Living Design
Growing Wise designs and installs gardens, meadows, and foodscapes blending art, environmental science, and agroecology. We work with nature and the soil food web. Designs are tailored to your aesthetic preference utilizing perennial (and often native) plants selected to thrive in the specific conditions in your garden, homestead or farm.
Process
After we receive an inquiry from you, we schedule a free call to learn more about your goals, preferences, priorities, scope of project, budget, and timeframe to see if we are the best option for you. After an initial call, it may be necessary to meet with you in person for 30-45 minutes to walk the land, learn a bit about the conditions and history of the site, and discuss options. If more meetings on site are required and agreed upon, a rate is $40/hour will be applied. Please inquire about sliding-scale pricing options for accessibility.
While on-site, you can have us collect samples in areas of interest to be assessed for biological activity back at our lab. You can also collect and mail in samples by following a simple process. These discussions, observations, and biological assessment will inform our approach. Depending on your situation, designs can be general or highly detailed; down to specific plant species and layout at planting time. Site report, design, and drawing fees depend on what you need done and will be based on an hourly rate to be negotiated.
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Installation & Maintenance
At the moment we provide smaller-scale landscape installation and some maintenance services. If it makes sense for your project, we sometimes partner with trusted landscape contractors nearest you who are aware of best practices in regenerative work. If you choose to work with a contractor with whom we are not currently associated and you feel they may benefit from consultation, we offer project oversight to ensure ecological alignment and adherence to design at a rate of $60/hour and $1/mile traveled to and from site. Oversight is recommended for periods of prep-work/excavation, installation (placement and planting), and maintenance. GW will provide a general estimate of oversight time required depending on the work that is to be done and who will be doing it.