Dear Clients and Friends,
Hartland Designs is wrapping up another year of landscape installation and maintenance. The fall close down crew still has about eight days of work left, and I’ve got to finish a stone patio around a pool with my son, Gable of Hartman Builders. Then we will have our annual Holiday Party and say goodbye for a few months.
I’ve got two large design projects that will carry me into the winter, plus I will be designing all the annual gardens for so many of my clients. If you are one of my clients, please let me know if you want annuals in 2026 or if you have specific varieties you’d like me to use again, or experiment with.
We had very successful results switching to an all organic fertilizer program this season. For years, we used Miracle-Gro products in the gardens to feed the annuals throughout the growing season. I was becoming concerned about the long-term health of your garden soil. Miracle-Gro is a synthetic fertilizer that feeds the plants but not the soil, leaving behind salts.
Nora, my Head of Maintenance, and I decided to move to 100% organic fertilizer for all annuals planted directly in the gardens (bedding plants), and to use Miracle-Gro only in container gardens that receive new potting soil each year. We mixed fresh worm castings into every hole where an annual was planted, and we watered and fed the gardens all season with a combination of vermi extract (worm tea) and fish emulsion (which provided the nitrogen we needed). This fall, when we pulled the annuals, we added worm castings or compost back into the holes. At times it was a little smelly, but the fish smell faded quickly, and the gardens responded in spectacular fashion.
I want to thank all my clients for supporting us in this transition. We received no complaints about the smell and no complaints about plant quality. It’s so much better for all of us to be going in this direction. And by “us,” I also mean the soil, the plants, the insects, the amphibians, the birds, and everything else living in these spaces. Sometimes we forget that we are nature. We aren’t separate from it. We respond to the sun, we need food and water for fuel, we are organic, and we are animals. We always feel a little better when we get outside and breathe the fresh air.
My hope for all of you, as we approach Thanksgiving, winter, and a New Year, is that you take a few moments every day to acknowledge the nature around you and your place in it. Breathe some fresh air, watch the sun set, listen to the wind when it howls against your windows or blows through your pine trees (or palm trees). Take note of the clouds as they shift across the sky. Set up your bird feeders and watch them take a seed and fly away. Walk to your mailbox and look for animal tracks in the snow. Turn on your outside lights during a rain or snowstorm at night. Or simply look out your window for a while. Even in the winter, you all have great views.
This world is a little bit crazy right now but you are not. You are all wonderful, kind and uniquely you. I am so grateful that our paths have crossed and that I’ve had the privilege of making your world a little more beautiful and healthier.
Happy New Year. I’m already looking forward to 2026.
Sincerely,
Rebekah Lamphere
Hartland Designs Inc