Between mid-November and the end of February, most landscaping firms have quiet sites, a quieter phone and, for the first time since spring, empty space in the calendar. These are the weeks that decide how the coming year begins. Anyone who calls in March did their research in January: looking at gardens in the evening, comparing firms, noting down two or three names. If the website still shows images from the season before last and texts from the year the business was founded, that comparison happens without you. This article describes what can realistically be worked through during the quiet period — documenting projects, sorting images, revising texts, preparing job adverts and updating prices — and in what order it makes sense. It is not about a complete rebuild, but about five work packages that a manager can move through with around four hours a week (project experience) over a single winter.
Key takeaways
- Research for garden projects happens in winter and the order follows in spring: revising the website only in April misses exactly the weeks in which prospective clients place firms side by side and compare them.
- References are not written from memory months later but from notes and images of the past season — in December the team still knows which surface went where, in May it does not.
- Applications for the season are decided between January and March; a job advert that only goes live in April is chasing a market that has already been distributed.
- Cutting hedges and woody plants is permitted only from 1 October to 28 February (Section 39(5) Federal Nature Conservation Act), so winter service, tree care and planning need their own pages that are live by autumn.
- Four hours a week over twelve weeks are enough for references, images, texts and a job advert (project experience) — provided fixed appointments are in the calendar instead of an intention to find time.
Why the quiet period is the real working window
The rhythm in landscaping is unambiguous: from March to November the crews are out, after that comes clearing, servicing and planning. Website work inevitably drops down the list during the season, because it competes with sites, measurements and quotations — and loses. Anyone who resolves in July to extend the reference page usually never gets to it before the season ends. Winter is therefore not the time when you could additionally look after the website; it is the only time when doing so is realistic.
On top of that comes a time lag on the client side that many firms underestimate. A private garden is rarely commissioned on impulse. Between the first thought that something ought to change and the actual enquiry lie weeks of collecting images, estimating budgets and comparing firms. That phase falls into the dark months, because that is when there is time for it. The enquiry itself arrives later — but the decision about who gets asked was made long before.
This leads to an uncomfortable conclusion: the website has to be finished at the end of February, not in April. Everything still open in March affects the season after next. Anyone who takes that deadline seriously works backwards — from a cut-off date at the end of February through the tasks that precede it, back to the day in December when the first list is drawn up.
Uninterrupted time
Reference texts and image selection need connected hours, not minutes between two sites. Only winter reliably provides those blocks.
Fresh material
The images from the past season are still on the phones, and the team remembers the details. Both fade with every month that passes.
Labour market
Skilled staff open to a change look around in winter, when work is calmer. A finished job advert meets that window.
Costing basis
Hourly rates and material prices are recalculated for the new season anyway. The results then belong on the website as well.
Lead time for visibility
New pages need time before search engines record and classify them. A lead time of weeks is considerably more sensible than none.
Available appointments
Service providers for text, photography and technology are also easier to book in winter than in spring, when everyone wants to start at once.
Document projects while they are still fresh
The typical starting point looks the same in many firms: images on three phones, one folder on the office computer, plus the memory in the foreman's head. No reference page emerges from that state, because nobody can reliably say any more which shot belongs to which site and which surface was laid there. Documentation in winter therefore does not begin with writing but with gathering — once across all devices and folders, site by site.
A usable reference does not need much, but the few details have to be correct: the location at the level of precision the client has agreed to, the task in one sentence, the work carried out including material and build-up, one particular feature that sets the job apart, and the approximate duration. Collecting these five points per project in a table gives you a template from which reference texts can be written in minutes. What matters is that the details come from the construction process, not from marketing: one sentence about the drainage under the terrace convinces more than any adjective.
The range of a firm's work is often underestimated in the process. A company such as Viktor Waldbauer Garten- und Landschaftsbau from Nordstemmen carries out sand slabs, terraces, cisterns and complete garden installations — four very different tasks that also appeal to different prospective clients. If all projects end up in a single gallery without any assignment, the viewer has to work out for themselves whether the firm even does the kind of job they have in mind. Sorting by trade is more useful, so that every reference supports the matching service page. The portfolio gallery shows how such a structure can look.
Step 1: list the season's sites
From the order book or invoicing system, draw up a list of every project completed during the year. That list is the basis, not the image collection — otherwise the projects nobody photographed are missing, and that only becomes apparent again next winter.
Step 2: select the projects worth showing
Not every site belongs on the website. Selection follows two criteria: usable images exist, and the job is representative of work you want to do more often. Six to ten well-documented projects carry a reference page better than thirty half-finished ones.
Step 3: collect the details per project
Location, task, work carried out, material used, particular feature, duration. This round is fastest as a conversation with the crew that worked there — twenty minutes in the workshop replace an hour of head-scratching at the desk.
Step 4: clarify the client's consent
Before publication, clarify whether the address, photographs and description may be shown. A short written confirmation is usually sufficient; whether more is needed in an individual case depends on the subject and the visible details and should be checked when in doubt.
Sorting images: winter clears the storage
In landscaping, images are the most important sales argument and at the same time the worst organised asset. The first step is therefore purely logistical: bring all shots from the season into one place, sort them into folders per site and immediately delete what is unusable — blurred shots, pictures of delivery notes, photos with half a thumb in the frame. This round is unspectacular, but it decides whether the following steps are possible at all.
The second pass is selection. Three images per site have proven effective (project experience): the initial situation, one picture of the build-up that will later be invisible, and the finished result from the same viewpoint as the first shot. Landscape format is not a matter of taste but a technical necessity, because websites are built wide and portrait images get cropped. If you only have a single shot per project, show that one well rather than four mediocre ones. How to take shots that are actually usable in winter is described in the article on taking photos for your website.
The third pass is preparation: crop, balance brightness, reduce file size, assign meaningful file names and write alternative texts. That sounds like small detail but has a double effect — on loading time and on accessibility. If you do not want to do it yourself, hand it over; photo preparation for the website exists for exactly that. What matters is that the images are prepared by the end of February and not sitting as raw material in a folder called „New folder (3)“.
- Bring together every shot from the season, from phones, cameras and message threads, in one place
- Create one folder per site, named by location and trade, not by date alone
- Delete unusable material immediately so that the selection does not start from scratch every year
- Select three landscape-format shots per project: before, build-up, result
- Assign meaningful file names, for example terrace-natural-stone-hildesheim.jpg
- Write an alternative text for every image describing what can be seen
- Store shots with recognisable people, number plates or house numbers separately and clarify them before use
Revise texts instead of rewriting them
Most landscaping websites do not lack text; they lack order and concreteness. The home page welcomes visitors instead of saying which trade is carried out in which area. The service page lists twenty tasks, so that none of them is credibly evidenced. The about page claims reliability without naming a single verifiable detail. A revision in winter therefore does not start with a blank sheet but with a walk through the existing pages and a list of defects.
Three test questions per page are enough for that walk. First: do the first three sentences say what the firm does and where? Second: is there anything there that a competitor could not write word for word? Third: is it clear what the next step is and how long a reply takes? Every page that fails one of these questions goes on the list. Experience shows that this is more pages than expected, but correcting each one rarely takes longer than half an hour.
When revising, deleting works better than adding. Phrases such as „comprehensive range of services“ or „individual solutions“ can be removed without any loss of information. In their place come details that can be verified — year of founding, team size, machinery, training status, service radius in kilometres. If the walk reveals that the structure itself no longer holds, winter is also the right moment for a website relaunch, because the changeover then does not fall in the middle of the enquiry season.
| Point to check | What often stands there | What works better |
|---|---|---|
| First sentence on the home page | A warm welcome to our website | Trade, service area and type of business in one sentence |
| Service page | A list of every conceivable task | One trade per page, with process, build-up and material |
| Location details | The wider region and surroundings | Named towns where there were actual sites |
| Image caption | Reference 12 | Task, surface and location in half a sentence |
| Contact route | Just give us a call | Availability, callback time and a form as an alternative |
| About us | Reliable and competent for years | Year of founding, team size, machinery, training |
Prepare job adverts before the market is empty
Recruiting in landscaping follows the same time lag as client enquiries. Anyone needing extra hands in spring has to be visible in January, because staff open to a change look around during the quiet period and notice periods have to be observed. A job advert going live in April competes for those who have not found anything by then. Winter is therefore not the time to think about staffing; it is the time to finish the advert and publish it.
In terms of content, different things matter here than in office jobs. What counts are the specific trades, the machinery, the usual crew size, working hours including the arrangement for overtime, travel times to sites and, above all, the question of what happens in winter — short-time work, winter service, workshop or continuous employment. That very detail is missing from many adverts and is a decisive differentiator for applicants. A dedicated page per vacancy on your own website is preferable to a portal listing alone, because it remains permanently reachable; the page on job adverts for landscaping firms shows how it is structured.
On pay, the framework has changed. The European directive on pay transparency provides that applicants receive information about the starting salary or its range before the interview; transposition into national law was scheduled by 7 June 2026 (European Commission). Regardless of the exact state of transposition, stating a salary is an advantage in the competition for skilled staff, because adverts without a figure are more often skipped. Which obligations apply to your firm specifically should be checked in each individual case — this article does not replace legal advice.
What belongs in a landscaping job advert
Recalculate prices and keep the website honest
Winter costing is a fixture in most firms anyway: hourly rates are reviewed, material prices updated, surcharges recalculated. What is often missing afterwards is the comparison with the website. There, guide figures from a time when paving, fuel and wages were at different levels are still on display. The damage is twofold: prospective clients calculate with outdated numbers and are disappointed by the quotation, and the firm looks imprecise.
Fixed prices for garden projects do not belong on a website, because build-up, access and subsoil determine the cost more strongly than the area does. What helps are orders of magnitude with an explanation: a range per square metre, the factors that push it up or down, and a clear note on how the binding figure comes about. If you do not want to name a range, state a minimum project size instead — that filters too, and it does so before the first site visit costs time.
Wherever prices are stated, the information has to be unambiguous. Towards consumers, final prices including value added tax must be given, and a price statement must not create the impression of an offer that does not actually apply. Wording such as „from“ also needs a comprehensible reference point. The requirements follow from the German price indication regulation and the act against unfair competition; whether your particular presentation meets them should be checked professionally when in doubt.
Price information filters before a site visit costs time
Winter topics as pages of their own: trades that run now
Winter is not only preparation time; for part of your services it is the actual working period. Cutting hedges and woody plants is permitted only from 1 October to 28 February, because the Federal Nature Conservation Act prohibits cutting back, coppicing and removal between 1 March and 30 September (Section 39(5) Federal Nature Conservation Act). Anyone offering tree care, hedge cutting or clearance therefore has a legally defined window that falls exactly when the website is usually dormant.
The same applies to winter service, though with an even longer lead time: property managers and commercial operators award their contracts in late summer and early autumn. A page going live in December is too late for the current season. Anyone offering winter service seriously needs a dedicated, year-round page with service area, clearing times, documentation and contract form — not just a paragraph in the service overview. The page on the website for winter service shows what that looks like.
Then there are the services prepared in winter and delivered in spring: garden planning, measuring, designs, planting schemes. January is the best moment for this work, because clients have time for conversations and the firm can still schedule freely. A page describing exactly that sequence — planning conversation in winter, delivery from spring — pulls enquiries into a period when they are in nobody's way.
Tree care and hedge cutting
Working window from 1 October to 28 February (Section 39(5) Federal Nature Conservation Act). The page should explain the window so that prospective clients understand why an enquiry in May is postponed.
Winter service
Contracts are awarded in late summer. The page needs service area, clearing and gritting times, documentation of each deployment and the contract form — and has to be live by September at the latest.
Planning and design
Conversations in January, delivery from spring. A page describing this sequence shifts first contacts into the quiet period and relieves the calendar in March.
Maintenance contracts
Maintenance agreements for the new season are concluded in winter. A page with scope and rhythm turns one-off jobs into recurring appointments.
The twelve-week plan from December to February
The five work packages only produce a result if they have an order and fixed dates. A division into four blocks of three weeks each has proven effective, with one fixed weekly appointment of around four hours (project experience). That appointment belongs in the calendar like a site visit, with the name of the responsible person — otherwise it is the first thing to be moved when a site does come up in January after all.
Block 1, December: collect and review
Draw up the list of the season's sites, bring all images together, delete unusable material, compile a defect list for the existing pages. At the end of this block there is not a single new text, but a complete overview of what exists and what is missing.
Block 2, January: references and images
Select six to ten projects, gather the details for each, write the reference texts, choose and prepare the images, obtain the clients' consent. This block takes the most effort and produces the most visible result.
Block 3, January to February: texts and job advert
Work through the defect list, sharpen the home page and service pages, make location details specific, update price information. In parallel the job advert is written so that it goes live within the application window rather than after it.
Block 4, February: check and publish
Go through every page on a phone, submit the form as a test, check response times, verify links, have the spelling read by someone else. Then publish — with enough distance to the start of the season for corrections to be made calmly.
Anyone running through this plan for the first time needs longer than the second time, because the first winter creates the foundations: folder structure, templates for reference texts, a list of check points. In the following year the work is reduced to keeping things current — adding new projects, filing images, updating prices. That is precisely why it pays to work cleanly in the first round and to set up the filing so that someone else in the firm can understand it.
What winter does not solve
As useful as the quiet period is, it does not replace what has to happen during the season. The three images per site are taken between March and November, not in December; if you do not photograph in summer, there is nothing to sort in winter. Availability cannot be prepared either: a form built cleanly in February is of no help if enquiries go unanswered for two weeks in May. And a revised website does not retroactively change how a quotation is written or a callback is kept.
Nor can anyone predict how quickly the work will show up in visibility. New pages need time before search engines record and classify them, and how they are ultimately rated is not decided inside the firm. What can be influenced is the substance: concrete references, clean images, clear texts, comprehensible information on location, service and price framework. That substance can be produced in winter, and it works regardless of the route by which someone finds the page.
Winter does not decide whether you are found. It decides what someone finds once they have found you.