
What's Included

Practical, impassioned, and with unflinching candor, this half-day seminar will be a crucial investment in your business planning from three experienced leaders in natural design.
  • access to the recording for 3 months
  • Q&A after each round-table conversation
  • opportunity to ask questions outside of the event
  • extensive handouts with further resources to explore
Fee + Deadline

The seminar fee is $450 (US)*

Seminar capped at 50 participants

Registration closes January 24, 2024
*All sales are final and no refunds will be issued after January 24, 2024. Cancellations made before January 24, 2024 will receive a full refund via the original payment method within 5 business days, but you must contact Benjamin Vogt in order to initiate the refund process. In the unlikely event that the seminar is cancelled by the organizer full refunds will be issued. Handouts will be made available to all registrants via a Google Drive folder for you to download, with link provided during and after the event. Access to the seminar recording will last for three months, April 30, 2024, after which time it will be deleted from the server. All discussion and advice is offered only as a suggestion in good faith and the presenters take no responsibility for decisions you may make personally or professionally; by participating in this seminar you agree to hold harmless all presenters regarding but not limited to any personal or professional liability and finances. It is up to you to navigate and take responsibility as an independent business owner regarding issues we discuss in this seminar.