What Is a Landscaper?
The word landscape comes from a Dutch word that joins the words meaning “land” and “condition or state.” Like seascape, to which it is related, a landscape refers to a single view or prospect. A landscaper is someone who designs, cares for, or improves the landscape. Usually, a large part of the work involves plants, grass, and trees.
A landscaper may work for a firm or be self-employed. The land which landscapers work on is often, but not necessarily, privately owned. Locales include homes, schools, and commercial property, and the landscaper's work is often limited to lawns and gardens and the structures or bodies of water within them. That is, landscapers do not typically work on or within residences or other large buildings and large bodies of water or forests, for example, but they do work in the areas of swimming pools, ponds, walls, patios, decks, yards, gardens, driveways, and entryways. Though there are landscape architects and landscape engineers, these specialists would tend to identify themselves as architects and engineers with a specialty in landscaping. It is usually assumed that someone called a “landscaper“ does not have expertise in architecture or engineering.
One area in which a landscaper may work or specialize is in the design of landscaping. This may be done when a building is first built or reconceived if a property owner wants something new. Landscaping is always done within a set of constraints, including the climate zone, soil, and sun available on the property; the amount of care the property owners are willing for the upkeep of the landscaping to involve; the cost; the presence of children or animals who may interact with plantings; and special requests such as particular color schemes, historical verisimilitude, etc. Adding lighting or running water and fences or walls to divide areas of the property are special features that may be requested. In the twenty-first century, employers may also have strong feelings about the types of pesticides they are willing to have used on their property.
A landscaper may also focus on caring for properties on which the landscaping has already been established. This may include tasks that are weekly, seasonal, yearly, and done as needed. Such work may include irrigation, fertilizing, tree stump removal, snow plowing, planting bulbs or annuals, trimming shrubs, shaping trees, and mowing lawns.
Written by Mary Elizabeth
