FIELD NOTES · BALES CUSTOM GARDENING · EST. 2004
Every garden has a seasonal arc. Ours is written in the beds.
I am Amy Bales. Since 2004 my crew and I have tended perennial and shrub beds across the Denver metro — a seasonal business, roughly March through November, shaped by Colorado weather and the plants that can take it. I am a Certified Colorado Gardener through Colorado State University's Master Gardener Program, and I always say creating a garden is like painting with plants: color, layer, rhythm, and the patience to let it compose itself. What follows is one working year, in five chapters. It is also, more or less, how every one of our client relationships begins.
MARCH — APRIL · THE THAW
Spring starts underground.
The season opens with the spring cleanup: cutting back winter-killed perennial growth, clearing the leaves the wind tucked into every corner, and re-cutting bed edges so the whole garden reads crisp again. We divide crowded clumps while they are still sleepy, top-dress with compost, and lay the first mulch pass. Denver springs give us three, maybe four good workdays a week — we plan around the sky, honestly, rather than promising what the weather will not allow.
New plantings go in now too: Zone 5 perennials and shrubs chosen for freeze-thaw springs, fierce sun, and clay soil. And the veggie plans get drawn — raised beds built, soil amended, the food season timed to start on cue.
MAY — JUNE · PLANTING & COMPOSITION
Painting, layer by layer.
This is the composition chapter. I design in layered color — tall structural plants at the back, mid-season performers in the middle, and low drifts that stitch it all together — the mixed-color approach that earned our landscape awards. Every plant is chosen for its weeks of interest, so the bed carries from the first snowmelt crocus to the last October aster.
Containers get their summer designs for porches and patios: the same color-layering eye, in miniature. Our containers once took first place in Zone 4 Magazine's annual contest, and we still plant every one like it is being judged.
JULY — AUGUST · THE LONG MIDDLE
Stewardship, quietly.
Summer is the long middle of the story: deadheading to stretch the bloom season, hand-weeding before anything sets seed, shaping shrubs without shearing the life out of them, and keeping an eye on irrigation through the hot weeks. Food crops get weekly management — trellising, succession sowing, pest scouting the organic way. The garden should look effortless now. The effort is ours.
My husband Clint and I run the crew the way we have since he joined in 2006: experienced garden professionals who share our love of plants and the Colorado outdoors. We treat your yard like it is our own — clients tell us that is the thing they notice.
SEPTEMBER · HARVEST & SECOND BLOOM
The garden pays you back.
September is the reward: the last tomatoes, the asters and grasses hitting their stride, containers still going strong. Veggie clients get their harvest baskets; perennial beds get a last deadhead and a long look ahead. We note what thrived, what sulked, and what wants dividing next spring — every bed has a personality, and we keep its biography.
Word has it a typical client relationship lasts about seven years. I am proud that a majority of our original clients — the hand-selected few from 2004 — still have us tending their gardens. Gardens compound. So does trust.
OCTOBER — NOVEMBER · THE CUTBACK
Put to rest, properly.
The back end of the season is my favorite work: fall cleanups, perennial cutbacks, leaf removal, compost top-dressing, and winter protection for the tender ones. 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.
Then the beds sleep, and we sharpen the tools, order the seed, and wait for March. Twenty-two seasons in, the rhythm never gets old.
CHAPTER 06 · YOURS
Begin the conversation.
Every project starts the same way: we walk your garden together, look at every bed, and talk about what you want it to be. Then you get a written scope in plain language — what we will do, when, and what it costs. In person, by phone, text, or email: whatever you are most comfortable with.
Show up when we say we will, do good work, and let word of mouth do the rest. That has been the whole business plan since 2004, and it still works.
WHAT WE TEND
- Perennial & shrub bed careROUTINE · MAR–NOV
- Zone 5 plantingsDESIGN + INSTALL
- Veggie gardens & food cropsORGANIC PRACTICES
- Spring & fall cleanupsSEASONAL BOOKENDS
- Mulch, compost & containersSOIL FIRST
SAMPLE PRICING
- Spring bed awakening — from $220SAMPLE · WALK-THROUGH QUOTE FINAL
- Monthly season care — from $160/moSAMPLE · MAR–NOV
- Veggie garden install — from $850SAMPLE · TWO RAISED BEDS PLANTED
- Fall cleanup & cutback — from $240SAMPLE · LEAF + PERENNIAL WORK