Asked and answered.

The doorstep or landing, the immediate arrival path leading to it, and the beds and containers within sight of someone standing at the door. In practice that’s usually a stretch of ground between about six and thirty feet across.

If you can see it while you’re finding your keys, it’s likely in scope.

No. No full-property landscaping, hedge trimming, lawn care, or irrigation. Those are well served by others already.

Keeping the practice narrow is what makes a visit careful rather than fast, and it’s why the entrance ends up looking considered rather than maintained.

Yes, and it’s common. Most clients keep their existing crew for the lawn and the lot while we take the entrance only.

We’ll work out the boundary case by case, property by property, so both sides know exactly where one scope ends and the other begins. A short conversation before the first visit is usually all it takes.

The one thing worth agreeing on early is that the entry beds and containers are ours to tend — particularly where blowers are concerned.

With an on-site walk-through. It’s a paid assessment, booked and invoiced separately from any design or installation work — discovery rather than design. We read light, drainage, exposure, and the way people move toward the door, and you get a written brief out of it.

Because it stands on its own, you’re free to take the plan away and sit with it. Some clients install the following month; some wait for the next season. Either is fine.

Yes — tell us what you have in mind and we’ll talk it through. Plants you love, plants you can’t stand, a colour you keep coming back to: all of it is useful.

That said, the best results come from letting the space lead. Light, drainage, exposure, and what already grows nearby narrow the list far more than a style brief does, and this is where the horticulture earns its keep. What greets a guest matters less as a particular colour than as a feeling — that the space is intentional and cared for — and that reads most clearly when the plants are genuinely thriving and sit comfortably in their surroundings.

After the walk-through you’ll get an initial palette, or a themed planting or two, shaped around what you want the arrival to feel like.

As little as you’d like. Many clients are hosts or property managers who are not on site, and the whole point of this service is that the entrance takes care of itself in your absence.

After the walk-through, the usual rhythm is: you approve a plan, and then you receive photographs when the work is done.

No. All work is done with hand tools — no blowers, no trimmers, no engines of any kind. Visits are quiet enough to happen during an occupied stay without anyone particularly noticing.

We also schedule around turnovers wherever we can, so an arriving guest never walks into a work site.

The walk-through is a flat $195, and it is the one figure we can publish honestly. It covers up to an hour on site and the written read of the space that comes out of it.

Design, sourcing, and installation are quoted after that visit. No two thresholds are the same size, the same exposure, or the same amount of work, so a number published before anyone has seen the space would be a wrong one.

Nothing is ever purchased before you have a written quote in hand.

For hosts and property managers, it generally sits in the same column as cleaning, linens, photography, and listing fees — a cost of presenting the property well, rather than a personal garden purchase.

We invoice accordingly, and we’re glad to itemize the walk-through, the installation, and the reset visits separately if that makes your books tidier. How it’s ultimately claimed is a question for your accountant.

Because it’s the work, not a sales call. The walk-through produces the thinking that the planting plan is built on, and it holds its value whether you install with us next month, next year, or not at all.

Charging for it separately also means there’s no pressure in the room. Nobody is trying to close anything.

As little or as much as you want. Our threshold plantings are built from resilient coastal species that hold their composure on their own, but any planting still asks for regular tending and seasonal edits.

For complete peace of mind: put your entrance on our recurring maintenance schedule. We handle the watering, feeding, and pruning. If a plant struggles, we diagnose it, then source and install a replacement during our rounds.

If you’d rather do it yourself: your main job is consistent watering through dry spells while plants establish. From there, book us for seasonal resets to prune, refresh the soil, and edit the composition whenever the space needs a lift.

A focused tune-up visit that carries your containers and beds from one coastal season into the next.

What we do: cut back spent perennials, shape the woody anchors, mulch with fresh organic matter, check drainage in the vessels, and edit out anything outgrowing the space. At your request we’ll also rotate in fresh seasonal plantings for immediate effect.

How to book: set a standing quarterly rhythm — spring wake-up, summer check, autumn transition, winter prep — or call us as needed whenever the space wants a lift. Visits cover our dedicated time and care; any newly introduced seasonal plants and fresh materials are billed separately.

Resets are reserved for entrances we’ve designed and installed, so we’re working with root systems and a structural layout we know intimately.

Coastal conditions can test the hardiest of plants. When one struggles it’s usually diagnostic — precise feedback about water, sun, or salt exposure that makes the next choice better adapted.

We don’t offer a complimentary plant warranty, but we do make replacement effortless. If a specimen fails to thrive, we identify a better-suited alternative, source it, and install it during your next scheduled visit, billed at trade cost.

Often, yes — but chosen for form first. Perennial herbs, textural alliums, thyme between pavers, a well-placed fig or currant. Things that read as design and happen to be useful.

This is the layered, multi-purpose approach the book is about, applied at a much smaller scale.