BALES ✳ CUSTOM GARDENING
DENVER, CO — EST. 2004

A DENVER GARDEN STUDIO · SINCE 2004

Painting
with plants.

I always say creating a garden is like painting with plants. For more than twenty years, my crew and I have tended perennial beds across the Denver metro — and we treat every yard like it is our own.

ZONE 5 SPECIALISTS SEASON MAR–NOV CERTIFIED COLORADO GARDENER OWNER-LED CREW
++++

01 — THE STORY

My husband Clint and I moved to Denver from Kansas in 2000. After years managing a local design/build landscaping firm, I started Bales Custom Gardening Services in 2004 with a small group of hand-selected clients — and a lot of back-breaking work. Clint joined me in 2006. Today we are an experienced team of garden professionals who share my love of plants and the great Colorado outdoors.

I am a Certified Colorado Gardener through Colorado State University's Master Gardener Program, with a deep working knowledge of Zone 5 perennial and shrub material. My designs have been featured in several Denver print publications. Outside the garden I write poetry and play in a band — both feed the same eye for color and rhythm I bring to a planting bed. Word has it a typical client relationship lasts about seven years, and I am proud that a majority of our original clients still have us tending their gardens.

Service index

FIVE DISCIPLINES · ONE OBSESSION: THE BED
01

Perennial & Shrub Bed Care

Our core discipline and the reason most clients find us. Routine bed maintenance through the season: deadheading, dividing overgrown clumps, edging, weeding by hand, and keeping every planting reading clean and intentional from March through November. We learn each bed's personality — what thrives, what sulks — and adjust the care to the plants, not the calendar.

SEASON
MAR — NOV
02

Zone 5 Plantings

New perennial and shrub installations chosen for Colorado's real conditions: freeze-thaw springs, intense sun, clay soils, and the occasional June hailstorm. I design in layered color — the mixed-color approach that earned our landscape awards — so the bed carries interest from the first snowmelt crocus to the last October aster.

DESIGN +
INSTALL
03

Veggie Gardens & Food Crops

Garden plans, installs, and organic food-crop management for people who want to eat from their yard. Raised beds, in-ground rows, and succession planting timed to Denver's short season. We handle the soil prep, the planting calendar, and the weekly tending — you handle the harvest basket.

ORGANIC
PRACTICES
04

Spring & Fall Cleanups

The bookends of the season. Spring: cut back winter damage, wake the beds, refresh edges, and set the garden up for its best year. Fall: leaf removal, perennial cutbacks, bed put-to-rest, and compost top-dressing so everything sleeps well under the snow. These are the visits that make the whole year easier.

SEASONAL
BOOKENDS
05

Mulch, Compost & Containers

Mulching and composting of beds to feed the soil biology that feeds your plants — the quiet work behind every lush garden. Plus seasonal container designs for porches and patios: the same color-layering eye, in miniature. Our containers took first place in Zone 4 Magazine's annual contest.

SOIL FIRST
ALWAYS

02 — THE WORKING YEAR · MARCH THROUGH NOVEMBER

A year in the garden

MARCH — MAY

Spring
awakening

Denver springs are a negotiation with the weather — three good workdays a week if we are lucky. We spend them cutting back winter-killed growth, dividing crowded perennials, refreshing bed edges, and getting new plantings in the ground while the soil is workable. This is also when veggie garden plans get drawn and raised beds get built, so the food season starts on time.

  • Cut back perennials & ornamental grasses
  • Divide and transplant crowded clumps
  • Bed edging + first mulch pass
  • Veggie plan, soil prep, bed builds

JUNE — AUGUST

High summer
stewardship

Summer is the long middle: deadheading to stretch the bloom season, hand-weeding before anything sets seed, watching irrigation, and keeping shrubs shaped without shearing the life out of them. Food crops get their weekly management — trellising, succession sowing, pest scouting the organic way. The garden should look effortless now; the effort is ours.

  • Deadheading for extended bloom
  • Hand weeding + shrub shaping
  • Food crop trellising & succession sowing
  • Container refresh for late summer

SEPTEMBER — NOVEMBER

The autumn
cutback

The back end of the season is my favorite work: leaf cleanups, perennial cutbacks, compost top-dressing, and putting every bed to rest properly. A garden that goes into winter clean comes out of it strong — spring starts in October, as far as the soil is concerned. We finish when the snow tells us to.

  • Leaf removal & bed cleanups
  • Perennial cutbacks
  • Compost top-dressing
  • Winter protection for tender plants

03 — RECOGNITION

2008

Excellence in Landscape — Associated Landscape Contractors of Colorado

Cutting-edge use of mixed colors, Nelsen Residence, Cherry Creek North.

2010

First Place — Zone 4 Magazine Annual Container Contest

Seasonal container design, judged on composition and plant health.

2012

Excellence in Landscape — Associated Landscape Contractors of Colorado

Use of color, Klein Residence, Centennial.

How we start

a.

Walk the garden together

We meet at your place, walk every bed, and talk about what you want the garden to be. No clipboards-and-pressure — just looking, listening, and honest notes.

b.

A plan in plain language

You get a written scope: what we will do, when, and what it costs. In person, by phone, text, or email — whatever you are most comfortable with.

c.

The work, on schedule

We show up when we say we will. That is the whole secret behind twenty years of word-of-mouth: show up, do good work, repeat.

d.

A garden that compounds

Perennials reward patience. Year one sleeps, year two creeps, year three leaps — and we are there for all of it.

Sample pricing

Spring bed awakening

Cutback, edge, first weed pass and mulch for an average front-yard perennial bed.

from $220

Season bed care, monthly

One visit a month, March–November: deadhead, weed, shape, and keep it all reading clean.

from $160/mo

Veggie garden install

Two raised beds built, soil filled, and a planted spring plan timed to Denver's season.

from $850
SAMPLE PRICING — FINAL QUOTE AFTER A WALK-THROUGH

Asked often

Which parts of Denver do you serve?

The Denver metro area. Over the years we have scaled our service area as the metro has grown and traffic has gotten tighter — ask us about your neighborhood and we will give you a straight answer.

Do you only do maintenance, or new plantings too?

Both. Bed maintenance is our core, but we also design and install Zone 5 perennial and shrub plantings, veggie garden plans and installs, and seasonal containers.

When does your season run?

Roughly March through November. Weather runs the calendar in Colorado — some weeks give us three or four good workdays, and we plan around that honestly rather than promising what the sky won't allow.

Are your practices organic?

We manage food crops organically and favor compost, mulch, and hand work over chemicals across the board. Healthy soil does most of the pest control for you.

How do we stay in touch during the season?

However you prefer — in-person walk-throughs, phone calls, texts, or email. What clients seem to value most is that we treat their yard like it is our own.

04 — SAY HELLO

Your garden,
tended.

CALL — (555) 010-2030
WRITE — [email protected]
HOURS — MON–FRI · 8A–5P · MAR–NOV
BALES CUSTOM GARDENING SERVICES
DENVER, COLORADO