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Old 04-06-2013, 09:14 AM
 
Location: Chapel Hill, N.C.
36,499 posts, read 53,933,224 times
Reputation: 47917

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I can relate. I too managed a few garden centers but was always lucky enough to have young men or women to call on for the heavy lifting. Smaller independent nurseries are falling like stones. They just can't make it in this economy. Heck, even larger nurseries are dying. Home Depot and the like want people who can carry 40 lbs of mulch to a customer's car, not necessarily anybody who knows about plant material.

I think your best bet would be to look into private estates. There used to be plenty of ads looking for garden people in the back of Horticulture Magazine. Most likely a private estate will have a cottage and a staff for you. They are eager to find somebody with knowledge which you seem to have. Also every area of business has it's own separate head hunters and employment agencies. perhaps you can tract that down by looking into Horticulture Employment Agencies. http://www.insourcesolutions.com/emp...ent-agency.php

Good luck.
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Old 04-07-2013, 02:17 AM
 
25,619 posts, read 36,608,624 times
Reputation: 23293
Keep trying you'll find something. You just have to be creative and look at it from different angles until you find a niche.

It's much easier being rejected when your younger and to keep coming back from "resets".

Dealing with the ups and downs of the green industry has tried my patience and will many times in the last 15 years.

I can understand how hard it must be for someone in your position to find work in this industry.

I've turned away hundreds of smart, experienced, educated people young and old alike because the business climate isn't making it easy to expand again after the 70% reduction I've done in the last 5 years.
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Old 04-07-2013, 07:57 AM
 
Location: Coastal Georgia
50,179 posts, read 63,636,357 times
Reputation: 92930
Azoria, the same thing happened to me...my job got eliminated and there is no demand for older workers, so I'm trying to come to terms with retirement even though I feel like it is such a waste to not use a lifetime of experience and judgment.

Have you thought of starting a business that installs and tends window boxes and planters for others? Around here there are many downtown businesses, historic buildings and bed and breakfasts which have elaborate floral displays. Someone must be tending to them. Find out if there is a service like this near you. If there is, see if they will hire you. If not, start one. Similarly, you could start a business that tends indoor plants in commercial buildings.

As for credentials, many area colleges or extension services offer a Master Gardeners course you could complete (It would be a piece of cake for you) and you would have a credential.
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Old 04-09-2013, 02:29 PM
 
Location: Monterey County California
295 posts, read 336,971 times
Reputation: 342
I would say keep looking for jobs while at the same time look for a way to make your own job. What so I mean by that well there are several routes you can go. You could do the gardening services for places like doctors officer or dentists offices. You could grow vegetables in a greenhouse and have them ready before they are ready for the season and sell them to people. You could write a book about gardening or a certain type of plant and sell it on amazon. Now I know that sounds like a really hard thing but it's truly not. You simply write the book in Word and publish it on https://kdp.amazon.com/self-publishing/KDPSelect and then you can sell your book on Amazon. Now get yourself a blog and start writing about the different types of gardening or how to prune different types of plants and trees. Also make some videos to go with these. Now when you have a decent flow of traffic to your blog offer your book on your blog as well. Now I know this sounds like a lot of stuff that might or might not be new to you there is a lot of help out there and you can do all of this for free. You could also get a youtube.com channel for your videos and just make videos for instance the first video on youtube for how to prune an apple tree has over 100,000 views in three years. How many of those videos could you make? So I would start a blog and start making some videos. These are just some options for you and if you need help just ask me or us here.
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Old 04-09-2013, 02:40 PM
 
Location: Monterey County California
295 posts, read 336,971 times
Reputation: 342
This is in addition to what I posted earlier. You could also sign up for Web Answers - Share your knowledge. Ask questions for free. Get the answers you need. - WebAnswers.com this is a site that allows people to ask and answer questions and they have a gardening section. You cannot make a living doing this but if you answer a couple questions a day you could earn about 100 dollars a year or that's about how much I earn.
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Old 04-10-2013, 06:11 AM
 
Location: Oklahoma
6,808 posts, read 6,920,862 times
Reputation: 20954
Quote:
Originally Posted by J&Em View Post
Azoria you have my heartfelt sympathy. It is not easy being "old" in the USA right now. There is a big lack of respect for knowledge that comes from doing and being -aka experience- that comes with so many years of work. Having the arthritis and other problems as we age makes us harder to employ in physically demanding fields. I sure can't move the rocks and dig the holes at the speed I did in my 30s!!

Some of the very best gardeners I know are without a single shred of paper to prove it. I can tell you know your plants and you probably knew everything about what survived and what didn't, what could be babied a bit and what wasn't worth it in the area(s) you lived and worked. Book learning is a great foundation for understanding but year in and year out experience counts for just as much if you truly learned as you went.

I've gone to nurseries and big box stores over the years and found that each will sometimes have someone like you employed. They are rare gems. After asking one or two questions I know if I am talking to someone who took the store course on how to sell stuff or really knows plants. Unfortunately most of the time you get sales associate who is the "sell" associate not the "garden expert" associate. I agree that trying all the local nurseries would be the best way to find at least part time work. Sometimes they are looking for well spoken people who can give mini-courses on "how to" subjects, not just bodies for heavy lifting and plant watering.

The only other thing is to create your own employment and become a company with a service. I know someone who started a business as a "personal" gardener after an injury caused problems in their original job, but this person also hired on younger people to do the more back breaking jobs under their guidance ("That's a weed so pull it, that is not a weed leave it alone." "Put the mulch here but don't mound it around the stem."). They have commercial accounts but also do the once a year or once a quarter care for home owners who want a garden but can't do it all while working or are getting too old to do some of it. This means weeding, pruning, transplanting and mulching and the occasional re-landscaping job. It's something to consider....
Excellent advice. I have a friend who is no longer physically able to do the weeding, deadheading, and care of her hundreds of plants in her yard. She has hired an older woman (brains) who works with her daughter (brawn) to create new beds, and take care of the existing ones. The woman has many clients she sees on a weekly basis and charges by the hour.

Also,contacting garden clubs may be a good way to network and either get your business started or find a job if you don't feel like starting up a business.
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