Periwinkle Plantscapes

Our location

We're a local operation on Cape Cod servicing the Mid-Cape and Lower Cape towns - Dennis, Brewster, Harwich, Chatham, Yarmouth and Barnstable/Hyannis.

Our services

Landscape management with an emphasis on native plantings and sustainable practices

• • Focusing on indigenous and native species.

  • Conserving resources - wherever possible, watering less, using fewer chemicals and generally aiming for a lighter touch.

  • Advocate for sustainable, permaculture practices, including the use of compost tumblers, vermiculture and edible plantings.

  • Landscape Maintenance - the three M's: mowing, mulching and management.

  • Landscape Design - with New York Botanical Garden trained and qualified designers on staff, we can create amazing gardens for you. ,

Planting guidance and installation

• • Choosing plants carefully to create longer-range benefits to your garden's ecology. For example, we can replace your Butterfly Bush (buddleia davidii, which is invasive), with a Miss Molly variety, which is sterile.Also, instead of buddleia, consider echinacea purpurea (Purple Coneflower).

  • Versatile Veggies - Parsley is surprisingly hardy in the NorthEast, occasionally surviving through milder winters. A big benefit of growing your own is that you'll be inviting papilio polyxenes -- Black Swallowtail butterflies -- to lay their eggs on the tempting foliage of your veggies. If you leave those little caterpillars to munch away, you'll be growing your own butterflies!

  • Big old septic field getting you down? Have you considered turning it into a wildflower meadow?

Creating Landscapes to love

• • Our design team will solve those difficult challenges you've been wrestling with:

    • Awkward north-facing slopes? No problem, we'll plant Ajuga, Sweet Woodruff (gallium odorata), Phlox and other resilient (but not invasive) evergreen ground covers to stabilize the slope and trap or delay runoff.

    • Up-slope neighbours' gutters creating problematic puddles? We'll corral that water into rain gardens, swales and berms planted with rushes and sedges that will simultaneously soak up the phosphates and filter the water, releasing it in a controlled way, limiting the impact to streams and waterways.

    • Brutally sunny and hot spaces baked solid? With a combination of drought-resistant and sun-loving perennials like Gaillardia, Coreopsis, Sedum and Rudbeckia, you will have a procession of blossoms and summer-long interest, while we'll mix in a couple of less well-known superstars like Butterfly Milkweed (asclepias tuberosa) that support Monarch butterflies. Over time, the soil will naturally de-compact and you'll see a procession of colonizers.

Read about our programs.

Our values

• Using resources responsibly

  • Reducing watering and fertlizers
    With careful plant selection and siting, you can reduce the volume of water you use. Even if you're fortunate enough to have well water, judicious use of aquifer supplies is just a part of being present to the needs of the earth and nature.

  • Reusing organic matter
    Instead of blowing those leaves into a pile and then dragging them off to a municipal dump, we will shred them on your property, putting them back into your compost tumbler, folding them in to your compost pile, or spreading them on your beds as mulch. Those valuable nutrients will go towards enriching your soils.

  • Recycling biomass into biochar
    While not cheap, biochar is an incredible amendment to your soils and lawns. With biochar made right on the Cape by one of the pioneers in the field, we'll introduce you to a process that the South American Indians used to farm vast areas of the Amazon a thousand years ago.

How are we different?

We can help you make the journey from Big-Box-Store Plant-And-Pray to a holistic, integrated garden that supports and values our indigenous plant heritage. Are we crunchy granola? Most definitely. Are we unconventional? Perhaps. While we might be unusual today, we hope that tomorrow, as people come to understand the importance of conservation and careful resource husbandry, we be seen as conventional, perhaps even ... normal?

If you're looking to make a difference but you're finding it's a lot to take in and you don't want to give up your garden just yet, we're here to help you make the journey. If that means we start with mowing your lawn just a little differently in the first year, we'll be happy to start the journey there.