Design is the heart of our business. Mel leads all design work, from initial conversation to project close.

PLACE works with clients across a wide range of backgrounds, incomes, gardening ambitions, and locations. We cherish this variety and the creativity it invites. Mel has designed container plantings for fire escape railings and worked as a live-in gardener on a 200-acre private estate.

For clients within one hour of Richmond, Mel visits on site. For clients further afield, she designs remotely; it’s surprisingly simple. She also works in New England during the summer and Australia during the winter, bringing experience across a wide range of planting climates.

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

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

We provide installation and care services for landscapes we design.

Our garden team—always led onsite by Mel, John, and/or Jess—works with precision at every stage of installation, from soil preparation to planting, with a focus on building healthy soils and leaving each space better than we found it.

Care work includes responsive, site-specific tending; seasonal maintenance; pruning; weeding; and invasive removal.

Pressed for time, working with a smaller budget, or just want to dip a toe in? Garden consulting and/or coaching is a fab alternative to our full design process.

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

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

Mel visits on site to read the space and offer real-time guidance. You’ll then receive a clear, practical plan with next steps, planting direction, and resources.

We also offer coaching for specific questions or skills—how to plant, prune, train climbers, create a Victorian trench edge, all that good stuff. Sessions can be one-off or ongoing, in person or remote.

And yes, we offer consults and coaching for indoor plants!

Feel so overwhelmed you want to pass out when you step into a nursery? Don’t know where to find huge planters for under one billion dollars or outdoor furniture that doesn’t cramp your style?

Through years of trial and error, we’ve gotten sourcing down to a science and love making recommendations or accompanying clients on a buy. It’s one of our favorite parts of the job.

We are quite particular—“aesthetically sensitive,” perhaps—when it comes to plants and furnishings. We work with local nurseries and small businesses wherever possible, and only buy the best.

PLACE has established trade partnerships with a range of brands we love:

Local nurseries, including Bright Seed Gardens, Boulevard Flower Gardens, Colesville Nursery, Moulton Hot Natives, and Sneed’s.

Outdoor furniture, decor, and supply stores, including Block Shop, Business & Pleasure Co, Design Within Reach, Goodee, Kettal, Kingsley Bate, Munder Skiles, Nickey Kehoe, ORCA, Outer, Sundays, and Veradek.

Specialty suppliers, including David Austin, Farmer Bailey, and Heirloom.

We welcome the opportunity to work with commercial, municipal, non-profit, and institutional clients. This includes office parks, recovery centers, coffee shops, and concert venues—anywhere thoughtful planting can shape how a space is experienced.

We also enjoy collaborating with real estate brokers, interior designers, architects, landscape architects, and other professionals on planting-focused projects.

For anything in the world of gardens, landscapes, and plants that doesn’t quite fit here—or if you’re not sure what kind of help you need—feel free to reach out.

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.