Jacob Berry at the Landscaping Leadership Forum

Refined Landscapes founder Jacob Berry recently joined Pro Landscaper’s Landscaping Leadership Forum, contributing to a senior industry discussion on managing disruption and volatility within the landscaping sector.

The event was created for leaders and teams working across landscaping businesses and the wider supply chain, with a programme focused on the commercial realities shaping the sector: productivity, people, disruption, volatility and leadership. Pro Landscaper has since published its overview of the event in Pro Landscaper’s seven key takeaways from the Landscaping Leadership Forum.

For Jacob, the subject was not abstract. Volatility is now part of the environment in which high-quality landscape projects are planned, priced, built and cared for. Material availability, lead times, project sequencing, labour pressure, fuel and energy costs, client confidence and supplier relationships all have a direct effect on how landscape businesses operate.

For clients, those pressures are usually felt in a different way: through project timing, specification decisions, communication, programme clarity and confidence in the team managing the work. That is why the discussion matters beyond the industry itself. A well-run landscape business is better placed to deliver a calm, considered client experience.

The question is no longer whether disruption will appear. It is whether a business has the clarity, discipline and communication habits to respond before that disruption begins to affect quality, programme or trust.

Volatility is no longer an occasional event

The landscaping sector has always had to work with practical variables: weather, ground conditions, seasonal planting windows, material lead times and the coordination of multiple trades and suppliers. What has changed is the degree to which those variables now sit alongside wider economic and geopolitical pressures.

A garden design and build project is not insulated from the world around it. Changes in material costs, import availability, fuel prices, labour costs and consumer confidence can all influence how a project moves from concept to completion.

This is why commercially disciplined leadership matters. In a high-value residential project, quality is protected long before the first paving slab is laid or the first border is planted. It is protected through the clarity of the scope, the strength of the programme, the accuracy of the pricing, the timing of procurement and the quality of communication between client, designer, contractor and supplier.

For a Hertfordshire-based garden design and build studio such as Refined Landscapes, this is part of the same thinking that underpins a considered project journey: design intent, construction reality and long-term care need to be understood together.

Commercial clarity protects the quality of the project

One of the strongest themes behind Jacob’s panel preparation was that resilience is built before pressure arrives. In practice, that means understanding costs, planning procurement carefully, agreeing scope clearly and making sure decisions are made at the right time.

For those working inside the landscaping industry, this is a commercial discipline. For clients, it shows up as a better-managed project.

Clear scopes, staged decisions, transparent communication and well-timed procurement are not just internal business controls. They help protect the client experience. They reduce avoidable uncertainty, make the programme easier to manage and allow the team to focus on delivering the garden properly.

This is especially important in complex residential garden design and build projects, where many elements need to be coordinated: levels, drainage, hard landscaping, lighting, planting, irrigation, bespoke features, outdoor kitchens, pergolas, pools, water features or aftercare planning. When those decisions are not controlled, the pressure is felt across the whole project.

Payment discipline and fair commercial behaviour formed part of the wider industry discussion, particularly because late payment and slow approvals can affect confidence across the supply chain. The point for a client-facing audience is not contractual complexity; it is that strong commercial practice helps good businesses protect their standards. When the agreements, programme and responsibilities are clear, everyone has a better chance of doing their best work.

Jacob’s briefing for the panel framed this in practical terms: know where disruption hits the business, protect cash and margin before work starts, and turn uncertainty into a better operating model through clearer processes, stronger supplier relationships and more transparent communication.

The best businesses see risk earlier

A recurring idea behind Jacob’s panel contribution was that strong businesses are not trying to predict every shock. They are building the habits that allow them to see risk earlier, price it more accurately and communicate it more quickly.

In practical terms, that means understanding where disruption is most likely to show up: labour, fuel, energy, materials, plant availability, procurement lead times, project delays, client decision-making and supplier capacity.

It also means knowing which conversations need to happen earlier. If a product has a long lead time, that cannot be discovered after the programme has already been committed. If a material cost is volatile, it needs to be considered before the specification is fixed. If a client decision affects sequencing, that decision needs a clear point in the process.

This is not about making a project feel more complicated. It is about creating the conditions for a better outcome.

A calm finished garden depends on many decisions that are anything but accidental.

Supply chain resilience is built on relationships

Supply chain resilience is often discussed in terms of availability, but relationships matter just as much.

For a landscape business, the right supplier relationship is not only about price. It is about transparency, timing, advice, quality consistency and the willingness to communicate early when something changes. A strong supplier can help a project team understand risk before it becomes a programme issue.

This has a direct bearing on garden construction and outdoor living projects, where materials, specialist products, lighting, stone, timber, metalwork, irrigation, plants and feature elements may all need to arrive in the right order. A missed decision or delayed delivery can have a knock-on effect across the entire build.

The more complex the garden, the more important this becomes. A refined landscape is rarely the result of one discipline working in isolation. It depends on design, procurement, construction, planting and aftercare being aligned around the same intent.

Better processes protect better gardens

The panel subject may have been disruption and volatility, but the deeper issue is process.

When conditions are stable, weak processes can be hidden. When conditions become more volatile, they are exposed quickly. Unclear scopes, loose procurement planning, slow decisions, vague handovers and poor communication all become more expensive when there is less room for error.

This is where Refined’s own approach to garden design and build is closely aligned with Jacob’s wider industry perspective. A considered process is not bureaucracy. It is how complex projects are made manageable.

The same principle applies whether a business is reviewing how it operates or a client is beginning a major garden project. Clarity at the beginning creates greater confidence later.

For clients, this is why the early stages of a project matter. Brief, scope, cost planning, design development, technical detail, construction sequencing and aftercare are not separate moments. They are connected decisions that shape the quality of the finished garden.

Confidence and discipline can sit together

The landscaping sector has significant opportunity ahead. Gardens and outdoor spaces are increasingly understood as places for wellbeing, entertaining, family life, climate resilience, biodiversity and long-term property value. That opportunity deserves confidence.

But confidence without discipline is fragile.

The businesses most likely to thrive are not the ones that avoid disruption altogether. They are the ones that understand their exposure, communicate early, build stronger relationships and keep improving the way they work.

That was the essence of Jacob’s contribution: volatility does not need to create panic, but it does demand maturity. For landscape businesses, that means knowing the numbers, strengthening processes, planning ahead, building supplier trust and leading clients through decisions with transparency.

For us, the same thinking is reflected in the way a garden is approached from first conversation to finished landscape: considered design, technical control, careful construction, intelligent planting and the long-term care needed for a garden to mature well.

For clients considering a high-value garden design and build project, the best starting point is a clear conversation about ambition, process and what it will take to deliver the garden properly.

Explore our portfolio, including the award-winning The Fire Terrace and The Poolside Garden – the latter a complex, staged build that required careful management of multiple supply chain and logistical risks. To learn more about the culture and leadership style behind our work, read Life at Refined.

When you’re ready to discuss your own garden, start a conversation.