Its kind of like a first blind date each time you meet a new client. This is the advice I give myself: 1. Relax and don't put pressure on yourself to perform and be yourself(sound like a date?). 2. Get the client on neutral turf, which is outside, as soon as possible (kind of like going out to a restaurant rather than dinner at her house ... I'm a little uneasy with using the word "client" in this analogy). 3. Have them explain their visions, listen closely, and ask questions when you have them, but don't go too far out of your way to think up questions. Do be active in the discussion. The clients will reveal so much about what they like, don't like, what they do, what they want to do, who else comes around,... Get answers to the questions that pop into your mind. If your subconscience wants an answer to something, it is most likely for a good reason. (this will keep you from talking the wrong politics or religion). 4. Let them know that you want to take in their thoughts first, if they seem to be waiting for you to tell them what to do. (its all about you, baby.) 5. When they have finished explaining their vision you will know so much more about them and their site before getting ahead of yourself. (now you can dance to the same music) 6. Now it is time to explain how you might realize their goals being careful to directly address specifics as they relate to what they told you (either directly or indirectly). This is the critical moment in selling design services. It is when they find out how much you understand them and how comfortable they feel about your interpretation of their vision. You can turn their whole vision upside down and totally reform it as long as you do it because you understand them, the site, and your craft and as long as you are able to make them understand that you do. (you're soul mates now and will follow each other to the ends of the earth) 7. Now sit down with them and show them the portfolio (kind of like showing your stock portfolio and pay stubs). Since you now know a lot about them, you can point out things that you know will be of interest to them as they thumb through the portfolio. This is the reassuring phase where you combine your company's track record and your undertanding of them and their project. (this brings us to the end of the evening - we don't know how it is going to end, but we gave it our best effort to find our 29 points of compatibility) My philosophy that keeps me confident and and stress free: Remember this. You represent a certain balance of values that is defined by the company you work for. The four major ways that they manifest themselses is vision, craftsmanship, volume, and price. Some companies will perform with a higher or lower level of design and layout (vision). They will each have a certain level of craftsmanship. Some will provide a greater or lesser amount of trees, shrubs, hardscape, and/or other physical elements for the same money. Each company places a value on their work such that the same job description has a different price tag on it. The company you represent is at a certain fixed balance of these four things. Wherever that is does not matter in as much as there are clients that match that balance. Each client has their own weighted set of these values as well. You simply can not sell a job to someone whose balance of values do not match up to those that you represent no matter how well you do your job. So do not get rattled when you don't sell a job to someone who is more interested in paying less money for a lesser quality tha someone else is offering, or more interested in the plan that is not as good but has 20 more shrubs in it for the same money, or something else that is beyond your control. Stay confident and focus on what you know and don't worry about what you don't know. Your clients know you have construction people that can put it together. What they want from you is someone who understands them, can organize their site, and apply the aesthetic qualities thay want. Finally, don't have a hangup about "giving away" ideas. All that you can convey verbally are concepts that might be pretty cool, but they are really of little value in that form. What is of great value to a client is someone who has these ideas rather than the ideas themselves. If you guard your vision, you hide your value. You don't sell plans, you sell your ability to process the client, his goals, and the site. The more they know of that ability, the more you are valued. If you babble some good concepts and don't get the work, you have lost nothing. If you do not babble those concepts, you lost an opportunity.

Glad to hear you spider plant is doing better Lamora! As for the pictures, do you have photos online someplace, like Flickr or a similar photo-hosting site? If you don't, but have a g-mail account, click on "photos" up above your e-mail inbox & you can start a Picasa account... once pics are uploaded, there is a spot on the right where you can "link to this picture." You then copy the info/web location/whatever it is (it's long, that's what it is!) & paste it into your message box here where you want your pic to show up in your post. It will look like gibberish, but when you hit the "preview message" button at the bottom, your pic will show up! I think the directions are pretty much the same from any photo-hosting site... if you have a Yahoo account, there should be a "photos" button to click someplace from your e-mail page too, then just follow their directions to upload. Alternatively, if you have a facebook account, you can do the "share this picture with anyone with this public link" option at the bottom. Copy that info & past it into the URL box at the bottom of your message here, then name your link. People can click on it & see your picture. Good luck!! GB

I had a real surprise this evening while making dinner. I had checked earlier on the enclosures inside and out and was glad that no one had eclosed because it has been cool and rainy all day. But as I turned to get something out of the fridge I saw something fluttering around on the floor before me and was a bit freaked until I realized that it was a PVS that had evidently been pupating all winter somewhere in the house and probably in the kitchen itself since I reared at least 200 cats last spring. It was a large beautiful female that is now outside on the willow waiting for morning. I hope it will be nicer tomorrow. I wonder how many more surprises I am in for this season? I know what you mean about those ASTs, Sherry. They are also the easier ones to rear most of the time. I have often given the cats and eggs to teachers that I know who like to rear them in their classes. My granddaughter has bronze fennel in her yard in Aptos to attract the adults too. And I have been dealing with the problem of seeing the fennel mowed down here as well since it is considered a nuisance plant. I have even seen the only known pipe vine mowed down or sprayed with Roundup along with neighboring fennel plants. Sometimes it gets to me because I can only imagine how much wildjife would benefit if more of us dedicated parts of our yards to host plants of native butterflies.

Thanks for the nice comments, everyone, lots of my friends and friends-to-be (I hope) showed up here. It made me sad to pick those last flowers. I named my photo Late Fall Flowers from a Chekhov short story that had a very sad ending, but the title grabbed me. Thanks for the reassurance that that echinacea will come back. There are several more volunteers out there. The yellow bloomed well enough but bugs chewed the petals this year so they were a wash this summer. For yellow, Bluestone has a prettier version with what looks like wider petals. Harvest Moon is skinny, and I didn't like it, but it makes for some variation and looks well with C. Rooguchi nearby. A few words about Charlotte. It's an Austin rose, it's one of a pair I have way in front with lots of sun, grafted if you know how it works with roses, got it from Pickering in Canada. I've had very poor luck with most of the others. Charlotte blooms nearly nonstop from as soon as they start in early June until past the first frost, beautiful cup shaped blooms, first flush loaded with clusters is the best. Roses just take more fussing than I have patience for so I'm getting rid of them except for Char and a couple others. The Jap beetles ruin it all for me, had to keep Char disbudded during that whole time, a darn shame, and they stayed late this year, and I still had to pick them off the leaves. But when they swarm in those blooms, it makes me sick to my stomach to see it so cut all the buds off to spare myself any more of that. Some they don't bother much at all. The only downside of Char is the blooms fade in a couple days then shatter quickly. This year with all the rain, it got some kind of blight on the leaves, otherwise has been clean with no spraying. One more word about roses, I prefer own root from now on, but the grafting gives them a kick start, and it takes the own root a couple more years to catch up if they're going to. The ones that are hardy here die back to the ground, but Char makes a fast comeback in the spring once pruned, tidied up and fed. Perennials (and some scattered annuals) require far less fussing and are more satisfying overall, maybe a little Bloom Booster now and then and water when too dry. Nasturtiums are the only ones I won't grow because of aphids. We had a late September frost but most roses can tolerate the mild ones and just the most tender plants were taken by that. The ones that hug the ground are still warmed from that, and some are a little tougher. It's very weird for here to have anything blooming by yesterday, Dec 3, and I did nothing special except cover all my new delph plants with soda bottles, caps off. The other perennials some just seem to settle in and die back for winter without a frost. And the alyssum are prettier as ever this am, was supposed to get down to 27 last nite. It's kind of cheery as I need to go get some oil for the gas mix for the snowblower and be ready. Ugh. Not looking forward to it. Sorry I rambled. Again.