The three-year schedule
Twelve months, written down, and yours to keep.
This is the actual document that goes out with every job, on paper, in a folder, with the plant list and the irrigation layout. It is on the website because there is nothing in it we would not tell somebody who rang up, and because a landscaper who keeps the care instructions to themselves is selling you a dependency.
January
Nothing. Do not tidy. The seed heads are feeding birds and the dead stems are insulating the crowns.
February
Nothing, still. If there is snow on a shrub, leave it — knocking it off breaks more than it saves.
March
We visitCut the blue mist spirea to four inches from the ground. Cut nothing else. This is the one hard prune in the year and it feels wrong the first time.
First visit. We check every wall, reset anything the frost has heaved, and walk the irrigation with you.
April
Turn the drip on and run it once. Walk the lines while it runs and look for a wet patch — a chewed emitter is the commonest fault and it is a two-minute fix.
May
Weed. This is the month that decides the summer; an hour a week now is worth ten in August. Do not mulch over the crowns of the grasses.
June
Deep water the year-one plants once a week. Everything past year three gets nothing at all and will look slightly unhappy in July, which is what these plants do.
July
Deep soak once, at the end of the month, on anything marked low water. Cut the yarrow back after it browns if you want a second flush.
August
One more deep soak. Do not fertilise. Nothing in this palette wants feeding and most of them go floppy if they get it.
September
We visitStop watering the established plants entirely. The grasses colour up now and this is the best month in the garden.
Second visit. We assess anything that has failed, replace what is ours to replace, and take the maintenance schedule out to year four with you.
October
Plant, if anything is going in. Autumn planting beats spring here by a season and nobody believes it until they do it once.
November
Blow the drip lines out before the first hard freeze. We will do it if you would rather — it is ninety dollars and it saves a repair in April.
December
Nothing. Look at the ninebark bark, which is the whole reason it is in the plan.
The 2 visits are ours, and they are already paid for.
March and September, for three years, inside the price of the planting. We are checking our own work: resetting anything the frost has moved, replacing what has failed if it was ours to replace, and walking the drip lines with whoever is going to be running them.
It is not a maintenance contract and we will not sell you one. If you want somebody cutting things back every month, ask us and we will give you two names of people who do that properly.
Year one is the only hard year.
Weekly deep watering through the first summer, and weeding in May that decides how much weeding you do in August. Year two is monthly. By year three most of this palette wants nothing at all, and the plants that still look thirsty in July are supposed to.