By Julia Harmsworth

Numbers and training are the key to the success of Plantscape, a full-service landscape design and maintenance company serving Windsor, Chatham/Kent and Sarnia, Ont.

It began — as the name suggests — with plantscaping: transforming indoor spaces with live tropical plants. Since its founding in 1976, the company has grown to provide outdoor maintenance, landscape design and build, and snow and ice management services. Plantscaping now accounts for less than one per cent of the company’s revenue, but general manager Liana Desmarais isn’t ready to give up on it yet.

“I’m still trying to breathe some life into it,” she explained, “because of the [company’s] name, I have a hard time letting it go. I think there’s still an opportunity there.”

This past spring, Desmarais reached out to one of Plantscape’s oldest clients with an ambitious idea. Both Plantscape and the client will be celebrating anniversaries in 2026 (50 and 60 years respectively) and Desmarais suggested a joint marketing effort to enliven the client’s building and Plantscape’s plantscaping division.

The client agreed and the plants were installed in September. Desmarais hopes the soon-to-bloom, high-traffic space will bring some awareness to the benefits of live plants in indoor spaces, and keep her father’s legacy afloat.

A fierce advocate for training

Desmarais took over the company from her father, Victor, in 2016 and despite growing up as the daughter of a landscaper, this was never the plan. Desmarais went to school for financial analysis and planning, then worked at RBC for 12 years before her dad passed the baton unexpectedly.

“He was 67 years old, and it was Christmastime. He was just like, ‘Okay, I don’t want to do the day-to-day anymore, so I need you to quit your job and come run the company. It’s your turn, kid.’ It was a pretty crazy adventure,” Desmarais explained.

Her professional background makes Desmarais somewhat unconventional. She’s brought lessons learned in banking to Plantscape: she knows how to negotiate pricing and trim excess, and aims to reduce costs by five to 10 per cent each year.

For a recent project, the company received estimates for plant material from three different nurseries. Desmarais sent a spreadsheet to each company and asked them to either match or beat the others’ offers. In the end, she secured $31,000 in savings.

“My staff would tell you that everything has to add up when it comes to Liana, because the numbers are the numbers,” Desmarais said. “That’s probably the biggest piece: I can do analysis to crunch numbers upside down and sideways.”

Once she was on board, Desmarais was confident in her abilities to run a business, but she lacked certain technical skills required to run a landscaping business. “Where I didn’t feel confident was like, how long do you have to water sod after you lay it down? What are the successful ways to plant a tree?” she said.

She leaned into Landscape Ontario to supplement her business expertise with horticultural know-how. After becoming a member of the trade association in 2016, she attended informative sessions at the Congress Conference and signed up for every professional development course available.

Desmarais also participated in Landscape Ontario’s GROW Employers of Choice program, and continues to take courses as they become available. She encourages the same ethos in her staff. Most of Plantscape’s 31 employees have participated in the GROW program, and four are working toward completing the Apprenticeship Program.

As a fierce advocate for formal training, Desmarais spoke at length about the many benefits of apprenticeship as part of her employee recruitment and retention strategy in an episode of the Landscape Ontario podcast that aired in June 2023. She understands you can’t hold people accountable for mistakes without setting clear expectations. She facilitates formal training for her crews to encourage skill development and establish best practices.

Plus, when people know what they’re doing, not only are they happier, but the company gets better projects and becomes more profitable. For Desmarais, it’s all about setting and fulfilling clear goals: “It’s an intentional business for me. This is my dad’s legacy.”

A training facility for Windsor

In true financial planner style, Desmarais just finished a 10-year business plan for Plantscape. A key part of this plan — and a dream for Desmarais — is to construct a new building in the off-season that will act as a training centre to offer more programs like GROW.

“That is my passion project that come hell or high water I will get done,” she said. “I just think it would be great to host the training down here in Windsor, so that my staff or fellow members from Southwestern Ontario don’t have to travel all the way up to Milton in a snowstorm and battle the [Highway] 401. It would be such a huge win for this area.”

Desmarais hopes to break ground in the near future. She’s working with Landscape Ontario on the details, and has three acres carved out of the 26 her company bought recently — another symbol of its growth. Plantscape earned $1.1 million in revenue in 2016 when Desmarais took over and she expects to surpass three million this year. Only one employee returned in 2016, but 16 came back this year.

Desmarais believes every business is built differently, but having a business background has been an advantage for her. "I have to believe what I'm doing is working. Those are the two measures for me: do the staff enjoy working here, do they come back, and are we growing as a company? And the answers to both of those is yes,” she said.

Plantscape won their first Landscape Ontario Award of Excellence in 2021 in the Commercial Construction category. This was meaningful for Desmarais as it represented the hard work and tenacity she’s put into upholding her dad’s legacy. She submitted two projects for consideration this year.

“2021 was our 45th anniversary, and we dedicated the award to my dad and his 45 years of service,” Desmarais explained. “That was pretty cool.”

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