Singapore Expats

hi, i would like to enquire on people who are doing landscape business in singapore. any kind, any type. what is the market like now?

is there potential in this field?

Yeah, if you have figured out how to cultivate and grow concrete!

sundaymorningstaple wrote:Yeah, if you have figured out how to cultivate and grow concrete!

in this field!

redknight_jas wrote:hi, i would like to enquire on people who are doing landscape business in singapore. any kind, any type. what is the market like now?

is there potential in this field?

quite low, about 50 landscape companies had to close last year

sky gardens, vertical greenery, city farms, sustainable architecture is developing but i cant say growing. this market is small. btw, if u want to study landscape architecture and work in singapore in the future, it's really good time now.
what is your field in landscape?

thanks for your serious reply!

im more in the landscape architecture design field. however, right now, im serving my intern in some company who is intending to go into landscape MAINTENANCE division. what more, they only plan to go into private residential market, making the expansion even more narrow.

in which, i know nothing about those technical part. i study design, not maintenance. not even business. i seriously need to get help from people in this field.

also, from my recent research, indeed, this field is pretty small. many companies are doing designing, consulting and maintenance, not just pure maintenance.

right, maintenance is boring and a step back.
i dont know what's on job market though. why wont you check it out?

redknight_jas wrote:thanks for your serious reply!

im more in the landscape architecture design field. however, right now, im serving my intern in some company who is intending to go into landscape MAINTENANCE division. what more, they only plan to go into private residential market, making the expansion even more narrow.

in which, i know nothing about those technical part. i study design, not maintenance. not even business. i seriously need to get help from people in this field.

also, from my recent research, indeed, this field is pretty small. many companies are doing designing, consulting and maintenance, not just pure maintenance.

Consider the area. Were you living in my hometown of Houston, Texas, most everyone would be in a single family dwelling with at least some yard, and many with a lot of yard, lawn, flower beds, and trees.

Now drop into Singapore. 70 percent of the population lives in HDB flats. A large portion lives in private condos and flats. The rest live in semi-detached or row houses with very tiny yards. There are really only a handful of properties with decent size land areas that really need landscaping design services.

So, I suppose you could approach HDB councils or private apartment management about taking on landscaping and design, competing against better known entities. Or maybe you can sell some kind of 'yard package' to those living in semi-detached homes.

It is a very small market here.

amberina wrote:right, maintenance is boring and a step back.
i dont know what's on job market though. why wont you check it out?

i wanted to . but i dont have any source other than the internet. books and references, yeah, i wanted to. but my boss is not giving me any freedom to do that. apparently, i can only stay at my office from 8am to 5.30pm, do internet sourcing and then transfer my findings into report.

it sound utterly wrong in the first place. isnt these marketing researches requires me to run about, looking out for information? dont expect me to do this after KO hours. the earliest i can get home is 8pm. i live pretty far away from my workplace.

Strong Eagle wrote:

redknight_jas wrote:thanks for your serious reply!

im more in the landscape architecture design field. however, right now, im serving my intern in some company who is intending to go into landscape MAINTENANCE division. what more, they only plan to go into private residential market, making the expansion even more narrow.

in which, i know nothing about those technical part. i study design, not maintenance. not even business. i seriously need to get help from people in this field.

also, from my recent research, indeed, this field is pretty small. many companies are doing designing, consulting and maintenance, not just pure maintenance.

Consider the area. Were you living in my hometown of Houston, Texas, most everyone would be in a single family dwelling with at least some yard, and many with a lot of yard, lawn, flower beds, and trees.

Now drop into Singapore. 70 percent of the population lives in HDB flats. A large portion lives in private condos and flats. The rest live in semi-detached or row houses with very tiny yards. There are really only a handful of properties with decent size land areas that really need landscaping design services.

So, I suppose you could approach HDB councils or private apartment management about taking on landscaping and design, competing against better known entities. Or maybe you can sell some kind of 'yard package' to those living in semi-detached homes.

It is a very small market here.

yup. i did my site survey. its really small. even people like me who is an outsider in business, knows that this is a small market. not to say that singaporeans are just far too busy to tend their own yards. they simply hire those one-man gardeners to do the job, which is more than enough.

my boss thought it is positive to branch into this field and i dont know why.

Maintenance

Speaking from experience, i used to work for my brothers landscaping business in New Zealand. As i'm sure you are aware there is quite a bit to landscaping nowadays namely; outdoor lighting, pumps and irrigation, electrical stuff, general design, plants etc... lots of things can go wrong as the outdoor environment can be quite harsh.

In agreement with mr eagles earlier post, Private homes with gardens in Singapore = rich people. There are some beautiful gardens here in the tropics and if i'd spent loads of cash having someone design and build one for me i'd sure want to protect my investment. Plants here are ridiculously expensive man.

plus, if you do your job the rich people will most likely keep using you, which could equate to regular work. rich people generally hang out with rich people too.

here's a thought, my background is engineering and in this field the "maintenance" contracts are generally very lucrative and sort after.

could be worth a go? certainly some more research.

p.s i've noticed the majority of Singaporeans don't like to get their hands dirty.

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redknight_jas wrote:not to say that singaporeans are just far too busy to tend their own yards. they simply hire those one-man gardeners to do the job, which is more than enough.

not entirely true...

my parents are retirees in singapore and they changed their landscaping/garden maintenance companies a few times because it took too long for one/two/three man gardener to complete the job.

my folks have stuck with a company that fields a crack squad of 10 or so south asians and 2 foremen who swarm into the compound, do whatever they do quickly and (mostly) efficiently and then leave immediately.

i believe this allows the home owner/househelp cut down on "supervision/on alert time" while these strangers are on their property.

also, although the noise levels (grass cutter, lawn mowers, leave blowers, the talking and chatting) are higher, they are also shorter in duration.

since landed property owners already have more money to spend, i feel they would be happy to pay a little more for the above two reasons.