Landscape and Gardening engineer

Gabby Tjiroze
Matthias Fechter

Matthias Fechter is a landscaper and gardener by profession. He does maintenance of gardens and makes sure the plants and trees are pruned and healthy. They also do garden designs and architecture.

A typical day for Fechter starts at 04:30, when he wakes up. He then meets with his partner, Derrick Clark to plan their days work. This normally includes loading tools and making sure all the materials needed are loaded and ready.

“Sometimes a project will require more than one worker to complete it. In these cases I will delegate the job and see to it that I send enough men to the site,” he says.

Fechter finished his matric at the DHPS and did a German Abitur. He attended the University of Applied Sciences in Weihenstephan-Triesdorf, Germany, thereafter. He completed a bachelor’s degree in Landscape, Construction and Management which took three and a half years.

“Studying landscape in Namibia is not so sought after, so it is best for people to rather see if they can do practical work with an established landscaping firm,” he says.

The industry has a lot of engineering involved, so studying something like project management will also help you become a qualified landscaper.

Some of the character traits needed in this type of industry is to have perseverance, physical strength and passion for the environment. “One has to also be very consequent with the workers. The work always has to be double checked,” he further added.

One also has to be creative and have a good imagination, for the construction side of it. “Some of the highlights will definitely be when we had to move two enormous palm trees. One tree was about 2 meters high. We had to rent a 45 ton tuck for the trees,” he said.