Why You Should Hire a Garden Consultant

Why should you hire a garden consultant? Well, let me break it down for you first off. Hello, I'm Nicole Burke and I'm a garden consultant, self proclaimed garden consultant since 2015. So what's a garden consultant? A garden consultant is someone who will guide you with their expertise and give you a step by step plan for you to make your own garden dreams and plans happen in your own space, your own landscape, your own life. So a garden consultant is going to be a person that is a few steps ahead of you. It's a person who's also gardening and who also lives in your particular town or city. And so they've got firsthand knowledge of your local climate, of your temperatures and weather. And they also have experience. They have the years and the seasons of under their belt that you don't yet have. And so they are a person that can give you so much help and guidance in the garden. So that's my plug for garden consultants. Let's break it down. Why a garden consultant is worth your investment or why you should hire someone like me to be your garden consultant. So the garden is a place that most of us don't know a lot about anymore, which is a sad thing. I talk about this in my first book, Kitchen Garden Revival, that we've had lots of advances and in technology in our society, and some of those are great, but one thing that happened over the last decades and century is that we lost our connection to the kitchen garden. We lost our connection to the garden. So if you're anything like me, you didn't grow up learning about gardening. You didn't grow up in a garden. You didn't grow up with a connection to where your food came from. And so gardening honestly, probably for a few decades was a dying art. It was a lost skill that so many of us in the last two or three generations missed out on. And so it's something that we left behind. But scientists, doctors, health professionals, psychologists, everyone is proving again and again that we are literally physically, scientifically tied to the garden as human beings. If you look at any of the studies about mental health, about physical health, about social, social and emotional health, they all have practices that would be better if we had a garden. So everyone says you need to be outside more. Well, guess one of the best ways to go outside more if you have a garden. A lot of people say you need more quiet time, time away from screens. Well, guess one of the best ways to get away from a screen is if you're looking at a very cool plant that is changing in Front of your eyes. Right. We need things to watch that are as amusing as the things on our phone. All the health professionals say we need to be eating more plants. You can argue whatever diet you want, but all of us should be having more plants in our diet. Well, guess one of the best ways to get more plants in your diet if they're on your porch or your patio or your backyard. Right. Everyone says we need more nutrient dense food and more diverse food. Well, you're not going to get that at the grocery store, but you can get that inside of a garden. Everybody's saying that we need to do more things with our hands, that things have become too digital and that they've. They're linking happiness, concentration, focus and just overall well being with making things with our hands. Well, guess what's one of the most practical things you can do with your hands is grow some of your own food. So I won't keep going, but let me tell you, the benefits to gardening are this long, but the barriers to gardening are also this big because it's something that we haven't learned how to do for decades. And there's a of lot all kinds of people who want to sell you all kinds of stuff that's all kinds of bad. So if you go just down to the general box store, they're going to have some really cheap materials to build your garden with. So you're going to spend not very much money on your garden materials, which means they're going to rot or fall apart or be hard to put together. But then they're going to have some really expensive plants. And those plants are going to have been grown with synthetic fertilizers. They're going to have herbicides and pesticides on them. And when you get them home, they're going to be very hard to keep alive because you don't know how to grow them the way the big box stores work. So most people are going to do that. They're going to head to the big box store or to a hardware store, maybe even a local nursery, and try to pull together some semblance of a plan for a garden. You're going to end up wasting a ton of money, probably hundreds of dollars of money. It's very likely you're going to plant the wrong thing at the wrong time. And then you're more likely to put your garden in the wrong place with the wrong setup. In other words, a year, two, three years from now, you're either going to have given up on gardening or you're going to have to scrap the whole thing and start over again. That's where a garden consultant comes in. A garden consultant knows where to find the best materials. They also know what grows each and every month in your town or city. They also know where to find the best plants and seeds that thrive in your climate. And finally, they've set up enough gardens to know how you should set up your garden for success wherever you live and garden. In other words, a garden consultant is going to save you time, they're going to save you money, they're going to save you frustration, and more than anything, they're going to save you from quitting. Because there's only one thing worse than never getting to garden, and that's starting a garden and then quitting. And that's one of the main reasons why you need to hire a garden consultant. But don't take it from me. I want you to hear from some of our best gardenary garden consultants from around the country. We have garden consultants that can serve you in almost every major city of the US and even across the world. So I want to introduce you to some of them in this video and listen to the reasons why they think you should hire them as a garden consultant, too. Somebody should hire me to be their garden consultant because I come with a.

Professional respect for the desires of your heart. I can take your vision, your dreams, and make it a reality for you.

So why should somebody hire me as a garden consultant? Just my background and unique experience in a totally different field. But, you know, the fact that it still is consulting, like, I have a very, you know, I'm able to kind of have conversations, you know, with and figure out what somebody's needs are and then how you know best to address those needs. So I think kind of the transition is easy from that perspective, but then also, like, one of the reasons why. So I mentioned cybersecurity before. I mean, a bunch, but, like, certifications are big in cybersecurity, right? And so I kind of took that and was like, all right, well, I'm going to then certify myself, you know, in gardening, right? And then so that way, you know, if people look at me, they're like, okay, this guy kind of knows what he's talking about. He's not just some random dude who, like, says he likes to garden, right? So I have permaculture research certification as well. So I'm very familiar with permaculture and the various concepts. That's actually how I learned about the food forest. I think that I have a unique. I Mean, everybody here has unique knowledge, right? You know, we're all, you know, and so, you know, everyone has those, you know, something to provide there. But I think just from the permaculture aspect and then just some of my other gardening knowledge and experience as well as this, you know, the consulting side of the house. Permaculture, I guess, stands for, like permanent culture. It's just this idea that, like, we as human beings, like, we need to live somewhere, we need to eat things, we need to sleep. Like, you know, we have like these four physiological, basic needs. Right? Everybody needs that. But then why do we still have so much, so many problems and so much trouble like providing that? It's interesting because like, there's like the, like one of the last chapters in the certification course is basically talking about like, you know, legal structures of bio regional communities and things like that to where it's like. So it's like not even like gardening, it's kind of talking about like, how can we kind of like structure things so that way, like, we're more efficient, you know, we can provide more locally grown food and nutrient dense food to people who need it. Right. And things like that. So I guess to go back to the question of why permaculture, it just seemed like it was this all encompassing, you know, concept that focused on some really key and basic needs that, you know, regardless of what you believe in or, you know, what religion, race, gender orientation, whatever, like, you can't really argue that, you know, everybody needs somewhere nice to sleep. You know, everybody needs some kind of food and, you know, water and things like that. And so to me, it just kind of was like, well, how can you really argue with that? I think that more people need to do things that are a net positive rather than a net negative.

So when you choose me to be your garden consultant, you will gain an understanding of how to connect yourself to nature, to your yard, to your kitchen, to your family, to building those relationships and memories that will last a lifetime.

So I am a pro at integrating homegrown foods into modern busy lives. I get that we don't have time and we struggle to finish everything that we have to do. There's so many easy ways to, 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 how to figure out how best to fit that into your life. So my favorite clients to work with are the people who are going through life changes. So whether it's, you know, becoming an empty nester or wanting to garden with their kids and just getting their kids doing something different, or if they're recovering from a major health issue, too, and really kind of getting through those major life changes. I found that the garden can just give you a place to center and to rebuild from. So I love working with gardeners who have had those changes and 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.

Someone should hire me as a garden consultant because I've failed. I failed for years and years and years, 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. 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 or wheelchair access, or children with special needs that you want to work with, or if it's just for you and your specific needs for gardens, I want to tailor your garden to you. And that's my specialty, is making it work.

So 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. And 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. What they would like it to be as well. And figuring out how can we mold these together in a harmonious way.

I think somebody should hire me. One, because I. I love gardening. And two, I think that 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 kind of 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, it's strictly I'm encouraging people to garden from the ground up. So that's my modern commitment to it.

I think the reason that I would be an excellent choice for a garden consultant is because I do understand the balance between the art of a garden and the functionality of life. Right. It's got to work between both. I understand that we have to make all of this work in the reality of our day to day.

Right.

But then we have to take someone's hand and walk them through this journey.

Right.

And that starts from the beginning and painting a picture. 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. Whether or not Hamlin Garden stays with them through the life of their garden, I think that Hamlin Garden will have a. 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.

I'd like to think someone would hire me as their garden consultant because they trust me. I'll bring to them the information that they need, but also I can show.

Them the skills and coach them all the way through. I can give them as little or as much as they want.

All right, are you ready to hire a garden consultant? Right below this video, we have a link for you to find a consultant near you. You're going to fill out a quick form. We will match you with a consultant in your area and let you know how to get started with them right away. If you watch this video and you're actually a gardener and you're thinking you might want to be a garden consultant, we've got a link right below this video for you as well to join the garden coach business Kickstart, where I'll teach you all about the garden consulting industry and help you find out if this kind of business is a fit for you as well. You either got to be a garden consultant or you got to go find your own garden consultant to help you. Those are the only two kinds of people in the world. All right. Check out the links right below this video. Thank you so much for watching and put below this video. What question? Your number one question you would ask a garden consultant if you got to talk to one today. Thanks for watching. I'll see you next time. Thanks so much for listening to the Grow youw Self podcast. You can keep listening anywhere. You love getting your podcast delivered on Apple podcasts, on Spotify, iHeartra, Heart Radio, you name it, we are there for you. And if you want to read the notes and get our free resources to help you grow more, you can go to gardenary.com podcast.