by Holly Chapman | 14 Nov 25 | From the Mag, Garden Design
John Wood explains how to create architectural plant symbols in Morpholio Trace.
Welcome to this regular column, where I share practical, iPad-based digital workflows, tools, and drawing techniques to help make your landscaping and design work easier, faster, and more efficient—whether you’re out on site or back at the desk.
One of the most valuable techniques I use in Morpholio Trace is creating bespoke architectural plant symbols. Rather than relying on pre-stored clip art or someone else’s artwork, you can design symbols that are completely unique to your own aesthetic and design style.
Drawing freehand plant symbols in Morpholio is made particularly quick and easy with the
copy, paste and rotate functions. Plants like this only ever need to be drawn once before being
converted straight to your personal library for use in all future work
Once created, these symbols can be stored in your personal library and used forever—meaning you only have to draw each one once. The result is a collection of plant symbols that are efficient to use, stylistically consistent, and entirely your own.
The real strength of this method lies in its balance of creativity and efficiency. On the creative side, you are free to develop a symbol style that reflects your personal way of drawing. This could be loose and expressive, tightly detailed, or anything in between.
Because the symbols are your own, your design presentations will always carry a hand-rendered quality that is distinctive and recognisably yours. At the same time, the workflow eliminates unnecessary repetition. Once a plant symbol is added to your library, you no longer have to redraw it. You can call it up, scale it precisely, and populate your plan in seconds.
Even the initial drawing process is faster than many people expect. In the accompanying tutorial I show how to create these symbols using stencil tools within Trace. The stencils behave exactly like their traditional equivalents, allowing you to define a shape once and then reuse it.
A tree drawn once and once only is immediately converted into a stencil. This can be scaled to any size and coloured to match in with future design work
Scaling is straightforward and highly accurate, and with a few quick adjustments you can generate multiple variations of a plant symbol at different sizes. This not only saves time but ensures your planting plans remain precise and professional.
From there, additional efficiencies come into play. Copy-and-paste functions allow you to repeat symbols across a drawing rapidly, while still retaining the flexibility to move, resize, or adjust them as needed. This creates a smooth workflow where ideas flow quickly from concept to presentation without technical barriers slowing you down.
Another advantage is mobility. Because all of this is done on the iPad, you can work anywhere—on a train, in a café, or on site—without compromising quality. Morpholio Trace makes it possible to produce professional presentation drawings in places where traditional tools would be impractical.
Freehand technical like this can be drawn in a matter of minutes and then never have to be drawn again, whilst retaining all the qualities of the original hand render
Finally, I touch on colour rendering within the tutorial. Here, I deliberately use a simple approach: applying uniform, transparent layers of colour to the symbols. This technique has a graphic clarity and a strong visual impact, while remaining quick to apply. Of course, Trace offers endless palettes, textures, and pen types, but sometimes the simplest method delivers the cleanest, most effective results.
By creating your own library of architectural plant symbols, you not only save time but also establish a visual language that is unmistakably yours. It’s efficient, it’s personal, and it’s a workflow that grows more fluent the longer you use it.
Read Pro Landscaper’s November issue here.
by The Pro Landscaper Team | 15 Oct 25 | Commercial Landscaping, Domestic Landscaping, From the Mag, Long Reads
Neil Stead explores how landscaping can grow when workers are nurtured into leaders, using the right tools.
Developing the Next Generation of Managers
In landscaping, the typical career path is clear: start on the tools, gain technical experience and become the reliable “go-to” person on site. For many, that’s where the journey ends. But if we want landscaping businesses to thrive, not just survive, we need a more deliberate route from doing the work to leading the team.
Upskilling isn’t just about sharpening technical skills – straighter lines, faster installs, safer machinery handling. It’s also about recognising who has the potential to step into management, preparing them for leadership, and supporting them so both they and the business benefit. And at the heart of it lies a key question: do we mould the person to the role, or the role to the person?
Spotting Potential Early
Too often, businesses promote the person who is “best at the job.” But the best landscaper isn’t automatically the best manager. Management requires more than technical know-how – it calls for communication, problem-solving, and foresight.
What should you look for?
- Curiosity: the person who asks why things are done a certain way.
- Initiative: the one who notices problems before they escalate.
- Supportiveness: the team member who naturally mentors others or boosts morale in tough conditions.
These qualities often surface long before someone applies for a management role. Spotting them early gives you a head start in nurturing leadership.
Responsibility Before Authority
A common misstep is promoting someone overnight: one day they’re “on the tools,” the next they’re “in charge.” That sudden leap can be daunting for them and frustrating for the team.
Instead, think of management development as gradual steps:
- Give responsibility, not authority. Start small: a client relationship, a piece of equipment, or a process.
- Build confidence gradually. Expand their responsibilities as they succeed.
- Support through mentoring. Regular check-ins help them learn without feeling left alone.
Layered responsibility creates a pathway into management, not a plunge into the deep end.
Shaping the Role Around the Person
So, should you mould the person to the management role, or adapt the role to fit the person?
In my opinion, the answer is a balance. A business needs structure – roles can’t be endlessly reshaped. But ignoring individual strengths (and weaknesses) sets people up to fail.
For example:
- Someone strong with people but weaker with admin may thrive if supported by good systems or part-time office help.
- Someone detail-driven but less confident with clients could excel in operational management while the owner continues to handle key client relationships.
The aim is alignment: keeping structure in place while flexing enough for individuals to succeed.
The Four Pillars of Management
When I work with business owners, I use a simple Business Management Framework that focuses on four key pillars: Strategic, Customer, Operations, and People. And for me it applies just as much to developing managers as it does to running a company.
- Strategic: Can they see how their role connects to the bigger picture?
- Customer: Do they understand what clients value and how to protect it?
- Operations: Can they manage systems and processes, not just tasks?
- People: Do they know how to motivate, guide, and handle conflict constructively?
Few new managers arrive strong in all four areas. But with training and support, they can grow into them.
Training Beyond the Tools
Technical training is essential, but management development requires different skills:
- Communicating clearly and giving feedback.
- Managing time and priorities.
- Understanding costs, margins, and budgets.
- Shifting from “I do the work” to “I enable others to do it well.”
These don’t just happen naturally. Structured learning – training, mentoring, or coaching – is vital if you want managers to succeed.
The Business Impact
Investing in management development pays off across the business:
- Stronger loyalty: People who see a future with you are more likely to stay.
- Better client experience: Skilled managers keep projects running smoothly.
- Owner freedom: With confident managers, the owner can step back from firefighting and focus on growth.
Upskilling isn’t just about individual careers. It’s about building a stronger, more sustainable business.
Final Thoughts
Landscaping is as much about people as it is about tools. Tools build gardens – but people build businesses.
If you want your company to grow, don’t leave management development to chance. Spot potential early and give responsibility before authority. Flex roles without losing structure, and always support growth through the lenses of Strategy, Customer, Operations, and People.
Get this right, and you won’t just promote your best landscaper. You’ll create the next generation of leaders to take your business forward.
Read Pro Landscaper’s October Issue.
by Holly Chapman | 19 Sep 25 | Domestic Landscaping, From the Mag, Long Reads
To change or not to change, that is the question Gareth Wilson says is moot; change is inevitable and staying up to date is key to delivering high-quality results.
My role as an expert witness is still hectic. Sadly, too many so-called landscapers are churning out poor-quality projects they are not capable or qualified to carry out. In some cases, they do not intend to work to an acceptable standard. As we know, this does the industry no good whatsoever.
On a slightly and more frustrating note, over the last six months, I have carried out several expert witness cases in which, if the contractor had spent just 10 minutes reading the installation guide of the products they were installing, they could have saved themselves a lot of stress, time, and money in correcting the issues.
I spend a large portion of my working life reading manufacturers’ specifications related to expert cases, whether for paving, decking, artificial grass, etc. It’s worth noting that they change pretty regularly.
A recent expert case I was working on has been ongoing for 6 years; the well-known paving manufacturers have changed their specifications 5 times since 2018, even mentioning using PVA as a bonding agent back then, which now we know just doesn’t work and is frowned upon in 2025.
Speaking to not only a good friend of mine but a very high end contractor who I do a lot of training with, we had a slightly heated debate about edge restraints on patios, he wouldn’t have a word of it until I sent him the manufacturer’s installation guide of his chosen paving brand, whilst I was on the phone to him. He then admitted he’d not looked at the installation guides for a long time and was shocked.
So why can’t landscapers get their heads around these changes? DVLA changes their laws on average four to six times a year, and building control periodically changes its regulations, as do Gas Safe and HSE. The simple answer is landscaping is not regulated. Landscapers do not like change, as we have all seen with the regular bonding mortar/slurry primer sagas and debates on Facebook forums and the famous phrase that goes with conversation, “I’ve been doing it this way for 25 years and never had a call back,” which straight away we all know isn’t the truth.
I’d love to be able to say I’ve always read and kept up to date with manufacturers’ specifications and British Standards in my landscaping days, but that wouldn’t be true, and yes, I have made mistakes. I aim to help people not make some of the mistakes I’ve made.
Always look to improve your knowledge, never think you know it all, or enough, you don’t. You can never have too much knowledge, which is something David Burton (Steintec), the UK’s leading paving expert engineer, has taught me. Listening to Burton for only 10 minutes will blow your mind and double your knowledge. Keep up to date with changes to your industry, spend 10 minutes before installing products, check the installation guides, and not forget British Standards; it’s your trade and your responsibility.
Read Pro Landscaper’s September issue here.
