EP337- Online Garden Consultations That Get You Unstuck

June 2026 consultations available to book here 

https://mastermygarden.com/consultation/

You can spend months staring at your garden and still not know what to do first, especially after a new build, a renovation, or a big change in how you want to use the space. We’re sharing a short, practical announcement episode about a service we’ve brought back: online garden consultations that help you move from ideas to a clear, doable plan.

We explain exactly what you get from a one-hour-ish Zoom garden consultation, including a simple pre-call questionnaire to clarify your goals, what’s blocking you, and the budget you’re working with. This is not a garden design service. It’s hands-on garden coaching focused on actionable next steps, smart sequencing, and the kind of decisions that stop you wasting money on plants, trees, and materials that don’t suit your site.

You’ll also hear real examples of what people bring to these calls: a 1970s house renovation needing boundary, pond and patio guidance; a steep, tricky site that needed a staged landscaping plan; a new build with a paper plan that didn’t match real conditions; and even an outdoor classroom garden designed to feel private, welcoming and rich in pollinator-friendly planting.

We keep availability intentionally tight with only two slots per month, and we share the current booking details, price, and how to secure a time. If you want tailored garden advice you can act on straight away, subscribe, share the episode with a friend who’s stuck, and leave us a review.

Transcript

Why This Is A Different Episode

SPEAKER_00 0:12

How's it going everybody? And welcome to episode 337. Now, this is not a normal episode as such. It's an episode just to highlight a new service that I've added, which is garden consultations, online garden consultations. It's something I actually did a couple of years ago, and technical reasons I I as I've mentioned millions of times before, really pour the tech side, but I have somebody helping me in the background now, and we've got that back up and running.

What The Consultation Service Is

SPEAKER_00 0:44

So essentially it's um it's a service that basically you get an online consultation with myself. And they were, you know, they were popular when I had them, when I had them a couple of years ago, and they're quite useful. And I suppose the purpose of them is it's not a garden design. So I'm not a garden designer, as you guys will know. Anyone that's listening to the podcast for a while will know that I'm not a garden designer, but I try to give practical um information that will be able to be actionable and help in the garden. That's what the podcast is about, that's what my workshops are about, and that's what these consultations will be about. So they're very, very practical and actionable. Um, you know, the information and everything that that I do is is sort of along those lines.

Who It Helps And Why

SPEAKER_00 1:36

Uh but to give you an idea of what the you know a consultation would involve, so essentially I would just open up two slots per month, that's it. Uh the for the month of June, it's on Friday, the 26th of June. So there's two slots available for Friday, the 26th of June, and then I'll open up two for July once we get into July and so on. But there'll only ever be two per month available. And the idea of them is if you're working on something in your garden, if you're planning something in your garden, or you're a newbie, really only getting started, want to develop something and just not sure how to start it, that's the type of advice. Uh, or if you're a gardener that is, you know, has been growing, has relatively decent experience, but is trying to, you know, create something in the garden and you're reaching a block, or you're struggling to come up with an idea, or you're struggling to move it from you know, idea to inception, that's I suppose where this would help you. So it kind of gets you unstuck. And as as I sort of planned out this, the the idea of Master My Garden is to help you basically, you know, have the garden that you want, the garden of your dreams. And that could be very, very different for everybody. You know, it could be that you just want a fabulous kitchen garden, you want to be able to bring as much food as possible to the kitchen table. It could be that you want, you know, beautiful cut flower garden. It could be that you want low maintenance uh or you want you know a kid's area, it could be, you know, a wildlife garden, it could be anything. Your your idea of the perfect garden will be totally different to somebody else's. And that's the beauty of it. You know, everybody will have a different kind of outcome or end goal that they will have with their garden. Um that's the one thing about gardening, I guess it's always evolving and always changing, and you know everything moves and continues and grows and changes over time. So um, but where this where this will help you is if you have a plan and you want to get to the next stage of it, it's ideal. Uh so the consultations I've previously done are with people who have just finished a self-build or have a newly built house, and now they're moving to the outside. And at that stage, a consultation is really, really helpful to point out what should be next or what to do next, or what's worth looking at next, and the steps and the stages that will allow you to you know to move through because when you finish a self-build, you could have uh piles of play outside, rubble, uh services in the ground, and just you're just not sure how to move to the next stage.

Real Results From Past Consultations

SPEAKER_00 4:39

And that's you know, that's really helpful. So I'll read out some of the reviews from people that have previously done them and I to give you an idea. Um the other thing is it's really useful if you're you know, if you have, say, a garden idea in mind and you have a relative budget to go with it. So it could be a case that your budget is 500 euro, it could be a case that your budget is 5,000, it could be 50,000, whatever your budget is to achieve what it is you want to achieve outside. The consultation will give you a good idea of what the next steps are or what you should be doing. If you're at the lower end of that budget and you know you want to create a bail with 500 euro, I'll give you the ideas, the tips, the know-how to be able to create, you know, on a budget. If it's the next level, I'll be able to direct you in the right direction, what you should be doing next, maybe who you should be talking to, maybe suppliers that you could use, materials that you could use, and it'll just make that process uh a lot easier. Uh as I said, two slots per month and that and that'll be that'll be all that'll be available. Um to give you an idea, as I say, of some of the some of the previous ones that I've done. This one comes from Carl Farrell and it was in Longford, one of the earlier ones I've done. And Carl says, I'm coming to the end of a 1970s detached house renovation and contacted John for advice. I remember this one actually quite well. Um for advice on the boundary of the property, rejuvenating own shrubs, a pond area which needed refreshment, a new patio area, and lawn reduction. That was a big thing, was the lawn was huge and he wanted to get a reduction in it. We did an online consultation via Zoom. Yeah, that's that's the other thing. All of them are done by Zoom. And we walked, you know, Carl walked through the garden, showed me different areas. There was a little bit of a questionnaire beforehand as well, and it was an excellent consultation where he got access to John's experience of gardening, suggested some changes that he wouldn't have thought of in his wildest dreams, and he's currently acting on. Thanks very much, John. So that one was you know, it was a it was an old house that had been rejuvenated. The house itself got a facelift, was brought into you know modern look, but the garden had a lot of old style features, many of which Car wanted to keep for sentimental reasons. Huge lawn, which wanted to reduce, fruit trees which needed to be added, pond which needed to be rejuvenated, and yeah, we we got through a lot in that, and yeah, it has been progressing, progressing ever since. Um, another one that I had uh from Danny and Rena, they were recommended to John by a friend who previously used his services and were very happy. From the get-go, we found them extremely easy to deal with, knowledgeable and practical. He gave us a very simple to-do list, which is exactly what we needed. He knew exactly what plants and shrubs would be suitable on our tricky site, so we we we feel we offset the cost of his service very, very quickly by not wasting money uh on plants that would never have taken. All in all, we're delighted with his service. Jog is a lovely guy. But highly recommend to anyone looking for an expert in in gardening and landscaping. Yeah, that that was a that was a really interesting one. And that's a good example. So that was Danny and Rina had just completed um uh a rebuild of a cottage um created into a totally different house. Beautiful house, beautiful house, uh, but on an extremely tricky site, so severe slopes, uh, slopes in more than one direction. So multi-directional uh slopes, high banks, uh tricky ground, a lot of stone in it, um, but on a certain level of budget for year one and then assigning more budget for year two and so on. So it wasn't going to be something that you could come in and do you know a huge job in one year and take the garden from uh building site to garden. It was a staged approach. And by using by you know having the initial consultation, they were able to take the right steps and you know, as they said, not waste any money. And now, a couple of years later, and I've been involved in it at a couple of stages down along the line since then, it has been a huge transformation, and it's a fabulous, fabulous garden now. Um so that was a that yeah, that was a really interesting one, and it's one that's still evolving since then. But the initial the initial, I suppose, consultation, it means that you've taken the right steps. So at that stage, there was no, for example, there was no curbs, there was no uh boundaries, there was there was a wall needed to be built, there was you know steps into different areas, there was um potential ideas for a kid's play area, you know, would that work? Could it work? Uh it was on a height, you know, how do we take the next steps? And those steps have been taken now, and the transformation over you know, whatever it is, three or four years has been has been immense there. Um another one with uh large new build patio and garden planting. So yeah, actually, this is Peter and Emma. Just for transparency, Peter is my cousin, but that didn't uh influence the you know the the work that I was doing for him. The consultant and shows Master My Garden. Um because we're both gardening novices with a new build and didn't know where to start. Now this one was slightly different because a lot of the beds, there was a garden design plan in place, and a lot of the beds were in that garden design and were built during the build stage. And then you know, the I came in at that stage to talk about what plants would work. And again, not neither of them are are you know professional gardeners or gardening for a long time. These are people moving into the house for the first time, gardening as such for the first time, with a good bit of interest, but not much knowledge. And now everything flows, we have lots of colour throughout the year. We look forward to watching the flowers and plants grow and see which ones are our favourite. In addition, our grass and a number of trees on the site were struggling, and John was able to advise on what was needed to rejuvenate these, feed the lawn, etc. And that was an interesting one because again I said there was a garden plan in place here, but that garden plan had you know different trees recommended, and there was a garden plan that was done from an office somewhere. There was not a thing wrong with the garden plan in terms of you know it's you know how it looked. It was a it was a really nice garden plan. But as I say, it was done from an office miles away because the trees that went in, you know, they really, really were not suitable for the site. Now, since then we have done a lot of work on them, we've got them going. They are establishing really well at this stage, but it has been a hard slog and a constant work to get them to where they are now. And so this is what I'm saying at the at those earlier stages, especially on new build, um, consultation like that can be worked. You know, some people you will offset the cost of the consultation really, really quickly because you won't waste any money on trees, shrubs, plants, etc. Um another one was uh an outdoor school for um a local school. They had received it funding for an outdoor classroom, and at this stage they asked me to come in as a consultant on we designed an enclosed garden, timber fencing, archway, giving the classroom a defined feeling and privacy so to create a kind of a zone that you know that was useful and and screened it off, give them a bit of privacy, melted, made it feel like they were outside, connected to nature, but also that they were you know working within this zone. So it was ideal. Uh hedging was used then to soften the view, flower beds were added with various shrubs, uh, perennials, bulbs, etc. Focusing on attracting pollinators, and that was very good from an educational perspective and an interest perspective, and also teaching the children to be a positive influence within their landscape. And so, yeah, that was that was a really interesting one. It turned out lovely. There was bark chip put down on the ground, picnic benches put in, and yeah, it's it it's really nice. I'd like to see that in more schools. So yeah, thanks to John for his expert guidance and practical approach. So that's just kind of some of the you know the the the type of of concept that I've done in the past. It isn't, as I say, this isn't a garden design consultation. I don't do garden design. I understand some garden design concepts, but generally speaking, I'm not a garden designer. So if you want a garden designer, I'm not your person. But if you want somebody who is able to take you from idea to plan to, you know, a a garden that you can be proud of, whatever that is, whether that's uh, as I say, kitchen garden, um cut flower beds, whatever it is, and to give you the right guidance so that you're not, I suppose you're taking the right steps all the time. That's what these consultations are. And

Pricing, Booking And What You Get

SPEAKER_00 14:09

as I say, two slots, Friday, the 26th of June, and then after that, once we get into July, two slots will open up for July. It's likely to be the last the last Friday of each month. That's likely to be what it is. I have uh a big birthday coming up myself in July, so I'm not certain on July's dates yet. They will be confirmed very, very soon. But for June, it is Friday, the 26th of June, and there's two slots available. Uh the consultation itself is 200 euro. It's you know a one-hour-ish Zoom talk Zoom call. You get the recording afterwards, so you can watch it back and you can, you know, you can uh have a look and see what was, you know, you won't need to be scribbling notes with anything we talk about, and uh anything we talk about, you can watch it back and and nail it down. But beforehand, there's a set of questions that you get, you know, kind of outlines what your goal is, what you want to move, where you are, what you want to move towards, what it is that you're struggling with, if there's a potential budget involved, and it gives you an idea of what next steps to take the whole way along the journey. So if that is of interest to you, um, I know that it's definitely of interest to some people because I do get messages last week. Somebody asked me to do one for them, um, which I did. Somebody was stuck getting set up on a vegetable garden, and uh yeah, they you know they had a lot of the work done, but they were just at a point where they weren't really sure how to take it at the next stage, and we've we've done that now, and yeah, they'll be up and running and all as well. So if that's of interest to you, link is in the uh show notes of this episode, it's also on the website. You can book to there. And two slots per month, there won't be any more. So if you are interested, just click on and and and book on there. Um so just an episode, not uh not an episode about a gardening topic as such, but hopefully one that you know will be of interest to some of you.

Final Details And Sign Off

SPEAKER_00 16:12

Uh, we're back to our regular episodes now uh next week. And that's been this week's episode. Thanks for listening. Until the next time, happy gardening.