Cultivating profit
By : Justyna Wrobel
Symbols of prosperity have changed enormously during the past decade. A few years ago, being prosperous meant owning a computer. Then it was a mobile phone. These days, however, the preeminent sign of prosperity is a house and garden. But while mobile phones require little upkeep aside from infusions of money, gardens need taste and imagination in addition to cash.
Those lacking the first two need not fear, as each year Warsaw's Agriculture Academy and some private universities disgorge a handful of new landscape architects ready to put their aesthetic sensibilities to work for wealthy customers. The 200 or so landscape gardening companies in the Warsaw area are a far cry from just a few years ago, when only a few state-run companies handled landscape design.
Bartosz Dankiewicz and his wife Katarzyna set up their company, Ogrody Dankiewicz, four years ago in Lomianki, a suburb north of the capital, after graduating from the Agriculture Academy's architectural landscape department. "We wanted to join any (architectural landscape) company but there was no chance to do so," Mr. Dankiewicz said. He said there were many small semi-professional companies operating at the time, but setting up his own company was the only way forward.
The Dankiewicz's were not the only graduates to start up in the gardening trade.
Their colleague, Artur Michalski, also set up his own architectural landscape company, Zbogar. "The market was just developing and there was more money," he said. He said his company now deals with everything from conservation to project design and implementation. Last year, Zbogar was awarded a tender by the Palace of Culture and Science (PKiN) to maintain the green area around the building.
What characterizes both the Dankiewicz's and Michalski's customers is cash. "They're wealthy people, companies and businessmen," Mr. Dankiewicz said.
After he and his wife started their business, people suddenly started to appear who could afford to have their gardens professionally designed. He said his company specializes in both project design and implementation, unlike Western European firms that either do one or the other.
Making the best
of what you've got
Venture Industries, a Swedish company based in Kielpin near the Lomianki suburb, produces, exports and imports air-conditioning equipment. It hired Ogrody Dankiewicz to do the landscaping work around its new building about 18 months ago. Venture had a unique problem in that it had to figure out how to best maintain a pool of water that could be used in the event of a fire emergency. In the end, the Swedish firm decided to have a pond dug and surround it with plants and shrubbery.
"The question of money was unimportant," said Monika Wiech, a Venture Industries salesperson who is also in charge of marketing. She said that the building and the pond were meant to present the company in the best possible light and to complement each other. "The pond accomplished two things for the price of one: it's useful and looks good," she said.
But while some corporate customers want a custom-made pond, others prefer a landscaped rooftop garden. Zbogar recently completed a garden project on the roof of the new Moorkens Projects Pologne building on ulica Jutrzenki, near Aleje Jerozolimskie's west-end. The building, which belongs to Belgian holding company Alcopa, is scheduled to open June 20. Before the building opened, the company had to create a green area around or on top of the building as required by local gmina authorities. Rather than give up precious parking space, the company decided to put green grass on top of the building. "We want to use our rooftop garden in the future and make it accessible to our clients," said Joanna Dzieniak, marketing manager at Moorkens Projects Pologne. "The rooftop garden has an area of about 1,700 square meters."
According to Michalski, Zbogar's client base is split equally between companies and individuals. Since 1996, his firm has landscaped about 100 private and three corporate gardens. "My company is just getting started," Michalski said. "During the first five months of this year, Zbogar's revenue has matched what it did in all of 1999."
Higher revenue figures also reflect the increasingly elaborate and adventurous needs of clients. "Clients' needs change all the time," Mr. Dankiewicz said. A few years ago, an artificial pond on ulica Bartycka fired imaginations, and everybody wanted the exact same one. Now, clients "want something different," he said.
Seedling takes root
Maciej Kulik, who started the architectural landscape company Arkadia eight years ago, said the real boom for landscaping services happened in 1994. "At the very beginning (1992), entering the market was very difficult," he said. "Because the market had just started and there was no middle class established yet that wanted to be surrounded by a nice view."
Kulik also said that since that time, the range of services on offer has broadened. "At the beginning, the market wanted only simple projects and now it's developing along with what is now available: cascades, garden sculptures, stone and wood." These design innovations have been followed my modern watering and lighting technologies.
Kulik said he completes about five contracts a year for project design and implementation. In addition, he designs six to seven projects annually that are carried out by other landscape architectural companies. Currently, he is working on two gardens and has had to postpone further projects in the meantime. "If you want to do something well you have to devote a certain amount of time to it," Kulik said. Creating a design can even take up to one or two months. "I have to learn how my clients live, their customs, what the inside of their homes look like," he said.
Mr. Dankiewicz said that while Poles prefer to have conifers in their gardens, the current landscaping trend (in Western Europe) is to have leafy trees in varying shades of green. "Poles look for strong impressions," he said, "though this is starting to change." Last year he completed a garden in the Wigierski National Park in northeast Poland, using only wild plants. "The result is really great," he said.
While landscaping a garden requires a lot of hard work, the results of that work can't reasonably be seen for several years, Mr. Dankiewicz said. "Gardens reach expected sizes and looks after 5-10 years," he said. "That's why I have better relationships with my clients after a few years, when a client sees the effects in his garden."
Keeping up
with the Joneses
Designing and landscaping professionally is not cheap, either. "Creating a garden costs the same as it does to buy a car," Mr. Dankiewicz said. As prices for new cars vary, so do the costs to landscape a garden. However, according to Mr. Dankiewicz, a gardening trend has begun in "the BMW price range." But it all depends on the client and the materials used, he said. A garden costs less if the plants used are younger, but the downside is that the client has to wait longer for the landscape to reach its optimal effect. Sometimes clients are not very understanding on this point. "They always prefer larger plants for less money," Mr. Dankiewicz said.
Architectural landscaping is expensive because the materials used carry a high price tag. "At the beginning of the 1990s, prices for plants were low and remained at the same level," Kulik said. "When the market boom happened, prices went up." And very often buyers can't afford certain materials. While customers tend to have grand visions when it comes to the overall look of their gardens, they're sometimes shocked by their cost. "They want sprinkler (systems in their gardens), lighting and large plants," Kulik said. "Then I ask them whether they're aware how much it will cost." He said that a 1,000 square-meter garden with ripe flora, lights and a water sprinkler system costs "a few tens of thousands of zlotys." Price valuations are made individually per garden and simple questions regarding cost don't exist. "I don't know how much one square meter of a garden costs," Kulik said. "I don't even know how much one square meter of grass is."
Design fees also vary from a minimum of zl. 500 to as much as zl. 2,000-zl. 4,000 each, Kulik said. Mrs. Dankiewicz said her company charges about zl. 2,000 for a "good-quality, interesting design" for a 1,000 square-meter plot. In general, landscape architects charge about zl. 1-zl. 2 per plot square meter. But if somebody wants a garden project designed by the Dankiewicz's, they can't expect to pay less than zl. 1,000. She also said that a design fee can be determined as a percentage of the total value of the project, normally at about 3-5%.
Costs for implementing a design are much harder to determine. "Execution is a different story," Mrs. Dankiewicz said. For example, a 1,000-square meter garden could run just zl. 30,000 while a 400 square-meter garden could cost more than zl. 100,000. "Generally, prices of 1,000 square-meter gardens can vary from zl. 30,000-zl. 300,000 and even more," she said.
While the Warsaw market seems to be thriving with about 200 companies in operation right now, Mrs. Dankiewicz said her company isn't worried about the competition. "Our services are very high quality and that's why we aren't afraid that somebody will deprive us of our bread," she said.
While she would not reveal the company's turnover, she did say that the number of contracts has increased by 100% every year since the company started four years ago.
Although Kulik said his company's number of contracts hasn't changed dramatically over the years, he also isn't fearful of the competition. "Look at the growing number of shopping malls that offer goods for gardening," Kulik said. "They're springing up like mushrooms in the rain." The market is large and going to continue to grow, he added.
And the market looks certain to expand even faster as many former landscape architects return to the profession. Wieslawa Rudnicka, a 1992 graduate of the architectural landscape faculty, couldn't find work in those days. "(The profession) didn't work because social awareness was low and people's financial situation didn't allow them to work in this field," she said. She confirmed that her skills were "up-to-date" and that she was ready to return to the profession. "I am going to return to designing landscapes," she said.
