Aftercare
There is no such thing as a no-maintenance garden, and I hope that you will take my advice and run screaming from any designer who promises you such a thing. Gardens (a) are made up of living things that need the maintenance of certain circumstances to survive and (b) are spaces designed to human specifications. If we want to maintain the integrity of a design, we must guide the garden in the direction that we want it to grow.
what is Aftercare?
Aftercare is a short term maintenance plan intended to ensure that a garden grows into its fullest, most resilient and beautiful potential.
The first two years of garden development are critical. Gardens are like people, in that those who are the healthiest, most robust and resilient in their maturity are the ones that got the care that they needed in their infancy.
Future drought tolerance is dependent on good root growth; healthy soil structure requires sensitive, careful watering; proper development is critical to a plant’s ability to withstand infection and infestation. I will say again that there is no such thing as a “no maintenance” garden, but a garden that has been allowed to establish properly requires far less long term maintenance than one that has developed in a sickly, patchy fashion.
At Studio Humelim, our aftercare contracts run from 15 to 24 months–long enough to ensure that we can spend two full summers tending and guiding your garden to robust maturity. Once the aftercare contract ends, we can either help you transition to caring for your garden yourself, or we are available for longer term maintenance contracts.
Why Invest in Maintenance?
First and foremost, hiring a professional to care for your garden protects the investment you have made in the design and installation. Unfortunately, many people who think that they’ll be saving money if they don’t hire a maintenance gardener end up spending that money on repairs in the future as their garden languishes. Paying for maintenance is never as exciting as buying plants, but it is just as important.
So many potential clients I encounter tell me they don’t want to hire a gardener because all we do is “just dig holes.” This statement could not be further from the truth. Good gardening requires deep knowledge of and the ability to synthesize so many disparate elements; soil hydrology, plant physiology, art & design, phenology, entomology, microbiology, the list goes on and on. Becoming a good gardener takes years of training and experience, and while your garden is in its infancy, it is critical for it to receive proper care from someone who’s put in the work. Professional maintenance is an investment, but it is the best thing you can do to help ensure success for your garden.
For those clients who are interested in doing their own garden care: we can use the aftercare period to teach you about gardening so that you may be better equipped to take over long term maintenance when the aftercare contract is up. Developing a relationship with the land is powerful, and we love empowering clients on their gardening journeys! We will always be available for ongoing regular maintenance or periodic check-ins as you need.
Ready to book? Drop us a line and let’s get started!