Do Paper House Manuals Still Have Value?
For the past week my kitchen has been converted into a print shop – messy with all of the pieces of producing a 3-ring binder landscape manual for a garden that I designed 20 years ago. Since the majority of my work now has evolved into creating digital systems, this has been a nice shift from my normal computer-focused daily routine.
As I look at each of the printed pages, it allows me to think about the value that paper house manuals still have in this industry.
It’s not often that I have permission to share my work, let alone showcase a garden I designed and installed 20 years ago.
Let’s take a deeper look.
My clients, now in their 70s, decided to downsize from this 1.2-acre property to a lock-and-leave home. They invited me to produce a document to hand over all of the important details of this living asset, to hand it over to the new homeowners in hopes that they won’t kill the $10,000 Koi fish or cut down the 100-year-old Heritage Oak Tree – all with explicit instructions on how to bonsai the very rare Japanese Maple ‘Mikawa Yatsubusa.’
When we started this project, I nearly cried when I drove up to the curb after all these years.
It has evolved beyond my wildest original vision. The trees were fully mature and the client hired proper gardeners to care for it all these years. There wasn’t a weed in sight, not one dead branch could be seen. It felt like time passed in a blink of an eye, and the garden magically evolved from a once-dusty construction site to a fully mature landscape, all with complex wants and needs.
My team spent the last couple of months downloading every piece of critical data about the landscape into an “owner’s manual”…
…so that the new homeowners will have all the information to succeed in owning and caring for these much-loved gardens.
After numerous site visits and meetings with the client, their operations manager and the gardener – as well as endless references to my Picture This plant ID app – hours were spent detailing:
Every plant, their known diseases and best fertilization schedules
Contractor’s contact information, along with recommended scheduled visits
Local resources such as the best place to shell the pecans
A 5-times-a-day Koi summer feeding schedule
Instructions on how to clear the drainage system that includes the critical basement sump pump flow lines, as well as the near-impossible-to-find sanitary sewer clean-out.
The exact location of underground AT&T cable the was buried-far-too-shallow
As well as a 12-month maintenance calendar with critical tasks and timing related to winterizing the outdoor shower before the first freeze and the pre-emergent application treatments needed after the nearby creek encroaches into their yard dispersing weed seeds throughout the Dwarf Mondo Grass beds.
So, do paper manuals still have value?
100% yes!
They work well as a turn-over package as shown in this landscape manual, as an emergency preparedness resource and as a new employee onboarding tool.
Where they don’t work…
When we’re missing a day-to-day operating system. Then our house manuals sit on a shelf and provide no tangible relief for solving communications and accountability issues, and other strategic planning methods that are critical to the success of each estate manager – like a maintenance calendar.
Working with this client has provided so many full-circle moments for me, from visiting this garden and producing this manual to continue its care. These have been some of the highlights of returning home.
This landscape is the end result of many years of collaborations…
…by numerous talented and dedicated hands, and showcases the true passion of the homeowners.
I hope this manual gives the new homeowners the tools to keep the fish alive and the plants thriving, and allows them to enjoy their new home and gardens, with all of its complexities, without any unwelcome surprises.
Did this help? Would it help a friend?
Please invite a friend to join our email list and share this post on:
Subscribe to Email | Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn
