Did You Grow up Learning to Garden?

I am grateful for many of the technological advances our society has made over the last century. But in our rush toward this modern lifestyle with all its comforts and conveniences, we've managed to leave behind something very important.

Our connection to the kitchen garden.

If you're like me, you didn't grow up near an edible garden; your parents didn't teach you how to plant and harvest your own produce. You probably didn't give much thought to where your food came from at all. I mean, my own grandfather was a professor of horticulture, and yet I grew up knowing next to nothing about where my food came from or how to grow it.

Gardening is a skill that many of us have lost because we've missed out on learning for the past two to three generations. Just a hundred years ago, there was no need for people to work as garden consultants because practically everyone knew how to grow their own food. Now, I'd go so far as to say that 99 percent of the people in your hometown never learned those skills.

Because we have this huge gap in our gardening knowledge, the only way to fill it is by turning to professionals to guide us. Trust me, trying to learn all this on your own leads to years of frustration. (Self-taught gardener here.) A garden consultant can teach you more in one year than what you could learn in five or ten years growing on your own.

You Don't Have to Grow Alone

A garden consultant is someone who can guide you using their own gardening expertise. They can give you a step-by-step plan for how to make your gardening goals happen right in your own home, no matter how little space, time, or gardening experience you might have.

I've been a self-proclaimed garden consultant since 2015. I've also trained thousands of other gardeners in how to start their own garden consulting businesses. Some of our Gardenary consultants are, in fact, Master Gardeners or horticulturists, but that's not a prerequisite for the job. A garden consultant just needs to be a few steps ahead of you. The important thing is that they've gardened in your particular town for several seasons and have firsthand knowledge of your local weather and climate. They've got many a successful harvest under their belt, so they are in the perfect position to offer you support and guidance as you set up your own garden space and get growing.

That's my short plug for why you should hire a garden consultant. Now, let me break it down why hiring someone like me to be your garden consultant is 100 percent worth the investment.

The Barrier to Learning to Garden Is High

There are so many proven mental, emotional, and physical benefits of taking up gardening. You'll spend more quiet time outdoors, you'll have to put your phone down for a little while, you'll eat a more plant-based diet. We could all use to eat more nutrient-dense and diverse foods. Well, guess what? You're not going to find that at the grocery store, but you can find that right outside your backdoor in your garden. I could keep going, but let me just say the benefits to gardening are many.

But the barriers to gardening are also high.

The first step that most people take in their gardening journey is to head to a big box store, but these places are just trying to sell you more and more products for your garden. If you go down to Lowe's or Home Depot, you'll find lots of cheap materials to build your garden with so that your raised beds can rot and fall apart in a couple years. You'll also find expensive plants that have been grown using synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. These plants are very hard to keep alive once you get them home because you don't know how to grow them the way the big box stores do.

Hiring a Garden Consultant Will Ultimately Save You Money

People who head down to the big box store or even their local nursery often end up wasting a ton of money and time. They buy the wrong things, they plant the wrong plants at the wrong time, they put their garden in the wrong place—they don't set themselves up for success. In a few short years, they'll either give up on gardening or scrap the whole setup and start again.

This is where a garden consultant comes in. They know where to find the best materials. They know which plants grow each and every month of the year in your town. They know where to find the best plants and seeds that thrive in your climate. And finally, they know how to set up your garden for success, no matter where you live and garden.

To put it simply, a garden consultant will save you time, money, and frustration. More than anything, they're going to save you from quitting. In my mind, there's only one thing worse than never getting to garden at all, and that's starting a garden and then quitting because it was too hard. That's one of the main reasons you hire a garden consultant.

But don't just take it from me. I want you to hear from some of our best Gardenary garden consultants from across the country. We have garden consultants that can serve you in almost every major city of the US and even around the world. Here's why they think you should hire a garden consultant.

Nicole Jagielski of Patio Produce in Chicago, IL

"I am a pro at integrating homegrown foods into busy modern lives. I get that we don't have time and we struggle to finish everything that we have to do. There are so many easy ways to be able to grow your own food at whatever scale you want to grow it, and that's what I'm here to do is to help you figure out how best to fit that into your life.

"My favorite clients to work with are the people who are going through life changes, so whether it's becoming an empty nester or getting their kids doing something different or recovering from a major health issue. I found that the garden can just give you a place to center and to rebuild from. So I love working with gardeners who are going through those changes because I feel like I'm able to keep them more grounded and then give them a place to relaunch the next chapter of their lives."

Visit Patio Produce.

Sarah Wilding of Blind Dog Gardens in Jefferson City, MO

"Someone should hire me as a garden consultant because I've failed. I've failed for years and years and years. I wanted a garden, planted a garden, watched it die, watched it get overrun with weeds, felt frustrated, felt like I was a failure at it and couldn't do it. And then I found a better way, and this is a better way, and I want to share it with others."

Follow Blind Dog Gardens on Instagram.

Roxanne Davis of Abundant Garden in Arlington, VA

"My goal with garden consulting is to make gardening accessible for everyone. So if you have any special needs in your family—maybe you need higher beds for wheelchair access or you have children with special needs that you want to work with—I want to tailor your garden to you, and that's my specialty is making it work."

Follow Abundant Garden Co on Instagram.

Cortney Kern of Mother Gardener in Fort Collins, CO

"What makes Mother Gardener unique is that I have an approach where I'm trying to become more of a guardian than a gardener outside in the landscape. I am not there to just try to manipulate and force things into being. I don't use harmful chemicals, and I really try to work with the land and see what the land wants to become and also see who's living on that land, what they would like it to be, as well. That way, I can figure out how can we mold these together in a harmonious way."

Visit Mother Gardener.

Courtney Bradley of Courtney Bradley Gardens in Birmingham, AL

"There are so many people my age and a little bit older who believe gardening is kind of a lost art or a lost skill. And I am a vintage enthusiast, but I also have modern methods and approaches to gardening, so I like to coin the term that I have vintage values but modern methods. And I think people will relate to that and like that concept.

"You know, I grew up gardening with my mom, but I don't know many people my age that garden. It just seems like a vintage thing, where I live at least, but I don't garden the way that my mom did. She gardened in the ground in the native soil, and I garden with raised beds. I do have flower beds, of course, in my front yard that I garden and landscape on my own, but when it comes to kitchen gardening, I'm encouraging people to garden from the ground up. So that's my modern commitment to it."

Follow Courtney Bradley Gardens on Instagram.

Amberly Thompson of Hamlin Garden in Milton, GA

"I like to tell my clients when I first meet them that we have a blank canvas, and I'm going to draw the lines, and I want them to fill in with the color because I want it to be a collaborative effort. And I'm not going to leave them, and whether or not Hamlin Garden stays with them through the life of their garden, I think that Hamlin Garden will have a mark on them as starting their journey or transforming their journey or changing their journey with gardening, and so I think it's well beyond just an installation of a garden. It's a lifestyle transition."

Follow Hamlin Garden on Instagram.

Are You Ready to Hire a Garden Consultant?

If you're ready to make your garden dreams come true, we're here to help. We can match you with a Gardenary-certified garden consultant near you so you can get started.

Thanks for being here and helping to make gardening ordinary once more.

Consultant Headshot Photo Credits: Victoria Quirk Photo