It’s mid-summer and a little girl wearing a tutu and a “Let’s go play in the dirt” t-shirt is skipping past a skid steer. She looks like she’s singing her favourite Disney song, but you can’t hear over the sound of air horns in the hands of several giggling children. This was a scene from the inaugural Touch-A-Truck, co-hosted by Women in Landscaping and Landscape Ontario’s London Chapter in 2018. This year, the event will roll out across the province, introducing even more families to the landscape trades.

Touch-A-Truck is a free event where families are invited to learn about the industry and explore some of the exciting equipment Landscape Ontario members use in their daily work. Picture an open space with 25 companies displaying heavy equipment for a crowd of hundreds of young people. There are multiple, overlapping wins here. It brings kids outside to stoke their interest in nature — and plants the seed that the landscape trades offer boys and girls a viable career path (with cool machines). This seed may also be planted with parents who might not have realized the wealth of opportunities in the landscape and horticultural industry. On top of these future benefits to the trades, Touch-A-Truck also creates opportunities for face time between service providers and families who may be in the market for landscaping services.

With several similar celebrations launching across the province, we thought it would be a great time to highlight the chapter that started it all.

Landscape Ontario’s London Chapter has nearly 200 members. Despite its name, the chapter actually encompasses a ribbon of territory that extends from Lake Huron to Lake Erie, Sarnia to Woodstock. In addition to Touch-A-Truck, the chapter also holds an annual golf tournament and informative meetings throughout the year.

The Touch-A-Truck event was created by Women in Landscaping (WIL) — a London-based networking and professional development group that was in part founded by London Chapter board members, Pam Cook and Carla Bailey. So when WIL planned its first Touch-A-Truck event, LO provided support (and continues to do so) in the form of insurance and marketing. Organizers expected approximately 500 to 1,000 attendees for that first event, but by the time it was over, they were amazed to see nearly 3,500 people had attended. The partnership between WIL and LO has been building on that success ever since.

Last year, the Ottawa Chapter hosted their own Touch-A-Truck event on the same day as London’s. This year, Golden Horseshoe, Upper Canada and Waterloo chapters are also taking part. On Saturday, July 20, five different Touch-A-Truck events will be held in five Landscape Ontario chapters — all organized and run by member volunteers with support from association staff. The Touch-A-Truck boom is upon us and it all started with volunteers in London who wanted to create opportunities for families from all socio-economic backgrounds to have fun, learn about landscape trades and, yeah, blare some truck horns. Learn more about all of the Touch-A-Truck events at horttrades.com/truck24.

Wherever you find yourself this summer, chances are there’s a Landscape Ontario Touch-A-Truck event near you. And if you are in the London area, watch for more exciting activities from your London Chapter board, including the annual golf event at Echo Valley Golf Course on Aug. 23. You can always find the latest info and events for the chapter at horttrades.com/london.

This fall, London Chapter will be getting down to business with a series of seminars on business development and succession planning, mental health and marketing. In 2025, Plant Symposium will return to London with an outstanding lineup of plant-focused education for professionals and students.

Watch Landscape Ontario’s weekly e-news and the association event calendar at horttrades.com/event to keep up to date with all of the exciting activity in your area. To learn more about Women in Landscaping and their monthly drop-ins, look them up on Facebook, Instagram or Linkedin.

 

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