As seasons change, gardeners receive information from many sources advising them about items that should appear on their seasonal to-do list. Often, what ensues is a frantic notion there exists a small window of opportunity for completing the tasks lest our gardens suffer.

The horticultural rebel in me takes the position that sometimes less is more. Therefore, I would like to share with you what I will not be doing in my garden now that we are past the autumnal equinox.

Because my landscape is dominated by shrubs, vines and perennials, I do not feel the urge to have a continual display of seasonal fall color, as it were. Preferring to appreciate perennials that bloom in their own time throughout the year,

I relish the anticipation of observing Gulf Coast penstemon with its lavender-pink, spring blooms resembling tiny bells; and the late-summer, velvety purple, arching spikes of Mexican bush sage. You will not see large plantings of cool-season annuals such as pansies or snapdragons in my landscape. I will not succumb to the orange, yellow or rust-colored chrysanthemums that seem to dominate every big box and grocery store’s outdoor display.

It is not that I dislike these plants – I cannot think of a species I actually hate. But I find their scent to be rather obnoxious, and their blooms too short-lived. They could be transplanted into the garden, but there is just so much room I am willing to dedicate to them.

In the past several years, edible ornamentals such as Swiss chard and kale have popped up in garden beds and planted in containers along with seasonal flowering annuals. These, too, have become overused, but at least one could eat them.

When our English forebears arrived in the New World, they brought with them their landscaping rulebooks. Included was the opinion that gardens remain tidy, especially in the formal estates of the emerging American aristocracy. Hence the need to trim shrubs to conform to geometric shapes – round as a lollipop, square as a box, or triangular as a pyramid or cone.

Any spent blooms or leafless branches were quickly removed. Lawns were carefully trimmed to resemble the emerald carpets to which we aspire today. For many the perception remains that at the end of a growing season a garden must be cleared of any lifeless vegetation.

Recently, I drove past a home whose landscape was cleared of its messiness. Sadly, the rather barren garden beds were left with only the stick remnants of chopped perennials.

In my yard, I will leave seed heads on the purple coneflower and brown-eyed Susan and allow the arching stalks of inland sea oats to keep their dangling seed clusters, all the better to fill the bellies of hungry migrating birds. The native grasses will continue to display their golden-tan luster and give shelter to beneficial insects.

I will not jump to prune late summer and fall blooming shrubby perennials such as white mist flower, but rather wait until late winter or early spring. Should I choose to prune spring blooming shrubs now, flowering will be reduced or eliminated. Cutting back will occur once the blooms begin to die.

Landscape designers speak of a garden’s structure or its “bones,” the unchanging structural framework that works to organize the shrubs and perennials.

Once plants are dormant and deciduous species lose their foliage, it is a good time to assess the landscape’s overall appearance. Perhaps taller shrubs might be incorporated to one side or a tree added near low-growing vegetation to add interest and balance to the view by varying the heights. An area might benefit from assorted built structures such as a trellis or arbor.

Cooler temperatures and less mosquito swatting enable more garden evaluation as I decide to leave behind many typical fall landscape chores. I marvel at the plants that made it through our dry spells with minimal watering, make note of the “bully” habit of firespike that expanded to shade out the cobalt blue hue of black and blue salvia, and give thanks for the reseeding purple coneflower. Had I been too quick to tidy up last fall, I would have missed the coneflower’s pink polka dots of color that now punctuate my garden border.

Chris LaChance is WaterSmart Coordinator for the Texas AM AgriLife Extension Service and Texas Sea Grant. WaterSmart is funded by a grant from Houston Endowment Inc. Contact Chris at c-lachance@tamu.edu. This column is sponsored by Urban Harvest. To find out more about community gardens, school gardens, farmers markets and gardening classes, visit www.urbanharvest.org.

Landscape manager David Foss joined Out Of Eden Garden Center two years ago after a successful career managing landscapes for large estates. His “always leave the customer happy” philosophy has helped build an already-successful landscaping department at Out of Eden. We asked Foss for some tips on working as the go between for his customers and the garden center and providing a service that benefits both.

Today’s Garden Center: What’s the best method to work with customers on a landscape design? How do you earn their trust to do a job that’s good for both the customer and Out Of Eden?

Foss: Our philosophy is that every time I do a job for a customer, it’s phase one. When I walk through and make recommendations for the customer, I plant seeds for the next phase so we have that relationship going.

Developing a relationship, putting the customer at ease, is really important. Usually the first five or 10 minutes of the consult, you get to know them. Find out if they have kids, grandkids, dogs or cats. The first thing I do when I get back in the truck is write everything down. The best sales tactic you can have is to make sure you remember the dog’s or the kids’ or grandkids’ names.

Next, I feel out their lifestyle before I start putting out designs. I find out if they want a sitting area, a fire pit or a water feature. Take note of any plants they say they like, or any they hate.

Once I have that, I say, “Here’s what I would do. I would do this and this and this.” Confidence sells. Your best friend is a paint wand with turf marking paint. Just walk through and make everything look effortless. Mark out the bed lines. Draw a circle to show how big a plant will be at maturity. Then draw a smaller circle and say, “This is how big it’s going to be when I put it in.”

Ninety percent of the time, if the customer lets me follow that plan, I’m going to sell the job at a good margin. They see you have your vision and your plan. You know what it costs to do what you want to do. They have faith in your confidence that you can come in here and get it done. If you can do that within 30 minutes, you can sell a job with your eyes closed.

Today’s Garden Center: How do you work with the customers’ budgets? Do you try to stretch above what they say they want to spend?

Foss: I find out what the budget is and I make it very clear to them, just because they give me a $3,500 budget does not mean I’m going to spend $3,500. I usually try to come in a little under to ensure they don’t feel like they’re being pushed. That’s another thing that keeps the relationship solid. Depending on the job, the difference between $3,500 and $4,000 really isn’t that much difference in your profit margin, so if they give me a budget of $3,500, I try to stick with it.

You do want to give them the option to spend more. For example, you say, “I can do this for $4,250 but to stay within your budget we’ll have to eliminate this and this and this.” They may tell me to take that extra stuff out, but they may say to go ahead and keep it.

Make sure that last $750 you’re adding is at a higher margin than the rest of the job so if they do say, “Yes,” you’re benefitting. If they stay at $3,500, you’re still making the margin you need to make on that job.

Today’s Garden Center: How much do your designs take existing garden center inventory into account?

Foss: I had to adjust, but I have learned to expand my palette to use what the garden center has in stock and use low-warranty items. In my previous job, I worked on a lot of formal gardens and was always big on boxwoods, groundcovers, rhododendrons and camellias. When I came to Out Of Eden, in the beginning I was ordering all these boxwoods and rhododendrons and camellias. Then I realized those are among the highest warranty items in my market. I have been trying to use those plants less often.

The biggest thing you can do is manage inventory. I have 20 customers a week and in the beginning I was driving our nursery manager batty ordering a lot of stuff for all of these jobs. Now I really focus on using what’s in stock to alleviate all the delivery fees. Our nursery manager can continue to turn his orders and his stock. And it keeps the labor down on pruning, feeding, spraying and watering.

Today’s Garden Center: What tools do you use for designs for the customer?

Foss: I still use pencil and graph paper. I go out to the house, and nine times out of 10, I’ll just draw it out right there on site. I know what I have in inventory at the garden center. There’s always something you have to order here and there, but we’re not Walmart. We’re not doing a set pattern. You can go out and paint it out on the ground and then measure it out on graph paper. They’re usually so confident in you when you’ve done that, you don’t have to come back and do a full architectural rendering.

We can do a rendering if they want one, and I might charge $75 an hour for that. But my initial consultation is $45. I get out there and in an hour, sometimes an hour and a half, I can draw it out on paper, paint it out on the grass and price it out for them sitting in the truck. If I come back with an architectural rendering, even though I’m charging $75 an hour, I have to go back to the store. I have to meet with them to go over it and spend another hour with them. We’re not making any money on that. I’d like to be out working on another job.

Today’s Garden Center: What advice would you offer to a garden retailer looking to build out a landscape service?

Foss: Under promise and over deliver. If the job is $5,000, I leave myself about $500 of wiggle room so I can give them some extra material and say, “This is for you, you guys have been fun to work with.” If it’s a $10,000 job, I’ll price it out at $9,000. I’m leaving an extra $1,000 in there for labor and extra deliveries and special plants. After the job is done, I can send one guy out there the next day with maybe a Japanese maple and some extra groundcover to say thank you to the customer. That builds relationships and gets great word of mouth recommendations. Doing things like that is paying returns tenfold.

Gone are the days of the superficial landscape. Modern gardens must provide much more than aesthetic value. Gardens also improve the environment by filtering water, providing habitat for native fauna, and absorbing greenhouse gases.

Learn how your home garden can perform such feats, and how the green industry is becoming more “green” through programs like the Sustainable Sites Initiative. 

At 7 p.m., Monday, Nov. 4, at Bemis Hall, Mark Richardson, the newly appointed director of horticulture at the New England Wild Flower Society, will talk about the new standards in sustainable landscaping with examples from public gardens as well as our own Lincoln properties.  Richardson has B.S. and M.S. degrees in Urban Horticulture and has lectured at Longwood Gardens and Brookside Gardens.

The public is invited to this event, which is co-sponsored by the Lincoln Garden Club and Greening Lincoln. Those who attend are asked to carpool and park on Old Lexington Road or Library Lane, as parking is limited. To learn more, visit www.LincolnGardenClub.org and www.GreeningLincoln.org.