Sustainable Garden Care
Sweetgum Horticulture offers fine garden care for clients who appreciate a professional level of service from a team that is detailed, knowledgeable, and willing to translate your priorities and style into a comprehensive garden maintenance program. The emphasis is on sustainable practices, with the option of using only certified organic inputs. Work is performed almost exclusively with hand tools. Specialties include:
- Careful weeding (we won’t pull out your favorite plants!)
- Perennials: planting, grooming, dividing and rearranging
- Container gardens that are updated seasonally
- Hand watering of new plantings
- Shrub pruning with hand clippers (no power shearing)
- Organic kitchen planters with vegetables, herbs and edible flowers
- Organic kitchen garden set-up in the spring and take-down in the fall
- Colorful annual plantings
- Plant health care (scouting for pests and applying organic treatments)
- Soil testing and application of nature-friendly fertilizers
- Irrigation system adjustment (to reduce water use as much as possible while ensuring that plants thrive)
- Conservatory and houseplant care
- Vacation garden care
- Landscape management (scheduling work with other landscape professionals like pest control companies, arborists and lawn care specialists)
"I hope you will share this with your wonderful team: we are so grateful for the work you have done and for the art you have achieved. We absolutely love our yard and enjoy every minute we get to be out there. My husband and I both have the tough combination of black thumbs but a love of lush green space. As he said yesterday when we walked up the driveway, it feels like we get to live in a park. Thank you!"
Meg S., Newton
Plant Health Care
With a degree in Plant Pathology and twenty years of caring for plants professionally, I can:
- Help figure out problems with your shrubs, perennials, annuals and vegetables
- Properly submit samples of insects or diseased plants for laboratory diagnosis
- Prepare soil samples to see if your garden needs lime or if it is contaminated with lead
Irrigation System Assessment
Irrigation systems can make watering easier and more efficient, but must be used very judiciously to avoid the unnecessary overuse of the drinking water resources shared by the local community. I can work with your irrigation technician and adjust your control box to make sure that just the right amount of water is reaching your landscape. This will reduce your water bill and make sure that no water is being wasted. Ideally, I would return a few times throughout the growing season to reassess the irrigation schedule.
Container Gardening
I have fifteen years of professional experience designing mixed planters. In early spring, I can fill your pots and hanging baskets with vibrant plantings, then change them in summer, fall and winter. We can also schedule visits to groom and fertilize container gardens to keep them looking lush and healthy all season long.
Conservatory and Houseplant Care
Houseplants are a way to bring a bit of nature inside during our long winters. As an added benefit, they filter toxins out of indoor air. In the spring, I will re-pot, prune and fertilize your houseplants, and find a sheltered spot outside where they can spend the summer. In the fall, I will prepare the plants before moving them into the house. I will find appropriate spots for them inside, and leave you with a fertilization and organic pest control plan.
Vacation Garden Care
Call me in when you are away to keep an eye on watering and other gardening needs. I can pay special attention to containers, new plantings and vegetable gardens, so that they are still thriving when you return.
Landscape Management
I can coordinate work that needs to be done on your property with other landscape specialists like arborists and lawn care companies. Having studied Spanish extensively and worked for many years with native speakers of the language, I can communicate clearly in spoken and written Spanish.
