[PSUscaper]

"It sounded good so I went for it. With perennials for us here in CT it's pretty easy to price. You have x amount of perennials, regardless of what they are, for $x. My problem arose with shrubs. Since he had some troublesome/difficult areas, I really had to do a fair amount of research as to shrubs, and the prices for shrubs really run the gammut"

After hearing this, I have some questions. How long have you been in business?

As for plant selection, why are shrubs harder to select for difficult areas than perennials, which you have no problem with. This is very confusing, as perennials have the same requirements as shrubs. Are you only familiar with perennials?

How bout this 'real world' example on this topic. Lets say my truck needs to be repaired, maybe it needs new ball joints. If I took it to a garage, what do you think I would do if the mechanic said "well, I really know nothing about ball joints, so I'm gonna charge you 150 bucks to read up on them tonight, and then, tommorrow I'll give you a price"

I think I know what I would do.

There is a thing in this business called 'learning'. Some of us actually paid a lot of money, rediculous amounts of money, to drink beer, go to parties, and oh yeah, learn about shrubs.

On the other hand, some of us went out, sweated a lot, got dirty, got paid a 'little bit' of money to plant some 'shrubbie' to only come back and replace that 'shrubbie' with a 'spirea japonica' and walked away without that 'litle bit' of money but, a 'little bit' of knowledge to boot.

My point here don't get discouraged. I remember spending hours and hours drawing, coloring, and re-drawing, re-coloring, re-designing a mail box planting because at the time, it was a 'big job'. I then remember not even getting the job. Now, I go through my old files and laugh at myself for what I use to do.