Quite Contrary Gardening

Rich S _{on Google}

Aug 10th, 2020

never-ending in-person meetings billed at her full hourly rate. non-credible hours of "research". had 2 meetings with her averaging 4 hours each. very repetitive and wandering. For 2nd one she claimed 3 hours of "research" for a couple of handwritten note card-sized pages of lists of about 20 plants.
After that I insisted on getting an estimate for her full work on the project. I deal with landscape designers fairly often and was expecting a design proposal that would be fully fleshed out after the considerable hours already billed. However, I don't think she does any "design" in a traditional planning sense. She is really just a hands-on gardener (if that since any lifting/dirty-work is done by a contractor). Her method of determining a budget for herself was to show up with a landscape contractor and walk the site for a budget to actually build out the garden. Her role would be to assist the contractor and direct in laying out plants when they were delivered.
When I asked to use a tested method of permaculture design (a hugel bed) for just a small planting-bed area. She became upset and insisted that it wouldn't work. Started mentioning her degree in biology.
Clear she is fine for a small suburban garden where you can just pull it all out of a truck and have an instant garden. She is definitely not suitable for:
- larger project which requires planning where she will be overwhelmed by complexity.
- clients who would like a natural truly organic garden that isn't just hauled in on her contractor's truck.
I definitely saw this empress wasn't wearing clothes.