Paula Lindo – Our histories, stories, present, future.

Landscape company La Souce Environmental Designs will be offering an inaugural “Starting a Landscaping Business” workshop, targeting persons who have recently lost their jobs or retired, running on March 9 and 10, and again in July.

Manager Indira Jagoo-Teloka said this workshop is part of a series of workshops which will be run throughout the year. The topics which will be covered will give participants what they need to know if they would like to start a landscaping business and will include: Should I Register My Business?; What Services Should I Offer?; What Training Do I Need?; How to Conduct Site Visits; Which Fertilizers to use and how to use them; Types Of Lawns and Installation Techniques; Planting and Placement of Plants; Grading, Drainage Types and Installation; Composting; Types of Manure and Sterilisation Process; Types of Irrigation and Installation; Tools and Equipment; Raw Material Inventory; Employees and Transport.

The workshop will be facilitated by Carlson Teloka, who brings over 10 years of experience to his role. He began his career working in the food manufacturing sector as a maintenance technician, and after 15 years decided to open his own business, La Souce. Jagoo-Teloka said “Carlson has built many water features for his Koi ponds over the years and it was his love and passion for this hobby that made him turn it into a business. Soon the number of jobs from friends and family grew and before long, clients started asking about getting their property landscaped. He attended UWI’s Landscaping for Entrepreneur Beginners and Advanced courses lectured by Wendy Lee Yuen. Once he began offering landscaping services, the business really took off. He has gathered over ten years experience landscaping various properties as well as maintaining estates. Taking his inspiration from the natural surroundings of the “La Souce” estate on which he currently resides, Carlson designs, builds and installs one-of-a-kind water features to meet his clients’ needs.”

Jagoo-Teloka said the workshops will be a mix of theory and practical demonstrations. “We know participants will want information, so we usually give tons of that, so much so that past workshop participants usually complain that they are overwhelmed afterwards. But we also know that it can get boring sitting all day long listening to someone talk on and on, so we will be having many practical demonstrations and participants are free to jump in and literally get their hands dirty. The workshops are held at the private residence of one of our past participants, so it will be a very informal, relaxed and intimate setting. Participants are free to ask questions, mix, mingle and network with other participants throughout the day. The cost is $500 per person and covers tuition, all stationery and landscaping materials and light refreshments. The participants just have to show up.”

Other workshops to be offered during 2019 include: Building Ponds and Water Features; Home Gardening Basics; and Introduction to Landscaping. Jagoo-Teloka said all their workshops target both novices and experienced landscapers, home owners, do-it-yourselfers (DIY) and garden enthusiasts. She said the hope is that “if we teach people the correct procedure then we would have accomplished two things – the landscapers would now do the correct thing and the home owners would know if the landscaper was following the correct procedure.”

Jagoo-Teloka said they feel it is important to offer courses like this to empower people. “When we began offering these workshops back in 2015, many of our close family members and friends were a bit bewildered as to why we would teach someone to do a job which we currently offer as part of our business. The answer was simple: to empower them. We, as a society, tend to hoard information for fear of competition, but this is an immature way of seeing things. We need to realize that the metaphorical pie of work is big enough for everyone to have a slice. We wanted to share our knowledge in the hope of empowering persons to start their own projects at home or start/improve their businesses. It’s important to offer courses like these because no one is currently offering them and there definitely is a need for them.”