At some point in tending to a property new plants are going to be needed. Often these plants are needed to fill spaces in a landscape already pretty full and plant rich.

But often an entire area needs to be planned and planted.

I am not a landscape architect or a professional landscape designer. When professional design is called for I work in cooperation with local designers who can provide that service for my customers directly. In these cases I then usually implement the design.

However, with gardening experience and knowledge of plants comes experience with design. Much of a design is determined by local conditions - the constraints of the space as to height or breadth of plants, sunlight or lack of it, the soil, the nature of the surrounding spaces, water conditions and so forth.

The way I view how we enjoy and treasure our yard and garden spaces leads me to want to understand as much as possible a client's own personal likes and dislikes. For example someone may have grown up on a property that had tea olives, and the aroma brings back special memories of childhood or of loved ones.  Somewhere, somehow there needs to be a tea olive in that person's garden. The same could be said of almost any aromatic plant. Perhaps a person grew up loving a simple flower like shasta daises. Again, appropriate space should be found for these wonderful flowers. Some folks have strong dislikes. Any plan should take those dislikes into consideration.

Within certain parameters I am comfortable making and implementing a design. I do not usually provide professional drawings. I find that I like to make a preliminary plan based on conditions (the right plant for the right place) but then wait until the plants are on site so that I can move them around a bit to make final placement decisions.

I think that I am aware when the design need is out of my league. Thankfully there are many wonderful professional designers in town!