A Garden Makeover

Today, I thought I'd give you a peek into the business side of Garden Girl. Here's a garden makeover done for my very first client earlier this spring. This is before:My very first gardening client is mom to a childhood friend of the nursery owners. She wanted help with her garden, and asked Mom, (of Mom & Pop who own the nursery,) if she could recommend someone. That someone ended up being me. She wanted a lush, colorful perennial garden to replace her tired, developer-installed shrubs.

Tucked between and in front of these shrubs were phlox, peonies, spiderwort, cotoneaster, lamium, May Night salvia, a geranium, and daylilies my garden-loving client had planted over the years. We found homes for them in the new garden.

We contracted the shrub removal with a fellow new gardener. That was a job for someone bigger and stronger than me. The root balls with their heavy, wet clay weighed about 50 lbs. each.

Before and after the shrubs were removed, she and I shared several conversations about her garden wish list.

I measured, sketched, and selected samples of a variety of sun and part sun plants chosen for size, texture, attractive foliage, color, and long bloom times. And then. . . we went shopping! You know, the fun kind of shopping - plant shopping!




She liked my selections, so all that was left was to pull the plants. After helping fill her car with annuals she later planted in her front landscape, I gathered the quantities needed of each plant selection for her new back garden and moved them to a holding area at the nursery for installation the following week.

It took a full day for this installation. Here's the garden immediately after planting:

And this is the garden about six weeks later. My client added her own personal finishing touches.

Here's the 'before' of the smaller border on the opposite side of the patio.
There are iris, a delphinium, and some asters over here. The homeowner added annuals every year. She wanted more perennials here. This is how it looked after planting:
The homeowner added hosta divisions and impatiens, and this is how it looked six weeks later.
This lovely lady, my first client, has recommended me to several neighbors. Since her garden redo, three of her neighbors have become clients. All of them are the nicest people I could ever have imagined having as first clients.

The garden is thriving. She takes wonderful, loving care of it, and it shows. On days when I'm back in the neighborhood, she's often out watering, preening, and enjoying her new garden. I recently installed new front and back gardens for a neighbor who lives behind her. It's fun to walk the path behind her garden, watching it grow from a distance while working on her neighbor's new garden.

A couple of weeks ago I planted some knockout roses in her front landscape. She loves them. I'll be back sometime after frost this fall (shhhh!!!!! let's don't think about that now, ok?) to put the garden to bed for the winter. In the meantime, thanks to my first gardening client's referrals to her neighbors, I'll be seeing her around!