Special green issue - Association of Professional Landscape ...

Career insights for students
Inspiration for those beginning their landscape design career
In this issue, The Designer
interviews Sally Court, APLD
Story by Martin Speece
“I had no savings, I had to pay for a
mortgage and I was in ‘scads’ of debt,”
said Sally Court, recalling the 10 years
she struggled working for one of the
world’s biggest advertising companies
(Grey).”
The U.K. APLD member reflected how
she was unhappy with her track in life.
The fast pace and long hours of her job
involved spending many late nights
entertaining high-profile international
advertising clients, such as Canada Dry
and Revlon, at special parties and events.
For months leading up to her
resignation at Grey, Court knew that
things had to change. She had to get out
of the fast-paced lifestyle that was killing
her physically, emotionally, and
financially.
“I went on a business trip with my boss
one day and screwed-up a client
meeting,” said Court. “On the ride home,
my boss asked me if I was going to quit.
Then, I asked him if he was going to fire
me. Nothing happened, but my mind was
made up.”
The confrontational trip back home
made the decision to get out of
advertising even more obvious for Court.
Three months later she had left the ad
firm.
Court’s sister, who owned an interior
design business, offered her an
opportunity to come work for her. “I had
no background in design, nor any real
desire to pursue interior design, it was
just something that was there for me,”
said Court. “But since I had no formal
teaching in design, I decided to go back
to school.”
Court attended the prestigious
Inchbald School of Design where she fell
in love with the art of garden design. Her
need to work for her sister slowly molded
into her passion for landscape design.
When she graduated from Inchbald,
Court started out with her office in a
small bedroom in her home.
“At first, I was doing smaller backyard
gardens,” said Court “But I eventually
worked my way up to the larger
gardens.”
Court’s change from the fast-paced
business world to the landscape design
industry was a personal awaking, which
she credits to the simplicity of the
outdoors. “My attraction to garden
design was the fact that I could see my
project evolve over time,” said Court. “It
wasn’t a hurried ad campaign that you
slathered down onto a page; rather an
evolving, well thought-out, live, piece of
work.”
After 20 years of being in the landscape
design business, Court has worked her
way up the ladder to become a wellrespected
and renowned garden
designer. Her business, Courtyard Garden
Design, takes on jobs from the small city
backyard to gardens up to 45 acres in
size.
Even though Court disliked her
advertising job, which she held two
decades ago, she applied what she
learned in that job to the landscape
design field. “Presentation and self
promotion were two things that I took
into the landscape design business from
advertising,” said Court. “I always need
to keep a presence in the industry and
keep a great uniqueness.”
Court says that defining what is unique
about yourself as a landscape designer
and promoting yourself wherever you go
– especially garden shows - are two key
ways to keep a steady flow of business.
Think of yourself as a presidential
hopeful, she advises. Back your
credentials with the work that you have
done, while striving to seek new clients
and keep the loyal old ones.
She walks the talk. Since becoming
APLD certified in 2006, Court has
commissioned a few works from “across
the pond,” in New York and Los Angeles.
Continued on page 13…
U.K. APLD member Sally Court, APLD, shares three tips for new comers to
landscape design profession. See page 19.
summer 2008 | apld.org 16