Garden Coach

I've been coaching, tutoring, consulting (whatever you call it) for years, helping friends with their garden problems. If you are motivated, but do not know where to begin, do not understand the nature of your soil or other environmental conditions, do not know what to plant because you are bewildered by the variety, or just plain stunted by the thought of killing your first plant -a coach may be for you.

I have been gardening for almost thirty years. In those beginning years so much of what I had grown died or was unproductive because of my inexperience. Fortunately I learned early that gardening is an experience of life and death. Failure is an important part of the education of a gardener. Through it we learn the depth of our commitment to our work. We learn what not to do, because it forces us to seek out the reason for the failure.

I understand that people may want many different things from their gardening efforts. For those who are interested in vegetable gardening, perennial cultivation, annual planting, basic design and hardscape construction ideas, irrigation information, soil amendment guidelines, organic principles, native habitat planting -coaching may be the way to go. For those who want a design and installation, you should contact a landscape architect or garden designer, or at the very least a landscape service. Garden coaching, I would say, is not for you.

Garden coaching is for those who are motivated to do it themselves, or at least think they may want to give it a shot. There is a lot to learn and if you are adventurous, you may never deem your activity a success. That is good, because continuous learning is part of the art of gardening and the joy of it.

You should always remember, as a beginning gardener, that you do not have to do it all in one season. In fact you cannot and this is a blessing. You have a life, gardening is not your full time work. Gardens are organic creations and are forever changing. However, if you understand the principles underlying much of the work, you will be rewarded for it.

So if you have a yard of any size and you see its potential, but don't know where to begin, consider a garden coach. Look over my blog posts and read my bio, as it may help you decide if I am the coach for you. Its mid-March. In NYC this is the time to start thinking about doing in your garden. You see, I'm already coaching you.

Contact Frank at nycgarden@gmail.com for more information.

Rates:

$100 for the first consultation lasting up to two hours

$50 per hour thereafter