Regenerative Landscape Design

What is Regenerative Landscape Design? It’s the opposite of traditional design, which treat’s the land like the interior of someone’s house, to be filled with orderly arrangements of exotic and showy plants with little regard for the green space as a whole ecosystem or the garden as a constant state of evolution. We specialize in creating designs that take traditional yards and transform them into dynamic life-affirming ecological communities hybridizing native and non-native plants for drought tolerance, pollinator and native bird habitat and for human enjoyment! We typically install the designs and follow through with a maintenance plan and our clients are often surprised to find that within a year or two their new landscape costs less to maintain in water, labor and soil inputs than before!

Year Round Maintenance

Our business focuses primarily on year round sustainable property care. Whether you don’t have the time or expertise to maintain your property to your standards, or are an avid gardener finding you’re losing the energy to keep up with your space and need passionate hands to maintain your work- we can bridge the gap. What this looks like will depending on property size and goals, but we are usually able to achieve your garden dreams with monthly visits, where our work is in tune with the seasons. Don’t wait until the summer arrives and your weeds are out of control! Likewise trees and shrubs need to be pruned in the winter for the healthiest and most vibrant result. We protect our client’s investment in their property while saving them money by maintaining the weeding, pruning and soil health with thoughtful attention throughout the year.

Single Projects

Although the majority of our clients are on a yearly maintenance schedule, we do fit in a few one-off projects a year. Maybe you just moved into a new place and need a cleanup job to get the property to a place where you can manage it yourself. Perhaps you need hugelkultur beds, an ephemeral pond or an herb garden installed. Or a rehabilitation pruning session where Anders teaches you how to continue the pruning in later seasons. Whatever the project, reach out and we will let you know if we can accommodate.

Bi-layer Topsoil Mulching

The Foundation of a Thriving Ecosystem

Here at the Garden Dawn, we believe quite literally that all landscape maintenance begins from the ground up. Many of the problems that we face in gardening including weeds, diseases, fungal attacks, pests, erosion and water retention are best treated by addressing the soil. More specifically, the topsoil. It is by no means a cure-all, but in a world where typical commercial maintenance includes the removal of topsoil, leaves and organic matter we have had tremendous success treating a myriad of issues by implementing a system we call “Bi-Layer Topsoil Mulching.”

According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), by 2050 we will have lost 90% of Earth’s topsoil. When you walk into a forest, you may notice that the ground beneath your feet feels spongy and dense- a stark contrast to the feeling of mud or sand. This is because the forest has had the time to create and release organic matter; a process which accumulates rich fertile topsoil over time. It takes an average of one-thousand years to make approximately three centimeters of topsoil. The topsoil locks in the fertile elements of the soil (including water) and protects it from invasive weeds, animal tracks, erosion and the sun.

We create rich topsoil in our gardens by mimicking the forest floor. We do this through bi-layer topsoil mulching. Depending on the state of your soil, we first need to add a compost/rich organic matter layer. This gives the plants the “zhuzh” or “oomph” to support their immune systems and growth and remedy nutrient deficiencies. If needed, we can also add a custom blend of organic soil amendments with the compost layer to over time release an extra amount of nutrients (for the urban jungle enthusiasts!). After this, we add a less fertile organic layer (i.e. the “topsoil”). Most often, we employ the use of arborist chips because they are a local waste product readily available - far less energy intensive purchasing from a mulch processing facility. The arborist chips create the topsoil, locking in the nutrients of the compost so they last much longer than a typical compost-mulching. After this, we will employ the permaculture staple of “chop & drop” (adding leaves, cuttings, wood processed from the landscape) to continue building that topsoil over time.

Bi-layer topsoil mulching has become the standard for all initial clean-ups of new clients because it gets the weeds & their seed cycle under control, reduces nutrient/fungal issues and begins the process of creating your forest floor. This process costs more up front but will save big in the long run as you build up and replenish the soil naturally rather than having to buy more compost year in and year out. This method also saves our clients big over the long run on watering. Wood chips help the soil retain water- a critical value in our climate crisis.