Maintenance

Spring Clean Ups

1-2 visits between April and May

Cut back perennials that were left standing to overwinter, remove excess leaves that are matted in garden beds, apply fresh mulch, edge garden beds. These are the most labor-intensive visits all year long!

Vegetable Garden Planting

3-4 visits between April and June

Utilizing the square foot gardening method, we will help you plan your garden to grow vegetables you and your family WANT to eat. We will also help show you how to do the planning and planting if you’d like to take it on in years to come.

Summer Weeding

4-6 visits between June and September

Weeds are inevitable and can get out of control really quickly!

Maintain your space and your peace of mind by knowing your next maintenance visit isn’t far off.

Summer Pruning

1 visit between June and August

Some fruit trees (peaches, plum, apricot…) and early blooming shrubs require summer pruning to remain healthy and vigorous.

This is a short visit that can be combined with weeding.

Holistic Orchard Care

Fall Clean Ups

2-3 visits between October and November

Make the most of your on-site resources with an ecological clean up. We will mulch the leaves into the lawn, as well as into the garden beds, to act as an insulating mulch layer all winter.

The leaves break down into compost and further support your gardens the next year!

Winter Pruning

1 visit between February and March

Most woody trees and shrubs prefer to be pruned in the winter, when their energy is in their roots. This single visit will set your fruit trees and berry bushes up for success the following spring!

Pests and disease in home scale orchards are common issues that require ongoing holistic orchard care. We are excited to offer a virtual consultation call to walk you through the Holistic Orchard Network’s Protocol. We can also supply you with a home-scale quantity of the materials required to apply your organic pest management sprays.

A portion of the cost of this consultation will be donated to founder Michael Phillips’ family’s farm and orchard, Heart Song Farm and Lost Nation Orchard, in northern VT to support the work done in his legacy.

“No maintenance” is a tall ask, but low maintenance & an extra set of hands is our standard practice!

  • In our first season of working with you, we bill all maintenance at time and materials. This varies greatly depending on the landscape, but we are happy to discuss it ahead of scheduling your visit.

  • Nope! Our maintenance visits are totally scalable - if you want us to just come and prune a few fruit trees, we can. If you want us to everything we offer and more, we can plan to do that too!

  • We do not. As fine gardeners, and permaculture-based design/builders, we are just not set up to help you with your mow and blow services.

    However, we can help with lawn renovations for existing maintenance clients, adding in core aeration, dethatching and overseeding with one of our many eco-bleed seed mixes.

  • Yes! This is a crucial part of ensuring your landscape is both safe and enjoyable.

    However, we prefer to keep these visits separate from our maintenance visits as they often require different equipment and gear to protect our crew, and to ensure effective removal.

    Let us know if you have an issue with invasives or poison ivy and we can come up with a specific maintenance plan for mitigation of these plants.