I'm down about 25% over last year. My employees are no longer salaried, but paid by the hour. I'm cutting recurring expenses like yellow pages ads (did you know those rates are incredibly flexible?), liquidating unused equipment, exploring new networking sites like Angie's list and generally hunkering down for the long haul. Oh, and did I mention that I'm not making any money? If it weren't for my husband, I'd be living under an overpass for sure.
How's everyone else doing?

Not all that great here in the San Francisco Bay Area, either, where the economic downturn and especially falling housing prices have cut off the home equity pipeline to finance landscape remodels and new work. I've lost the market segment of doing new landscapes for spec builder homes, which was something I had really enjoyed doing as it was really creative work and gave me some of my most enjoyable built projects.

I feel fortunate in having long term clients that I also help maintain their gardens and do smaller ongoing projects for, which has definitely been a life saver in this market. As I enjoy doing the more creative fine pruning of trees and shrubs on a quarterly basis for clients already, I've stepped this aspect up to compensate for the fewer large budget landscaping jobs coming in.

It does seem like things are getting more active here again, with people who have deferred projects for almost two years now finally feeling like they don't want to wait any longer. A potential impediment in this recovery is the problems being created by the banks in both appraisals for current sales not meeting the sales prices, and banks making it so hard to get loans. I know it was way too easy 4 years ago to get a no-doc loan, but it has swung too hard in the other direction now, and could cut off this recovery before it even gets started in the housing construction and residential home sales markets.

Surprisingly, my business was up 20% this year. I live in New england which is less impacted by the downturn than some other areas, but it is still pretty bad here.

It was the strangest year, requiring a tremendous amount of flexibility and patience. Every project required more negiotiation than before, and other landscapers are getting desperate and cut throat. While everything worked out, I did lose a few clients, every project was a compromise and I was really thankful for winter to arrive. The stress of it left me very burnt out.

As others said, I stepped up the maintenance aspect of the business. And I never had a need to advertise until this year when i found myself doing several promotional activities. I noticed most other garden designers and landscapers stepped up their promotion and advertising also this year.

It was also a different year in terms of the flow of business. I had less than nothing going on for the month of August and then September was the busiest month of the year! It was a very bumpy road.

I always used to feel like the luckiest person in the word to love my job so much, but this year had me questioning why i do this work! I know I will love it again, but right now I am thankful for winter!

My business is a bit more niche oriented than most.....I primarily do garden designs for DYI'ers rather than those with professional installations. As a result, my business tends to be pretty even regardless of the economy as the expense involved with a do-it-yourself landscaping project is substantially less than one that is professionally installed, therefore generally much easier to afford and can be phased in over an extended period of time. Many landscape contractors are not wild about phased projects :-) Some portions often do get contracted out - those that are beyond the ability/skill set of the homeowner - but most landscape renovations are pretty doable by anyone. I also do a lot of consultations and coaching/mentoring and this aspect of my business is definitely growing. Many folks want to be responsible for and have ownership of their landscape but just need some help getting started and some guidance going forward.

I have seen some decline in many of the larger local design/build companies and professionl garden maintenance has definitely taken a back seat. When times are tight, people are more inclined to tackle themselves jobs they would have hired out when they were more flush. So I get more calls on help with pruning instruction, basic plant care and conversions of existing gardens to ones with lower maintenance. Opting out of high maintenance, water guzzling lawns is a biggie.

The economy DID have an impact on my business in that I elected to relocate to another area, as I could not longer afford the expense and maintenance of my older, in-city home. As a result, I am in a much more rural area and with an entirely new client base. I do very little advertising - most of my business is referrals/word of mouth - but I'm surprised how fast one can get up to speed in a new area. I actually turned down jobs this season just so I could have time to settle in properly.

It has been an interesting year. My own landscape architecture business is a side business while I work full time in a civil engineering office serving a viariety of roles. I put my efforts much more toward preserving my full time job as many of the similar businesses have really struglled and had layoffs.

I started to make an effort to bring landscape architecture work into that office rather than to bring it to my own. The short term benefit of strengthening my position at work is good, but the other benefit is that I can take on much more involved landscape projects there which I did not have time for on the side.

My wife had a job promotion that allowed me to slow down as well. We made a point to enjoy much more family time - especially travelling to my daughter's Marching Band competitions. I did zero advertising, no update to the web page, and no listing in the phone book or yellow pages. Consequently, I did about 50% below last year. This was actually a great year for us in terms of time spent together and overall income was slightly up.

...our regions welcome respite from seemingly relentless developemental pressure...for sure came with some personal economic contraction....I was offered and found it hard to refuse a crop science position....it proved to be a lifeline....two of my long term clients with deep pockets were impacted by the banking collapse and either sold properties in which I(we)had put in upwards of 10 years in one case 19 years investment in from forest and pasture management..to establishing orchards...stream reclamation and watershed rehab as well as establishing domestic landscaping which melded in so nicely with the unmatched horizons we borrowed from and built upon.... I also am revitalizing a specialty grow operation that was put aside as the design installation side of the business grew and it is showing signs of meeting new niche market demand with regulatory changes for once in its favor....

From the pro side:
I'm a "garden coach" and landscape designer/redesigner, and I'm getting business from people who in previous years might have called a pro. Now they want/need to do it themselves, or want a landscape that can be built in stages on a budget.

From the consumer side:
I have noticed that I no longer have to call 20 businesses to get 10 to call back to get 5 to come give an estimate ... I can call 5 and get 5!

I have noticed that the fancy firms with the big showplace offices are scarcer, while the ones who worked out of their house or truck are still going because they have lower overhead.

I have noticed that the ones who started during the big housing boom are mostly gone, while the older ones have suffered less (maybe smarter, have fewer equipment loans?)

I talked to a few contractors (landscape and regular) and they have tried to keep their core of skilled workers, maybe at reduced pay, and let the grunt labor go. When things pick up, they can get more grunts and redeploy the skilled guys as crew chiefs.

I'm from the pro end - landscape maintenance.

To echo what LG said - I'm a one woman show and work out of my house/van with no loans on equipment, vehicles and no payrolling of staff which makes this recession easier to cope with. I also deal with materials on a cash and carry basis and this is how I have my accounts setup with vendors rather then pay later.

I drive around in an old green conversion van - I took all the seats out and put load shocks on it a few years ago to accomodate all the equipment and ammendments I tote around (after my pickup truck was totalled by an uninsured driver who did a hit and run). It is mechanically sound with no rust so it looks respectable when I pull up to a client's house. It was cheaper then purchasing an actual cargo van or another pickup truck.

Sometimes when I'm driving around I can't help but wonder what the bank note is on some of these large landscape maintenance trucks - just the diesel to run them must be huge. And then because the cab is big you have to justify the cost by filling it up with about 4 - 5 guys. When you have a lot of overhead you have to have the larger jobs or lots of little jobs to survive right now!

My business went up about 10 percent last year - but my bread and butter has always been maintenance and garden installations are gravy. We've also always lived very frugally (I can be found quite a bit over on GW's money saving forum - :)) I also try to stay diversified as much as possible - I will do anything from taking care of gravesites to garden coaching, plans for DIYers like gardengal, holiday decorating, winter pruning, general yard maintenance and some hardscaping with natural stone.

I have some longterm clients that have been loyal, I get referrels through word of mouth, Angie's List and always keeping a stack of business cards ready to hand to people at trade shows, on jobsites, in conversation. I don't have a website yet - but I'm working on it right now as another marketing tool. I also try to get a feel for what everyone else is charging and be in the middle - it gives me more room to negotiate without cutting my own throat. My biggest competition has been the immigrant mow and go guys - they'll try and undercut me so I try to stay around their price point or just above and stress quality, horticultural knowledge, the English language, and great customer service and reliability. Also when conducting sales calls I carry around a huge portfolio filled with mouth watering progression photos of gardens I've installed, renovated and/or maintained throughout the years. If I can get in the door that's usually what seals the deal - a picture's worth a thousand words which is important because I don't unfortunately do lawns or plow snow which are my two greatest weaknesses compared to the competition.