Rachel can help you keep your garden healthy and looking its best!

Maintaining Your Gardens

Knowing what to do and when to do it has a learning curve. If you don’t have the time, interest or ability, Rachel can take care of these tasks for you.

Just need a little extra help and want to save on labor costs? You can work side-by-side with Rachel, and even schedule a one-on-one garden coaching session with Rachel to get answers to your specific garden maintenance questions.

Garden Maintenance Tasks

Spring Garden Clean-up

This is the time to cut back ornamental grasses, clean-up perennials to prevent rot from spring rains, check plant crowns for survival, and trim shrubs and trees as needed. All of this is done to encourage new growth. If the perennial beds are overcrowded then transplanting and dividing are done as needed.

Fall Garden Clean-up

It’s time to prepare the beds for winter hibernation by raking excess leaves and pruning any dead plant material to prevent spread of any disease. Perennials that bloom in Spring and early Summer need to be pruned in the fall, for they bloom on new growth.

Mulching

Mulching serves several purposes: it protects plants from harsh winters and any upheaval from the thaw/freeze cycle in Spring; retains moisture in beds during hot Summer days; prevents weed growth between plants; prevents soil erosion; and as it breaks down it enriches the soil with nutrients. Rachel uses 2-3″ of double-processed wood mulch or leaf mulch (her preference if available) to cover the beds while avoiding the plant crowns.

Edging

Rachel edges around flower beds, trees and shrubs with sharp shovel to form a ‘V’ to prevent grass from entering the bed. A ‘V’ notched 2-3″ deep is sufficient because grass roots will not creep thru ‘air’. Rachel prefers a shoveled edge rather than plastic edging, for too often grass will grow under the plastic edging and invade the garden bed.

Weeding

Weeding prevents undesirable plant material, e.g. dandelions, garlic mustard, thistle, etc., from choking out or depriving desirable plant material from water and nutrients. Rachel weeds by hand or hoe, avoiding the use of herbicides in gardens beds.

Pruning

Pruning is necessary to remove weak or cross branches and any dead branches, and can be used on trees and shrubs to control shape while promoting new growth.

Fertilizing

It’s important to choose the correct fertilizer to suit the plant. Evergreens and shrubs that prefer acidic soil require fertilizer heavy on nitrogen. Any plant that blooms requires phosphates, and often when Rachel wants to force a show of blooms she uses a 5-30-5 blossom booster. A 10-10-10 fertilizer fills the basic needs for almost any plant. The intent is to keep a plant healthy from top to bottom: leaves, flowers, and roots.

Dividing & Transplanting

Rachel divides and transplants perennials that have become overcrowded, or any plant that is not thriving and needs a location more suitable for its needs (light or moisture).

Deadheading

All plants have a natural bloom length and then want to go to ‘seed,’ but by removing the dead or dying flowers, (i.e. deadheading) the plant is fooled into blooming again before going to seed. Rachel deadheads by snapping, pinching or cutting the spent blooms, which also improves the general appearance of the plant.

Schedule Maintenance With Rachel

Busy? Overwhelmed? Need some help with your garden chores? Let Rachel spruce up your garden!

Contact Rachel now to schedule your appointment.

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