Karina: Welcome to the Landscape Ontario Podcast. I’m your host, Karina Sinclair. If you’ve already benefited from the many professional development opportunities at Landscape Ontario, you are going to love what we’ve got to share today. Joe Salami, the Executive Director at Landscape Ontario is here to tell you about the new training facility that’s about to be built at the LO head office in Milton, Ontario.
I’ve seen the blueprints and it’s world class. I think it’s going to open a lot of doors for the professionals across all the landscape and horticulture sectors to gain the skills they need to advance their careers and drive innovation in this industry.
Before we dive in, don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast to hear more conversations about the issues shaping landscaping and horticulture in Canada, as well as future updates on this training facility.
Now let’s check in with Joe and hear what excites him the most about this new development at Landscape Ontario.
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Karina: Thanks for joining us on the podcast today, Joe. I’d like to start by exploring what Landscape Ontario is. I know our members and our partners already know, but let’s help everybody else understand what we do for the landscape and horticulture profession in Ontario.
Joe: Sure, and great to see you, Karina. For all of those, and you know what, even our members I think could stand for a little reminder every once in a while. Kind of all have our own vision of what Landscape Ontario either is or what it should be in our minds. At the end of the day, we’re a not-for-profit trade association, and we represent the interests of the industry.
So landscape contractors, nurseries, garden centres, and those that supply product and service and equipment to the trade. And our mission is to advance the industry. And we do that in an absolute metric ton of ways. And a lot of that is through training and advocacy.
Karina: And for those who might not have heard of LO’s mission, I’m just gonna read it out here, LO’s Mission is to be the leader in representing, promoting, and fostering a favourable climate for the advancement of the horticulture industry in Ontario. So when we know that that’s our mission, that’s guided some decisions for a long time and I know that.
LO’s Head office has been at its current location in Milton since 1994, but the board of directors had some specific hopes and dreams when that property was purchased. Can you gimme a bit of a rundown of what the plan was all the way back then?
Joe: Sure.
There’s a story from way back when in how Landscape Ontario acquired this property. It didn’t come easy and there was not a lot of agreement at the time. But the opportunity was right and the board at the time had this incredible vision for this property to be centre of excellence for training for landscape horticulture in the province. And I don’t know if they ever realized what that vision would look like 30 years later, but holy smokes, here we are!.
Karina: And so something exciting is happening to actually move those hopes and dreams forward. Tell me a bit about that.
Joe: I guess going about a year and a half ago, the Provincial government came up with this… so they’ve had the Skills Development Fund available for the last four years, and um, those are funds available to allow trade associations, union and training organizations to be able to apply for grants, to recruit people to the skilled trades, get them job ready, and then connect them with employers.
So we’ve been doing this for a number of years, and um, about a year and a half ago the provincial government added a capital stream to the Skills Development Fund. And this capital stream, we’ve not seen any other government in Canada, provincial, federal, otherwise invest in capital projects for training organizations, trade associations, or unions.
So we thought, okay, maybe this is an opportunity for us to scale the way that we provide training to the industry. And so the grant available to trade associations, unions and training organizations, they can apply for this grant. And they would be allowed to use that money to either upgrade an existing training facility or build a new one.
And we had a long conversation internally about whether or not we should even think about this, let alone go after it. So we said at the end of the day, what do we’ve got to lose? And if we are successful, we could quite possibly change the trajectory for training in landscape horticulture in the province, and maybe even the country.
So it sounds like a pretty cool moonshot if you ask me. And you know, I started talking to Courtney McCann, Landscape Ontario’s director of workforce development, about whether or not we should do this. And she thought it was a pretty good idea. We started talking to more people, talking to some of our volunteers, some of our board of directors, some of the founders of the association and what they thought about this idea.
And everyone that I spoke with seemed to come back to the same thing. “Wow, it seems like a long shot. But man, if we could make this, if we could do this and pull it off, that would be pretty darn cool.” And I hear from some of those people that were on that original board of directors back in 1994 who had this vision to make this facility that centre of excellence for training.
And I don’t think any one of them really had this in mind, but certainly it was the fact that they wanted Landscape Ontario to be the central area, the central organization to tie in training for landscape horticulture in the province. We put the application together and it took us a better part of, I wanna say eight months to put this application together.
We pulled in an architect. We pulled in a general contractor to help us because we had to have a Class D budget connected to all this, which meant we needed to understand. From a rough perspective without the fine detail, what’s this thing gonna cost us and how are we gonna run it and how are we gonna maintain it?
So we had to have an idea of the costs that were gonna be involved. We hadn’t yet gone down the path of how we could generate revenue to recover the costs. So we ventured down that path. And of course there’s gonna be costs that come along with hiring an architect and working with a general contractor. There was some pretty significant expense to go along with that in order to get the application to be ready to submit. So we did and we worked on it and we got it submitted in time. I believe it was, mid to late September, early October of 2023 that we got this application in.
Time had gone by. The winter had gone by. The spring had gone by. Here we are, it made it to the summer. We’re in mid-June at this point, 2024 .
I was coaching my son’s baseball team. We had a game. It was a Tuesday afternoon, I remember it vividly. Normally I don’t have my phone with me when I’m out in the field coaching my son’s team.
For this odd reason, I don’t know why my phone was in my pocket. And, uh, like imagine, a group of eight year olds all playing baseball. It was a full on game going on. And parents help coach and help guide. My phone started to ring and I looked down and the call display said “Minister Piccini.” He’s the Minister of Labour, Immigration, Training and Skills Development. I thought that’s really odd on a Tuesday evening call, at 7:30 in the evening to be calling. So I answered the phone in the middle of the field and sure enough, it was the minister. Small talk is great. I’m like, okay, like I’m gonna middle a coaching, my son’s team, what can I help you with? He’s ” You guys submitted the application for the skills development fund, capital stream?” And I said, “Yeah.” And he’s ” I’m calling with some news.” And I quite honestly thought he was gonna say, ” Thank you, but we have denied your application.” It was just a courtesy call.
Karina, doesn’t he let me know that the application that we submitted, that we were getting everything that we asked for.
Karina: Wow.
Joe: So I’m in the middle of the field and I’m getting this news, right, like we submitted a $14 million project and the fund provides 49% funding. So we’re talking about the better part of $7 million that he’s calling to tell us about.
After thanking him and having some fun conversation with him, I put my phone in my pocket and I started jumping up and down like I just won the World Series. And the parents around me, the kids had no idea what was going on, and I couldn’t tell, I couldn’t talk about it. No one’s really gonna understand. But I felt like we just hit a grand slam and won the World Series in that moment.
So right after the game, I got on the phone and started calling, Courtney and some of the folks on our board of directors and let everybody know the big news and that I was sworn to secrecy at the time but that’s a moment forever etched in my mind that when uh, Minister Piccini called to deliver the news. And it was then, it was at that point that we said, “Okay, we’re serious about this now. We’ve got it. Let’s get our ducks in a row.” And that was the beginning of the journey and going back to even to 2023 when we put the application together, but once we got the news in June of ’24 for us that was, “Okay let’s get things moving here.”
Karina: Well, before we go too far, how did your son’s team do in that game?
Joe: I don’t even know. I can’t remember.
Karina: It was all a win regardless, right?
Joe: At that point, the league that he played in that summer and this past summer they don’t keep score and they weren’t tracking wins. It was all about kids coming together, playing baseball, having fun. Internally we know who’s gonna win that game and who’s not. But I don’t remember that game. It was all a blur after that.
Karina: Well, I mean, in the spirit of coming together and making something happen that’s what’s happening with this training facility. Right. So you’ve got this inner circle, you’ve got your team. Besides Courtney, who else is involved in the development of the new facility?
Joe: So on staff, we’ve got a small team that’s working on this. Kathy McLean, who oversees all of our professional development series. Brenden McCrory, who is our grounds manager and we brought on a construction owners representative, Michael LaPorte. Some people may know him. He used to be the general manager at Clearview Nursery. And spent a lot of time there and over 20 years there, and even over the years, Michael has helped us as a floor manager for Congress. So he has helped with move in and move out. Kept us organized there.
And then from the industry, our volunteers. It’s been a little bit of a mix of a working group between Landscape Ontario’s Building Committee, who is the volunteer group that helps maintain the strategy of this property and Landscape Ontario’s executive committee, part of the board of directors. And we created this working group so we could make some quick decisions and be agile, but also have the interests of both the building committee and the executive committee at heart. So, got some great minds working on this project. I am just blown away that we were in a position to even go after a giant moonshot like this.
Karina: They say that luck is opportunity meets preparation. So you had that, still have that, and that has opened up the doors to create this incredible opportunity. The sun is shining down on Landscape Ontario for sure. A minute ago you mentioned Kathy McLean, who helps organize the professional development workshops that happen at LO, so we know LO already provides a whole bunch of professional develop opportunities. We support the GROW program, the apprenticeship programs. What will the new facility allow us to do that we’re not already doing?
Joe: First of all, it’ll allow us to scale so, right, now early November till the end of April, we run the better part of 140 training seminars over those months in the current facility. And Kathy tells me that we’ve consistently seen over 2000 people access those professional development seminars.
So for anyone that’s either watching or listening, if you haven’t taken part of those definitely check out our website to get enrolled. But this training centre is going to allow us to run practical training on a very regular basis. Some of the things that we just can’t do are bigger training sessions that are practical, especially in the winter.
The greenhouse that we have, while a great facility, there’s lots of posts in that centre and trying to operate equipment becomes really difficult. So not to mention that greenhouse is from 1964, so you know, it has its own share of needs and has been asking for a lot of TLC for a lot of years and, we’ve been maintaining it and there’s no reason we couldn’t have made it work going forward.
But this opportunity just changed everything. Instead of choosing to renovate the greenhouse, we’re deciding to knock it down. And those training areas will be multipurpose. So we want to be able to have the ability to run equipment indoors. We’re gonna be able to have irrigation systems that are created inside and be able to run.
So we’ll be able to turn them on inside. Be able to work with landscape lighting systems. We’re creating anchor points in the roofing system to allow for arboriculture training and climbing at heights and rope training. So when we thought about the design of this facility, we’re taking all of the sectors of landscape into consideration.
We’ve got 10 sector groups, but landscaping means so many things. And we wanted this facility to have the ability to deliver training for every aspect within the landscape trades. And in order to do that, we hosted focus groups and we invited people from all sectors of industry.
If they could dream up a training centre for their sector, what would it look like? And then we tried to take all the best pieces of that and create a facility that was multi-use and multipurpose enough that it would allow for every single one of those groups to host training in the way that they’ve always dreamed of.
So when we try and think of, okay, what is this building gonna allow us to do that we can’t already do? The list is long. Right now we can’t really, I mean, we could run irrigation systems inside the greenhouse, but there’s not really great drainage in there, and things would be wet for a really long time.
It costs a lot to heat that, in the winter, and you know, it just doesn’t offer the facility that a modern structure would.
And then, we’re gonna have a lab space. We’re gonna have general use space. Really, our imaginations are gonna be the limiting factor on the types of training we’re going to be able to do in this facility .
Karina: So why is it important for Landscape Ontario to build this when there’s already universities and colleges that offer industry related programs? So what gap are we able to fill here?
Joe: I think the critical problem that we’re seeing now is that colleges are experiencing significant declines in enrollment and I think the traditional nature of how people learn in a classroom setting, I think that we’re starting to see a little bit of a shift and, generally speaking, people that are attracted to the landscape trades are very kinesthetic in their learning, right?
They have an avoidance of classroom and even for those that take on the apprenticeship program, the in-class portion tends to be the most difficult to get people to commit to. So when we were thinking about what is the problem in the marketplace that this training centre can solve?
First of all, the strategic location of where we are in Milton is almost pretty well central between Ottawa and Windsor. Give or take 45 minutes one way or the other. Also, depending on traffic. On top of that, with colleges all over the province cutting programs, we started at the beginning of the spring hearing that there, I believe it was Fleming, that announced 29 program cuts. With what’s happening with the the caps on international students and how the college’s base their business model on, on focusing on international students, I think now we’re starting to see the consequences of all of that, where now we’re seeing lots of programs in jeopardy and some of the programs focused on our industry, whether it’s landscape design or the horticultural technician, in some schools, enrollments are down. And in one of the schools that we’ve been talking to, the design program’s in jeopardy. So how do we fill that gap? And I think we can, first of all, as a training organization, we can certainly provide an incredible amount of opportunities to upskill those people that are currently in the landscape trades in one way or another.
There’s certainly a way for us to also support those colleges by offering maybe even a satellite location of those institutions here in Milton under the umbrella of Landscape Ontario in our school of horticulture.
Karina: I don’t think it’s a matter of people not being interested in these skills and in the green trades, like I think there does seem to be evidence that lots of people want to work in this field, but like you said, working in a classroom setting or like a traditional classroom setting and in a post-secondary situation might not feel like the most obvious fit for them.
If creating a space where, like you mentioned, people can practice rope climbing and scaling up a tree inside of our own facility, that’s pretty amazing to be able to touch on those niche skills that maybe just haven’t landed well in a traditional learning environment.
Joe: For sure, and you know, this is one of the things where, you know, when we talking and thinking about all the art of the possible, without having to register to a formal college setting where, you can sign up for a seminar, whether it’s a one day, two day, three day, whatever the format happens to be through our training session. To be able to come in for a short period of time, learn what you need to learn, and then get back to your job.
I think for a lot of people now these micro credentialing training or educational opportunities are really interesting. Because it doesn’t mean it a long commitment, doesn’t mean months worth of time away from work. It doesn’t mean an incredible amount of money.
We’re trying to keep things as reasonable as possible by, obviously we want to cover our costs, but we’re not looking at this to generate an incredible amount of revenue on industry’s back. Rather we see this as a way to lift the skillset of the entire industry.
This is a massive investment by Landscape Ontario in order to raise the skills gap in the landscape trade. Yeah.
Karina: Yeah, there’s so much opportunity there for people entering as youth to find something a little less traditional in that post-secondary learning opportunity. But then also for those who are second career or they’re pivoting from some other industry, who have decided, I’ve always wanted to work outside. I’ve always wanted to do this, now I’m going to do it. And they leave their other, office-based careers, but they might still be working or they might have families and mortgages and other responsibilities that don’t allow them to take a four year, full-time education program, but they need a skill that gets them that job or that helps ’em complete that project or move on and move up in the ladder of whatever employment they can find.
So I think there’s so many different ways this is gonna help people.
Joe: Yeah, totally. And one of the things that we hear through our GROW program, which is the other side of the Skills Development Fund grant that we get now, where we recruit people to the industry and then train them and then work to get them employed. What we hear on a very regular basis is that while the criteria is that you have to be at least 18 years old what we’re finding on average is.
It’s not a first career for someone. It’s a second, third, fourth career. That type of person that’s coming into this training program to find work. And when we asked them why they chose landscape horticulture, it’s because they wanted their work connected to a purpose. Do we ever have that purpose connected! The type of work that our industry does has all of that. Being able to connect to that environmental purpose. This is a trade that creates beautiful but environmentally sustainable green spaces. It contributes to people’s mental and physical health.
It just has so many benefits and so much purpose connected. So when we ask people why they got connected to what we’re trying to do it’s that purpose, which to me, first of all, it makes my heart feel really good. It tells us we’re on the right track, we’re doing the right thing. But it also lets us know where we need to focus on to help bring even more people into our fold and into our community. But then, okay, so we’ve got second, third, fourth career people, but then we’re also talking to people that maybe haven’t made the best life choices and maybe have found themselves in a situation where their employment, if they have employment now is a little bit precarious or they’ve found themselves a background that makes them to others unemployable. We totally believe in second, third, fourth chances, and we’re seeing people with maybe backgrounds that might make them not so desirable for other employers. But I think we’re able to look past someone’s past, especially if they’re trying to make their lives better for themselves and their families and their loved ones, that giving someone that chance where maybe no one else is giving them that chance gets them connected to a career path that creates a whole lot of longevity for them, which, at the end of the day that’s what we’re trying to do here.
Karina: Oh, absolutely. I mean, not only are we in a position to grow these beautiful landscapes, but to grow opportunities for people and give them that space, and that is one of the things I really love about the landscape horticulture space, is that there seems to be room for everybody. They all come in from different pathways and have different insights and perspectives that influence how they manage and design and implement these beautiful spaces.
And there’s really room for everyone. I think there’s so much beauty in that, that we create that opportunity, because you’re right there, there are some industries where that’s not the norm, but it is in landscaping. So that’s really fantastic. I’m gonna bring up an image of the artist’s renderings of what the new building is going to look like.
And I, I would love for you to point out some of the things that you’re most excited about.
Joe: Sure. When we were talking to the architect about what we wanted this facility to like, the existing building, the facility that we’re in now is spectacular looking, especially when you knew what our old facility looked like.
When you pull in right from Fifth Line South and you pull down the boulevard, it really is a site to behold with the facility that we’re in. So when we’re talking to the architect about this new facility, we said, “We need to have an even more of a, wow, I can’t believe this is the industry, this is the community that we’re connected to.”
And we said in very vague terms, you know, as much wow factor as you possibly could, given our budget, right? Because uh, time and money seem to be limiting factors and it totally is in this case. And we said at the same time, materials need to reflect the landscape sector tone, so we’re okay if it doesn’t match the greens and the browns that are in the facility that we’re in now. So the rendering that we’re looking at What we’re looking at this is what we’re going ahead with. And we can see, the vines that are climbing up the wall in the new facility.
We’ve got those light earthy tones making use of sunshade in an entrance area. And in the far far right, would be a learning area that’s covered almost like a pergola structure. All features that that kind of have ties back with industry. And okay, so we wanted wow factor, sure.
But we also wanted to make sure that we’re demonstrating leading practices within environmental sustainability. So being able to capture all the rainwater off of our roof, both being the existing facility and the new facility. So we’re gonna do that and it’s all gonna lead back to a storm water retention pond.
So the parking lot’s going to be paved. But in the parking spaces we’re talking about the spaces themselves being permeable so that we can further capture that storm water and we’ll have trees in the parking lots, to be able to offer shade for cars and as they come in and park.
And so the idea here is that we create a facility that, first of all, that’s highly functional and suits our needs, but can also demonstrate the leading practices within industry. So trees in structural soil within the parking lot. We see a big green space off to our right and that’s meant as an outdoor classroom that will be able to further develop once we complete the construction project.
And so there’s lots of. Smaller features and smaller detail to this that we’re trying to incorporate that will bring even more interest and even more value to our community as we complete this project. And, uh, you’ll be able to see some plants that kind of come out of the roof area there. This is meant as a seating area where you can get together and learn.
Karina: Okay. I was wondering about this view because I’m guessing this is a courtyard on the second floor, like an upstairs patio?
Joe: Yeah, it’s really meant as a quasi green roof, but it’s more like vines that will hang over. Yeah not really as like a seating area on the roof, but just another way to add interest and provide more green to the building.
Karina: Fantastic.
And then we can see here that there’s a second story to that part of the building, which doesn’t exist right now. But that means more space for additional classrooms. And you mentioned labs?
Joe: Yeah, so we’ll have some lab space up there, some office space, but we’ll also be including a podcast or a recording studio. So something that we saw in the town of Milton and Halton Hills that doesn’t really exist now to have a high-end, top-class recording space. We’ve always had the vision to be able to have that within our facility.
And as we were putting this together, we realized if we’re ever gonna do it, now’s the time. And we’ll just have it built in as part of the new facility. You know, we’ll be able to do podcasts like these together and we’ll be able to uh, do video recording. All kinds of things uh, in that studio.
There’s lots of things that we can use our imaginations on to bring that to life.
Karina: And is that something that Landscape Ontario members would be able to book and create their own content in? Or is it entirely for Landscape Ontario to operate out of to create content for members?
Joe: So on top of utilizing that studio for our own needs, we will make that available to members and organizations outside of our community. So we’ll have a full rental program that you’ll be able to rent that space and use it for your own needs. And from a technology perspective, we’re gonna try and make it as plug and play as possible. So really, if you brought your laptop with recording software, everything else will just plug right in.
Karina: That’s really great. I think there’s a lot of our members who recognize that by building their audience with social media and an online presence, having those authoritative building pieces like how to videos and before and afters and conversations with other industry leaders, that’s a great opportunity for them to build their brand by coordinating and connecting with Landscape Ontario through their membership.
Joe: Yeah, absolutely. And the whole idea is to bring in as many people as possible to be able to maximize the use of the space.
Karina: So where are we now with construction? What’s the current building’s state, and how long before we move on to the next phase?
Joe: So it took us quite a long time to nail down the design phase of this project. So we’re officially out of that. And I’ve signed the demolition permit for the greenhouse. And it looks like we’re working towards a date on the back half of October to actually start construction. I think we’re targeting the week of October 20th as a construction start date for demolition. So once demolition is done, we’re gonna move full on into getting the footings ready for the building and pouring concrete and that kind of thing. We’re hoping to move forward with this. We’re less than a month away, I think, from when demolition’s gonna start.
Karina: Okay, so things are happening pretty quickly. Will the demolition affect any of the existing professional training opportunities that are already happening at the head office?
Joe: Yeah, great question. Thankfully we’re working it out so that no, the demolition and the construction of the new facility won’t impact our operations to the existing facility. And we’re gonna try and make that as seamless as we possibly can. That said, when we’re taking out the existing concrete slab for the greenhouse, there’s gonna be a lot of jackhammering that’s going on. You all know what that will sound like and what that’ll feel like. So we’re gonna have to live through that for a little while. But the idea is to make it so that our current facility is in full operation, so we’ll be able to have full ability to run all of our typical professional development series from November onwards through the end of April.
Karina: Well, that’s great that there’s not a real interruption there, and the learning can continue as expected, as we’ve built a reputation on. How long do you think this whole process is going to take? When will you be able to cut that ribbon and open the doors to the first learning opportunities in that new space?
Joe: Based on the on the construction timeline that we’ve been working with our construction partner on, it looks like shortly after Landscape Ontario’s Congress Trade Show and Conference in January of 2027 that we’ll be able to move in and, have a big party to celebrate the opening of the training facility and start training by February.
Karina: Amazing. So many things to look forward to. How can members or the general public continue to learn more about this exciting project and stay on top of the latest updates?
Joe: So from what I understand, we’re gonna have a resource page on Landscape Ontario’s website that you’ll be able to follow along. I know that as construction starts with demolition, we’re gonna be posting some time lapse photos every once in a while. So be able to see the progress as it happens and, we’ll be posting to that webpage often to keep everyone up to date. So you’ll be able to follow along. And it’ll also give us an opportunity to document the building project as we go through and near completion. Karina, one of the uh, things that the Ministry of Labour. Immigration, Training and Skills Development asked us to do as part of this project is to maintain the names of all of the skilled trades professionals that works on this project and I thought, “Wow, what a really cool opportunity to be able to take inventory of all of the skilled trades people it takes to put up a facility like this. And that includes all of the people that will work on the landscape of this property too, to finish it off once the construction’s done.
That’s a list I’m looking forward to seeing at the end, is just how many skilled trades professionals it takes to create a project like this.
Karina: Yeah, there’s a lot of invisible work that happens in a project like this. And I think of it sort of, you know, when you watch a movie and the credits roll at the end and the people who are on the screen during the movie get all the credit, but there’s a thousand people working behind the scenes to make all that come true.
So, uh, I think that’s really great that we have this opportunity to recognize all the different trades and the, I don’t know, that the impact they have on creating a training facility that’s gonna have even greater impact on the landscape trades. So it’s this wonderful full circle.
Joe: Totally. Yeah, you absolutely nailed it. And, I think it’s one of those things where, you know, the impact of this facility on the industry is gonna be significant, but also during the build out of this facility, the amount of construction jobs and landscape jobs that are going to be created as a result of the project and process.
To me that’s exciting too. And being able to partner with the Town of Halton Hills and the Town of Milton on some exciting projects around the facility as well are in progress at the moment too. So we’re able to partner with the community to be able to get even more value for our community in this training project.
Karina: I love it. We don’t work in isolation. It’s all about collaboration.
Joe: You got it.
Karina: Well. Joe, thank you so much for giving us the sneak peek behind this big project that’s going to happen. I know lots of people will be watching keenly to get updates. We will be doing update episodes later in the podcast as things progress.
So I hope our listeners stay tuned and check back in to see what’s happening because this is for you, Landscape Ontario members, and for people in Ontario who are interested in working in the landscape trades. This is going to be such a great spot for you to come and be part of the community. So, uh, Joe, I’m gonna let you have the last words about how you wanna welcome people to that space.
Joe: Sure. Um, you know, it’s uh, often how I welcome people to the space that we’re in. This is a community centre for the landscape trades. The coffee’s always on, so please come and, you know, if you need a place to make a few phone calls and catch up on some emails, this is the facility that’s here for you. Centrally located, but one thing, Karina, and I think you know, this is for sure, we’re gonna change the trajectory for training for the landscape trades in the province, but I also believe that we’re going to see people from the landscape trades throughout the country come and um,
use this space to get better at what they do every day. So it’s not just for the community here in Milton, or Ontario, but for the entire country. And if I could offer a welcome, it would be to all of the landscape trades professionals across Canada, that this can be your home for training.
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Karina: Is your mind racing? With all the possibilities, there’s going to be something for absolutely everyone at the new training facility and Landscape Ontario members are going to benefit from access to all the different spaces, from the studios to the greenhouse, to the labs and classrooms.
If you’ve got ideas for potential workshops, let us know. Send me an email at podcast@LandscapeOntario.com. Thanks for tuning in today. I’m so glad you’re on this journey with us. Be sure to subscribe to the Landscape Ontario podcast to hear future updates about how construction is progressing. And until next time, keep growing.
