You spend weeks or months planning your garden project.  Putting together a budget, you try to balance what you want with what you can afford.  Then, you meet with a designer or architect.  Maybe you go straight to a landscape contractor.  Whatever your process, you end up investing a lot of time just to get your project started.

Whether you signed up for a little renovation or an entire do-over, chances are you peek into the work area more than you would like to admit.  Do they look busy?  Do they look like they know what they are doing?  Is the project manager or foreman on site?  Is this the answer to your prayers or the beginning of a mistake?  What do you do if you don’t like how your garden ends up looking?

For us, January is a good month to revisit some of our gardens.  Some of our best laid plans get washed away by an unforeseen drainage issue.  We have had dozens of plants wiped out by snails we had not anticipated.  And sometimes, an element of our grand design turned out to simply not work.  The worst part, we don’t always get a call letting us know we need to come back to remedy these hiccups.

For most of our contracts, we put in 3 follow-up visits to make adjustments or fix the little uglies that rear their heads.  Sometimes, the garden needs a year to show us where we got things right and where we got things not-so-right.  We try to send emails to clients to check-in.  Did they check the back-up battery to the irrigation controller?  Have they called the arborist to look at the suspicious black areas on their apple?  Are they still getting pooling below the garage door?   We have been known to send emails to clients from several years ago just to check-in.  It’s less creepy than our habit of doing unscheduled drive-bys.

Taking a moment to swing by a mature project is peace of mind for both the client and us.  I drove by a corner lot that we did back in 2003.  It was the first time I was able to use a Lyonothamnus floribundus.  It looked gorgeous, but the perennials that we installed beneath it were ready for the compost heap.  That was part of our plan for succession planting.  Too bad our clients had moved without letting the new owners in on our secret.  I sat in my truck for a few minutes wondering if I should knock, but decided just to drive by again in a few weeks.

Letting go of a garden can be difficult.  Our creations are born from brain and brawn.  Sometimes it feels like the genetic crossroads of inspiration and utility, other times perspiration and futility.  Going back and revisiting our work helps us learn how we have actually changed and hopefully improved how people see, feel, and connect with their little bit of outdoors.  Plus, it’s a good excuse to reconnect with folks that we had a great time working for!