Wolvie150

I also am on a what many would call a "X career". Dealing with Bipolar and ADD, it was hard to maintain jobs in engineering, machining, remodeling, management, and Academia (was working on masters in Astrophysics). This has led, in my mid forties, to realize that gardening fills the skill, science, esthetic, and “alone time” that a psyche such as mine needs.
This leads me to why I agree with verdancedesign and Interleafer - the jobs that seem to be available right now are the smaller ones. Being into the softscaping side, the creativity, the challenges of smaller scope balancing color, texture, volume, and being able to incorporate the customer's needs while tying everything together esthetically is a joy. Also, with the smaller gardens, even the ones that are primarily native and zone adapted plants can lead to additional income with regular maintenance.

Okay, Sally Fields? Hmm, maybe I'm a "bit" older than I thought...
This place sounds groovy (cool, neat, rad, awesome, etc. to the younger generation) and seems to be the same way I "garden". I have a few small places that my landlord lets me play in, but my real passion is playing in other's gardens, making the customers feel better about their gardens, and their gardens feel better about my customers...
Good luck, look forward to learning bout zone 10 vs. 5b (central KS).
Peace -