Welcome to Wild Natives Estate Gardens
Our focus is on the maintenance and upkeep of larger residential gardens (a 1/2 acre or more) and clients who are looking for a comprehensive garden management service, not just a gardener. Instead of hiring a full-time garden manager that would be on-site all the time, we offer fractional garden management, giving you all the benefits of a garden manager, but only coming on-site as much as you are comfortable with.
We are the sister company to Wild Natives, a residential gardening company specializing in the smaller, urban gardens of the Bay Area’s more densely populated cities. Both companies concentrate on sustainable, low input gardening and the use of native plants. We exclusively garden organically and use Integrated Pest Management (IPM) instead of chemicals to deal with nuisances within your garden, creating a safe environment for clients, their children and pets.
How We Work
We have over 15 years of experience in managing estate gardens, and as a result have developed a multi-step process with which to engage prospective clients. The aim is maximum transparency and the establishment of trust for the long-term:
- Engagement: When meeting with you, your landscape architect or your property manager, we offer a complimentary first meeting in which we can better understand the scope of desired involvement.
- Consultation: Should your garden be in the design/installation phase, we can offer consultation on plant selection, appropriate plant palates, hydro-zoning, or other issues that are affected by our long-term garden maintenance ideals.
- Staffing: Once we have a good understanding of your garden's needs, we assign a garden manager to you. Our garden manager will act as your main point of contact, project manager, and advocate for your garden. Depending on the scope of the engagement we would also employ a stable crew of gardeners, so you can get to know and trust the gardeners that are going to be on your property regularly.
- Seasonal Planning and Maintenance: Your garden manager will meet with you regularly to create monthly maintenance plans, collaborate on seasonal or yearly planting plans, and help plan for any garden update projects, such as redoing pathways or cleaning gutters and garden furniture.
- Project Management: Your garden manager can also take responsibility for managing all the other aspects of your garden, including introducing and managing specialist contractors such as electricians, irrigation specialists (for large scale work), pond and pool maintenance people, and arborists.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you charge, by the hour or flat fee? What are your hourly rates? Do you have different rates
How do you charge, by the hour or flat fee? What are your hourly rates? Do you have different rates
How do you charge, by the hour or flat fee? What are your hourly rates? Do you have different rates
To be as transparent as possible we charge the same hourly rate for any gardener and any task. Our rate is a ‘blended’ rate that incorporates not only the hours worked by our gardeners, but also the supervision of our garden managers, consulting and quality assurance by Julie, the owner of the company, which is not charged separately. We only keep track of the hours each of our gardeners’ works and charge those hours, typically sticking to a pre-negotiated monthly budget of hours.
We also offer discounts on our rates for gardens at 50+ hours/month, and at 100+ hours/month. Please contact us to get the current rate for your area.
Do you mark up the supplies that you buy for your gardens?
How do you charge, by the hour or flat fee? What are your hourly rates? Do you have different rates
How do you charge, by the hour or flat fee? What are your hourly rates? Do you have different rates
While it is common in the industry to do so, we pass on any purchases that we make for your garden at cost (you will get copies of all receipts in your monthly invoices) and include any trade or volume discounts we get at the wholesalers we use. We only make money from our hourly rate. Nor do we get a commission or cut from any specialists we introduce and manage for you - that way our bias is only towards what’s best for your garden.
The only exception to this ‘no markups rule’ is when we are asked to manage existing gardeners you may currently have that you wish to keep on, but that don’t otherwise work with us. Please see the separate FAQ below for more details.
What if I have a special event in my garden and think I need more than my usual monthly maintenance?
How do you charge, by the hour or flat fee? What are your hourly rates? Do you have different rates
What if I have a special event in my garden and think I need more than my usual monthly maintenance?
At the start of our relationship we will negotiate a monthly budget of maintenance hours, but should you need work outside of regular maintenance (a large replanting job, seasonal replanting of beds, creating a new vegetable garden, etc) we can easily accommodate those individual requests. Your garden manger will give you regular reports and negotiate the work directly with you before plans are made to do the actual work.
Do I get to sign off on everything you do? How often do we meet?
Is there anything that you are uncomfortable doing in the garden?
What if I have a special event in my garden and think I need more than my usual monthly maintenance?
At the beginning of our relationship we try and describe to you the methods and time frames involved in getting your garden to the level of horticultural quality that we believe is appropriate. Typically there are a large number of hours up front to make any major changes you wish, and then a decrease to a lower monthly budget of hours for maintenance once your garden is consistently well-cared for over a period of time.
Once we have our monthly budget of hours for maintenance, there is no need to sign off on it each month, but our garden managers will typically meet with you on a monthly basis to go over seasonal changes and keep you abreast of the coming month’s activities. You’ll have as much scrutiny on any individual projects as you need to feel comfortable.
Can you work with or manage our existing gardeners?
Is there anything that you are uncomfortable doing in the garden?
Is there anything that you are uncomfortable doing in the garden?
We are very selective about the gardeners we hire because we need to be sure that they share our gardening philosophy and techniques (i.e. they must be able to prune properly, understand Integrated Pest Management, properly identify plants, etc.).
However, our garden managers work with all types of subcontractors. As such, we can work with any individual gardeners that you may have, but there will be a per-gardener management fee of $20/hour. This is because when managing gardeners (or any other subcontractor) the ultimate responsibility for the quality and health of your garden rests on our shoulders. We will waive this fee if we feel a gardener has sufficient skill to not need their work supervised or regularly corrected.
We can also create discrete areas of responsibility for ourselves and other gardeners, allowing you to contract independently for tasks like mowing large lawns, large scale ivy removal, etc. We obviously would not take any responsibility for independently contracted work.
Is there anything that you are uncomfortable doing in the garden?
Is there anything that you are uncomfortable doing in the garden?
Is there anything that you are uncomfortable doing in the garden?
There are two types of garden tasks that we don’t do as a company. The first would be specialist tasks such as hardscaping/construction, troubleshooting of large-scale irrigation lines, putting in large lawns, planting or trimming large trees (over 15’) etc. We pass on these tasks to specialists who focus solely on a particular type of gardening (irrigation specialists, arborists, etc). We can happily introduce you to them and manage them for you, as we think that they provide a more efficient and cost-effective service than that which we could provide ourselves.
The other type of tasks are ones that we are philosophically opposed to. A primary example would be the use of chemicals like glyphosate (Round Up). We see no value in their use and do not think it good for the health of you, your garden or our gardeners. As such, we would respectfully decline to work in gardens that use them.
Can you have all subcontractors bill you, instead of me?
Do you offer services to businesses or commercial properties?
Can you have all subcontractors bill you, instead of me?
We can either take charge of all the invoices you may receive for work done in your garden, letting you only write one check to us each month - we would pass on all invoices to you at cost, making no profit off of them (other than when managing other gardeners - please see our FAQ on this topic). If you prefer, we are also happy to have any or all subcontractors bill you directly.
How often will you be onsite?
Do you offer services to businesses or commercial properties?
Can you have all subcontractors bill you, instead of me?
Our presence onsite in client gardens is negotiated at the start of each relationship. This determines the size of the gardening crew that we assign to the garden. Factors in that decision include whether the garden is stable or needs major changes, whether there is a desire for a vegetable garden, and how often we need to check on the garden (e.g. in hot areas we do not like to visit less than once a week, to ensure the health of your garden and that your irrigation is functioning correctly).
Do you offer services to businesses or commercial properties?
Do you offer services to businesses or commercial properties?
I don’t see anything on design services on your website - do you offer design services?
No. At this time our focus is solely on residential gardens.
I don’t see anything on design services on your website - do you offer design services?
I don’t see anything on design services on your website - do you offer design services?
I don’t see anything on design services on your website - do you offer design services?
Estate gardens typically have a relationship with a landscape architect or designer, and as such we work in a complimentary manner with them to maintain their vision of the garden. If need be, we can redesign beds as a part of seasonal planting, a transition to native plants, hydrozoning, etc., but we try to respect the existing design where possible. We do offer design services in our sister company, but as with other garden specialists, find that architects can be more cost-effective than using us for large-scale designs.
Do I have to use native plants in my garden to use your services?
I don’t see anything on design services on your website - do you offer design services?
Do you cover my area? Where in the Bay Area can I get your services?
Not at all. We have a focus on natives plants and will always try and offer you a native option for your plans - for example; while we understand that large gardens generally need hedges for screening purposes, we will offer you the choice of less formally manicured native plant material, which will bring down your monthly water usage and also create a more sustainable garden. However, we never lose sight that it’s your garden and will ultimately give you what you want.
Do you cover my area? Where in the Bay Area can I get your services?
I don’t see anything on design services on your website - do you offer design services?
Do you cover my area? Where in the Bay Area can I get your services?
Please refer to our coverage map for details of where we are currently working. Feel free to contact us for more details