Author Archives: admin_gs

Garden for Sale

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Starting back in 2003, or maybe 2004, we had an opportunity to pursue garden staging as one of our services.  We tried it out with a few realtors and found the work a gamble.  One in five sellers were in a position to invest a modest amount for professional work, but the rest just wanted mulch and annuals.  We stopped the practice on principle when a project had a new sod lawn in the scope of work but no irrigation to support it.  Talk about being set up to fail.

I have found this type of approach with flipping homes the rule, not the exception.  I don’t know if a buyer would know or appreciate quality landscape work like they would kitchen tile or bathroom fixtures in a potential home purchase.  I do know that visiting staged gardens three to six months after sale can be a sobering experience.  Poor quality annuals, juiced for bloom at the greenhouse and sold in big-box stores, dead.  New sod lawn as advertised, dying or dead.  Trees still choking by the straps of their nursery stakes.  Doom, despair…  You get the picture.

We have a new client that is dealing with this reality right now.  Having bought her home and settled some outstanding plumbing and sewer line issues, she turned her attention to the garden.  It had helped sell her on the home, but I could barely see how.  The summer was not kind.  If the information regarding the gutted irrigation system, the seasonal color, or the irreparable  lighting system was made obvious to her, she does not recollect it.

Salt to the wound, at least one tree and one large shrub were planted above large holes dug as repositories for mortar, grout, and paint waste.  This is as common a practice as staging itself.  For a buyer who is looking at the garden as part of the sale, know what you are buying.

Some of the most important (read: expensive) items to obtain construction information for are decks, irrigation, line-voltage landscape lighting, water features, drainage, and structural retaining walls above 30 inches.  Check for permitted work just like you would for new windows or a kitchen remodel.  Have a landscaper friend take a walk through to give you insight to any obvious issues they observe.  Get an idea of the value of the plantings and the possibility of imminent hazard tree work.

Professional landscape work is an investment and should be part of the clear picture of the property that you intend to purchase.  The last thing a new homeowner needs is an unwelcome surprise like needing new french drains to protect the foundation or emergency tree work to protect their new home or the neighbor’s home.  And if I had to offer any other advice on the matter, it would be to get what you find in writing.

“A pound of prevention is worth a ton of cure.”

oxox,

Benjamin Franklin

Wedding vs. the Garden

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DSCN0085

Years ago, I was a greenhouse grower for a couple who also ran a floral shop.  Aside from the chaotic flow from holiday center pieces and romantic bouquets to  Mother’s Day (the flower holiday of the year), they had the constant flow of birthdays, anniversaries, and funerals.  I found out soon enough that no floral job ground things to a halt like a wedding.  All other work suffered, morale was tenuous at best, and the amount of overtime clocked in was staggering.  Even the greenhouse staff would get roped into making deliveries to ensure the flow of highly perishable flowers and greens to their destinations.

So, the idea of working as part of wedding preparations makes my shoulders tense up.

I got a call from a client that we have enjoyed working for since 2005.  Their neighbors across the street were getting married in a few months and wanted the garden to look nice as the whole shebang was happening there.  The couple was young, very modern, and had enough of the details worked out that talking about the concept for the garden was a piece of cake.

I proposed that instead of dumping a bunch of money on throw-away floral stuffs, we could stage the wedding with plants that would be reused in their garden installation.  I’m not going to claim we had 100% success with the concept.  We had to integrate a long-term plant palette with a palette of blooming plants that may not be so long-term.  Luckily, the couple had little preoccupation with the exact shade of pink or coral.  We were able to plan out most of the compositions with three to five types of plants and tie them together with a few ground covers.

Repeatedly disturbing the roots of plants is contraindicated to ease in transplant and acclimation.  To avoid this, we popped the plants out of their less-than-aesthetically- pleasing plastic pots and put them in peat pots.  The peat pots worked well with a mulch camouflage and made redistributing plants into their post-nuptial layout a cinch.  We did have a few hiccups with the drip irrigation wetting through the pots.  We spot-watered by hand and that revived all but select few little ones.  May they rest in peace.

I cannot claim that this idea of reusing plants was my great eureka! moment.  People have been planting their Christmas trees after the New Year for generations.  From Get-well plants, to pots of Easter lilies, it seems unconscionable to through away a living plant when one has a bare spot of earth outside their kitchen door.