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The following article is an adaptation of a piece I wrote for Landscape Ontario after I was asked to be part of a panel on Marketing Your Fusion Landscaping at the first Fusion Landscaping Conference earlier this month.

Note: Fusion Landscaping is another word for Rainscaping - which is landscaping based around sustainable use of rainwater via earthworks and native plants.

Lately I've been thinking about this less from my own perspective, and more from the perspective of my customers. The other side of marketing is, of course, buying, and since AVESI is based around rainscaping, I'm always asking myself... why are my customers buying rainscapes?

Why do People Buy Rainscapes?

All decisions fall into two broad categories: emotional and logical. The emotional side of Fusion Landscaping (aka rainscaping) helps people feel like they are contributing to the greater environmental good. The logical side helps people feel like they are being proactive in protecting their homes from water damage. In both cases they are right.

Fusion describes combining two or more things together, and being fused in the landscaping world is the emotional side of helping the environment and the logical side of protecting one’s property.

I have seen over the past 15 years a growing environmental consciousness around issues like climate change, flooding, watershed health, pollinator habitat, and native plants. We are experiencing a cultural shift towards caring about the environment becoming a mainstream ideal. There was a time when rainscaping was a fringe idea that appealed to a small subset of people who had either a deep love for the environment, or a nagging water problem they needed solved, or both.

But these days that environmental consciousness is much more mainstream, and in the wake of a changing climate water problems like wet basements and localized flooding are more prevalent than ever. As people consider how to best solve these water problems, they are excited by a solution that can also help the environment. People are looking for what rainscaping offers: a way to help the environment at large while at the same time protecting what is for most people the biggest investment of their lifetime.

Rather than positioning my brand to appeal to the masses, I have found success appealing to those who already have an environmental consciousness. It’s not about convincing everyone to suddenly care about the environment, it’s about reaching those that already do. There will always be people who don’t care, and if the last four years have taught us anything about society let it be that it is a fool’s errand to try and change someone’s mind.

Our marketing should not shy away from the environmental benefits of rainscaping to make it seem more palatable to everyone. Rather, our marketing should lean into these benefits and be honest about the reality that rainscaping can help our local watersheds, and the planet at large. My customers are excited to see that they can be part of the broader solution through their landscaping. Considering a changing climate, the way we manage our landscapes is arguably the most important tool we have.

A very practical way to help your local watershed is by going into the streams, drainage areas, and adjacent natural lands to haul out trash. Each Spring and Fall I find a natural area to clean up and the rewards are immediate. Rainscaping offers people a more approachable way to help their watershed by using their landscape to absorb, filter, and cool rainwater which improves water quality in our watersheds. The fostering of native plant habitat that comes with rainscaping also helps the ecology of the watershed as well.

On top of all the environmental benefits is the peace of mind knowing the surface water on your property is being managed in a way that can help keep your basement dry and your gardens well-watered; which then reduces both the risk of suffering interior water damage, and the money spent on supplemental landscape irrigation.

Looking back to the original panel discussion of how to market Fusion Landscaping we aren’t just offering people rain gardens, permeable driveways, rain barrels, or even native plants... we are offering people the chance to make the world a better place, one landscape at a time.

I've uploaded a new video to Youtube on Rainwater Harvesting & Rain Gardens.

That's all for now,

Michael