Take a brisk walk around some of your local suburban gardens, a stroll through Yahoo! Answer's Garden and Landscape board or participate in some gardening forums and you will soon realise there is a growing need for good gardening coaches. Especially when you find questions like, "How deep down are you supposed to plant an apple seed???", or "Did I hurt my grass' feelings?"

A garden coach is someone who can offer advice, knowledge and know-how to a gardening problem without creating more of the same. They can offer suggestions from the very basic "How to prepare your soil" to more complex issues like "What plants to grow now that you've prepared your soil." In some ways a garden coach is like a consultant or a mentor to home gardeners.

For some, being a garden coach is a profitable venture charging clients for the hours given. Others offer their gardening acumen and experience pro bono in a desire to genuinely help others with no recompense. Either way, you will need to be a good coach if you are to be helpful or make any money - though the two aren't mutually exclusive.

So, could you become a garden coach and if so how could you be a good one? Here's a checklist to see if you qualify as a possible gardening coach candidate;

1. Already doing it yourself - Basically, practice what you preach. Don't teach others to compost if composting is not something you do or raise the virtues of permaculture if you rely heavily on pesticides and snail pellets.

   You are probably better off to stick with what you are doing in your garden than what might work in a gardening utopia.

2. Know the area - If you are coaching someone from another state, region or city you might want to familiarise yourself with the prevailing climate, season, indigenous species, what grows locally and what doesn't. Even pests, diseases and weeds can be very localised so find out what you're talking about before spouting off your lack of wisdom.
3. Willing to learn yourself- nobody likes a know-it all and your client is only asking for your knowledge and not your biased opinions. Allow them to teach you something and take notes from their experience so that you too can further your knowledge base.
4. Patience - this will all depend on how involved you become as someone's garden coach. If you're in it for the long haul you will soon realise that patience is more than just a virtue. Some people will take a while to 'get it' and you just need to be there to help guide and encourage them in their wins.
5. Able to research information - as with #3 you should never stop learning yourself. Some things will stump you when you are giving advice to gardeners so it pays to be able to take it away and research a solution without giving the flippant "I dunno" answer. Most gardening questions have already been answered so it's just a matter of finding where the information is.
6. Passion for gardening - DUH!! If this was an ordered list this one would be first. If you aren't passionate for gardening then I'm not sure being a garden mentor would be worth your time or your clients.

   Part of staying passionate about your hobby is actually doing it. I know, myself, that when I get too engrossed in blogging about gardening without actually doing any my creativity dries up - both with my garden blog and with my garden. You need to refuel your passion by spending time with the very thing that you love doing.

7. Horticultural qualifications - while this is not an essential quality of a good garden coach it may be beneficial especially if you decide to charge people for your services. You could take up a Master Gardener course or at least audit some subjects at your local college or university. Some certification can even be completed online but with something as practical as gardening you might be better considering a residential course instead.
8. Experience - this is the main key for offering your services as a garden coach. In fact, it can even supersede qualifications when offering yourself as a mentor to gardeners. I know I would rather have someone with 20-30 years under their belt advising me on my garden than taking stock of someone who's just completed a degree.

   You can't buy experience but you can hire it. So, if you're planning to offer your services as a garden coach keep a photographic portfolio of what you've done and this will always increase your credibility.

So, to those gardeners who might consider employing a garden coach is there anything else you would add to this list of qualities?