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Complete Master Plan

Design a Long-Term Landscape Vision

Develop a detailed, low-maintenance plan that guides years of growth and enjoyment.

Work with a garden coach and designer to craft a detailed, long-term plan for your whole landscape, then refine key areas together through on-site coaching sessions.

Sessions

  • 6–9 sessions

  • 75 minutes each


Price

$900–$3,500, depending on the size of your landscape, your desired level of detail, and how many coaching sessions you choose. We’ll talk this through and provide a clear quote after the initial visit.

Need more coaching sessions later? You can add extra sessions anytime; each additional session is $110.

Travel fees outside of the Iowa City area are estimated up front and included in your quote.

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Benefits

  • Plan for the Long Term: Create a clear, detailed roadmap for your entire landscape or major sections of it.

  • Dial in Details: Decide exact bed shapes, path widths, plant groupings, and hardscape features with expert guidance.

  • Maximize Benefits: Increase food, habitat, shade, privacy, and beauty while reducing mowing and maintenance.

  • Pace the Work: Receive a multi-year establishment plan that matches your time, budget, and energy.

  • Co-Create in Real Time: Use integrated coaching sessions to refine designs in the landscape, not just on paper.


Process

  1. Initial Visit: We walk your property, discuss your goals and constraints, and gather measurements for a detailed base map.

  2. Site Assessment: We map sun, shade, slopes, water flow, access points, and existing plants.

  3. Concept Options: We create two or three high-level "bubble" drawings that show main areas, paths, and major features.

  4. Refine Together: During follow-up coaching sessions, we "walk the design," choose favorite elements, and shape a final concept plan. This final concept layout serves as the foundation for your master plan.

  5. Co-Design Sessions: In on-site coaching sessions, we stand in each key area together, refine bed shapes, path routes, focal points, and plant groupings.

  6. Detailed Drawings: We translate these shared decisions into scaled planting plans and hardscape layouts that show exact locations and sizes.

  7. Establishment Planning: We outline a realistic, step-by-step implementation plan, season by season, so you know what to do and when.

  8. Focused Progress: Additional sessions zoom in on priority areas to start moving from designs into concrete steps.

What You Receive

  • Walk-Through Recommendations: A slow walk around your space with on-the-spot ideas about your dreams, what’s working, and what’s not working.

  • Hands-On Layout Help: Standing in the yard with you to mark out beds, paths, and features using flags, rope, or quick sketches.

  • Publications: Research-based handouts and articles that explain concepts and practices in clear, beginner-friendly language.

  • Clear Priorities: A short list of focus areas and steps, so you know what to do next and what can wait.

  • Session Summary: A short follow-up email summarizing key decisions, ideas, and your next small steps.

  • Plant Lists: Researched low-maintenance plants and seed mixes that fit your goals, area conditions, and maintenance level.

  • Management Tips: Guidance on planting, watering, weeding, mulching, and seasonal care crafted so that fits your available time.

  • Resources and Materials Tips: Recommendations for raised bed kits, containers, edging, tools, soil, mulch, and local or online sources that fit your budget.

  • Scaled Base Map: A to-scale drawing of your property that shows structures, boundaries, and major existing features.

  • Assessment Summary: A plain-language overview of sun, shade, slopes, soil, water flow, and key opportunities or challenges.

  • Concept Layouts: Big-picture "bubble" drawings that show where main areas and features reside and how travel paths bring them together.

  • Detailed Layout: Precise drawings that define bed shapes, pathways, and key features.

  • Hardscape Plan: A plan that shows exact locations and sizes of paths, patios, walls, edging, and other built elements.

  • Planting Plan: A map showing exact counts and locations of plants, plant groups, and ground covers along with spacing and characteristics.

  • 3D Renderings: Perspective views that help you visualize what the design will look like from ground level.

  • Establishment Plan: A season-by-season or year-by-year schedule that breaks work into manageable phases.

Find the Path that Fits You

Has your space or stress has been tugging at you?

Schedule a free 15-minute phone or Zoom call to:

  • Share a bit about your space and goals.

  • Learn which coaching or design options fit your budget and energy.

  • Ask questions and decide, together, on a first step.


Send us a note to find times that work. We typically reply within 2–3 days, and most people have their first session within 1–2 weeks.

Why Households Choose Us

Add a Discounted Book

Add a discounted copy of Low-Maintenance Eco Gardens to your coaching package for $20.

 

It’s a friendly, practical guide that supports everything we’ll work on together, from lowering maintenance to creating a calmer, more resilient space.

Got Questions?

Upcoming Classes and Events

EarthMind

EarthMind Practice (formerly Backyard Abundance) is a nonprofit that helps people and communities cultivate calm, connection, and resilience through nature-based coaching, hands-on learning, and ecological garden design.

P.O. Box 1605

Iowa City, IA  52244

319-325-6810

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