Mel personally handles all of our design work, from initial convo to project close. She designs custom spaces for you.

PLACE works with clients of diverse backgrounds, income levels, gardening ambitions, and locales. We don’t believe projects can be ‘too big’ or ‘too small.’ We love em all. Mel has done container planting for fire escape railings and worked as a live-in gardener on a 200-acre private estate.

For clients within 1.5h of Richmond, Mel will come to you. For clients further afield, she is available to design remotely; it’s surprisingly simple! She is also happy to travel for design projects. Mel does design work in New England during the summer and Australia during the winter, so she has a beat on myriad planting climates.

Mel doesn’t believe in hard and fast garden rules — except for the old plantsman principle: “Right plant, right place.” (Yep, that’s how PLACE got its name!)

All design work starts with an initial consult and includes soil testing, detailed measurements, style survey, midpoint consult, thoughtful design drawings, plant lists, implementation planning, and care guidance.

Mel designs plans spanning from one season (1S) to five years (5Y). She works with DIY clients, who take her designs and bring them to life; clients who want PLACE to manage the material sourcing and installation, but will handle ongoing care; and full-service clients, for whom PLACE handles every detail of design, sourcing, install, and care.

Each design is carefully tailored to the way you live, what you love, and how you spend your time. In every project, Mel’s goal is to create a space of ease, peace, delight, and surprise for you to enjoy.

If your garden stresses you out, you are in fulsome company. We can’t tell you how many times we are greeted with an apology for invasive overgrowth or unwieldy plantings or half-started yard projects.

Please know that we are absolutely non-judgmental, warm, and caring company on the journey to zhuzh up your places. There is nothing to be sorry about! Life is hard, busy, and brief; we’d love to take something off your plate.

If you are pressed for time or working with a smaller budget, garden consulting is a fab alternative to our full design process.

Mel will visit you on site and provide real-time guidance on how to tackle your project. (She also offers this service remotely, via videochat!) She will then write a how-to memo containing a simple garden plan, implementation instructions, and additional resources.

And yes, we offer consulting for indoor plants!

If you have gardening aspirations but little or no horticultural experience, Mel is totally happy to get in the garden with you and walk you through how to plant, prune, create a curvilinear victorian trench edge (for instance!), train a rambling rose (for example!), or anything else you might be curious about.

If you have garden experience but are struggling with a particular area, plant problem, or vision, she offers coaching services to help you move forward.

Coaching is tailored to your needs; Mel can visit you once or on a recurring basis. She can get down in the dirt alongside you and/or provide real-time guidance on how to tackle your project. (She also offers this service remotely, via videochat!)

And yes, we offer coaching for indoor plants!

Feel so overwhelmed you want to pass out when you step into a nursery? Oh, we have been there.

Don’t know where to find huge planters for under one billion dollars or outdoor furniture that doesn’t suck? (Mel is sick and tired of torturous garden seating that nobody actually wants to sit on! She does not believe in putting outside cushions away every night!)

Through years of trial-and-error, Mel has gotten sourcing down to a science and would love to make recommendations or accompany you on a buy. This is one of her fav parts of the job!

Mel is quite particular (‘aesthetically sensitive,’ perhaps?) when it comes to plants and furnishings; she buys the best. PLACE works with local nurseries and small businesses at every available opportunity.

See ‘Partnerships’ below for more info on who we source from.

Maybe you want a custom water feature, but don’t know who to use and don’t want to coordinate the whole rigmarole; you just wanna wake up with a freshwater pond in your backyard. Obsessed, yes.

Or you want hardscaping and irrigation and maybe grading and possibly tree work done, but you can’t take the headache. Put those aching feet up!

We will solicit quotes, bring in trusted and vetted specialists, meet them on site, and ensure all work is done to our standard.

Want a focal point for your backyard or a one-of-a-kind iron arbor or an intricately carved pergola? Love that for you.

We have relationships with myriad local artists, material specialists, and craftspeople who we will work hand-in-glove with to create the showstopper you’re dreaming about.

We are available to handle plant and material installation and removal for all projects we design.

Our five-person install team, always led onsite by Mel and/or John, takes care to make the project installation process seamless, with an emphasis on building soil quality, leaving every space better than we found it.

Our install team is a tight-knit and experienced crew. We are proud of their dedication, integrity, and creativity.

You’re never gonna see gravel smashed into your lawn, construction dust in your perennial beds, or a pile of tree limbs after we close the project.

We guarantee our installation work.

We are available to provide garden care services for clients we have done design, consult, and/or coaching work for.

Our five-person care team has a deep well of experience from precision pruning to invasive removal to soil science, as well as our care bread-and-butter: weeding.

This is a sick confession, but Mel lives to weed. Since she founded PLACE and has discovered new worlds like ‘payroll’ and ‘business licensing,’ she has had less time to explore her passion. But if Mel arrives at a restaurant before the rest of her group, you just might find her weeding the parking lot!

PLACE has established trade partnerships with a wide range of brands we love. We proudly work with:

Local nurseries, including Bright Seed Gardens, Boulevard Flower Gardens, Colesville Nursery, Cross Creek Nursery, Greenwitch Gardens & Native Plants, Jubilant Gardens, Moulton Hot Natives, Sandy’s Plants, Sneed’s, and The Gardener Nursery.

Outdoor furniture, decor, and supply stores, including Anthropologie, Article, Block Shop, Business & Pleasure Co, Crate & Barrel, CB2, Design Within Reach, Goodee, House of Léon, IKEA, Kettal, Kingsley Bate, Munder Skiles, Neighbor, Nickey Kehoe, ORCA, Outer, Pottery Barn, Rejuvenation, Restoration Hardware, Room & Board, Serena & Lily, Sundays, Veradek, and Williams Sonoma Home.

Specialty suppliers, including Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, David Austin, Gardeners Supply Co., Botanical Interests, and Farmer Bailey.

We welcome the opportunity to work with commercial, municipal, non-profit, and institutional clients. If your office park, recovery center, coffee shop, or concert venue needs garden work, give us a shout.

We also love to collaborate on planting design projects with real estate brokers, interior designers, architects, landscape architects, and other professionals.

For everything else that’s related to the world of gardening, landscaping, and plants but not mentioned here — or if you don’t know which type of service you might need — just ask us!

If we can’t do it, we’ll tell you who can. We adore Richmond’s generous horticulture community and are happy to spread the work around.