Garden consultancy and plant care, Vancouver west side
Darrell walks the garden with you, or he looks at your photographs and talks it through on the phone. Then he writes down what he found: what is wrong out there, what is behind it, what to do first and what can safely wait. The fee is the same whether you hire us afterwards or not, and the plan is yours to keep.
It is Saturday morning and there is a folder of three quotes open on the kitchen table. Outside the window is the hedge all three of them quoted on. You have read them twice, they are hundreds of dollars apart for what sounds like the same work, and none of them explains why. So the folder goes back in the drawer for another week.
What is missing is usually not another quote but one plan you can hold the rest of them against. It is written by somebody who is not bidding on the build work.
The assessment is up to ninety minutes in the garden with you walking along, or about an hour on the phone after you send photographs when you book. Your written plan follows within two to seven business days. It is $450 flat, plus tax, paid when you book, with no hourly meter and nothing quietly added later.
Vancouver is full of people who will look at your garden for free, and a free quote is a sales visit. You are paying Darrell for the looking rather than for the selling. Where a plant list is part of your plan he does not price it, so nothing on it is there because it suits the shop. The plan belongs to you and you can hand it to any contractor you like. If the honest answer is to leave the garden alone this year and spend nothing, that is the answer you get, in writing.
We work on plants. Planting plans, pruning and feeding in the right order, restoring a garden that has got ahead of you, and year round care.
We are not the people to call for a patio or a retaining wall, but that is why Darrell can tell you the truth about the water in that corner without hoping to sell you the fix. Where the trouble is drainage or structure he will say so and name the trade you need, because he is not bidding on that work.
Waiting is rarely free out there, because a pruning window missed two years running turns a cut back into a dig out.
We write up the jobs that come back every season on this coast. The pruning window that closes earlier than people expect, the shrub that gets dug out because nobody cut it back two years ago, the plant fed at the wrong time of year. There is nothing to sign up for and nothing to buy.
Kitsilano, Point Grey, Dunbar, Kerrisdale, Shaughnessy and the west side of Vancouver. The gardens are kept close together on purpose, because less of the day spent driving means more of it spent in gardens. The booking page asks for your street first, so you find out whether you are in the area before you pay.
Pick a time and pay online, which takes about a minute, and the confirmation is instant. Darrell walks the garden with you, or rings you once your photographs are in. Your written plan follows within two to seven business days. Nothing gets quoted, sold or added afterwards unless you ask for it. Next spring you walk the garden knowing which plants are staying, which are coming out, and what needs doing in what order.