Smartyplants Design

Smartyplants Design A sustainable landscape design/build/maintain company focusing heavily on native plants. Seasonal container and color installations.

Serving greater Connecticut with seasonal projects on the southwest Florida coast.

West Hartford plants from this week: 🍃Itoh tree peony, parrot tulips, (this year’s first!) eastern tiger swallowtail on ...
05/09/2026

West Hartford plants from this week: 🍃
Itoh tree peony, parrot tulips, (this year’s first!) eastern tiger swallowtail on viburnum, Carolina Allspice buds, species tulips, Fothergilla, Jack in the Pulpits
Spring cleanups are underway and there is always time to stop and appreciate the flowers! 🌸🌱🌷

Dogwood (dancing) days are here again 🎶🌳😁💃🏻🕺🏼My favorite spring bloomer that flowers on bare branches, our native dogwoo...
05/03/2026

Dogwood (dancing) days are here again 🎶🌳😁💃🏻🕺🏼
My favorite spring bloomer that flowers on bare branches, our native dogwood trees are lighting up the understory.
Choosing the native Cornus florida over the Korean or Asian one (Cornus kousa) will ensure that our early pollinators have sustenance that is not available from non-native species.
As the climate changes and weather becomes less predictable, it is important to support our local ecosystem every way we can. 🌎

Esther’s garden is a favorite, we call it the fairy garden because it feels so magical. 🌸 🧚 🍃Her yard is full of Spring ...
04/28/2026

Esther’s garden is a favorite, we call it the fairy garden because it feels so magical. 🌸 🧚 🍃
Her yard is full of Spring ephemerals, and they are exciting because they’re here and then p**f ✨ they’re gone till next year.
These plants appear early in the spring and complete a whole life cycle before the trees leaf out and cast shade on them.🌳
Some will hold foliage for awhile and some disappear like an Irish goodbye and are dormant by summer.
Among them are the hot pink dogtooth violets, yellow trout lilies, Virginia Bluebells and bloodwort. Bleeding hearts don’t stick around long and this extremely rare Turkish peony blooms for a mere five days!!
We are busy getting spring cleanups underway and hope your spring season is as whimsical as ours! 🐝🌸✨🌱🧚

On today’s episode of Smartyplants wildlife sightings: PORCUPINES! They were way up in a hemlock tree making noise I did...
04/09/2026

On today’s episode of Smartyplants wildlife sightings: PORCUPINES! They were way up in a hemlock tree making noise I didn’t recognize and then all afternoon we witnessed this display.
In over a dozen years working on this mountain this is my first porcupine sighting. Exciting times!
Swipe to the second to last slide, I caught a porcupine yawn!!

On the way back through Virginia the other day I stopped for a short hike in the rain. Exciting things are happening in ...
04/01/2026

On the way back through Virginia the other day I stopped for a short hike in the rain. Exciting things are happening in the mountains, spring ephemerals are popping up everywhere. 💖
Merry bells, Dutchman’s Breeches, beginnings of Bloodroot, swamp marigolds, and more! 🌱
I usually try to document the blooming redbud trees along the highway but the weather made for trafficky conditions so I only have these few still shots. 🌳
Hope you enjoy!

Today feels like a good day to share some exciting news ☀️Last year, Smartyplants Design was invited to collaborate with...
03/29/2026

Today feels like a good day to share some exciting news ☀️
Last year, Smartyplants Design was invited to collaborate with the town of Old Saybrook on the development of native gardens and landscapes in several municipal spaces. 🌸
We installed dozens of new species of native plants in the rain garden and in the previously weed-filled mulch beds all around the parking lot areas. The transformation will be noticeable when there’s clouds of butterflies and insects floating around the park. 🦋🐛🐝🐞🪲🦗
We installed numerous native shrubs at the Blue Star Memorial and added some curb appeal at the Chamber of Commerce in the form of several hundred daffodils as well as blooming perennials and a couple matching evergreens to flank the entrance. 🌲🌷
Stay tuned as we gear up to completely overhaul the town hall campus in the coming weeks. The 1970s era yews will be replaced with primarily native shrubs supplemented with a mass of blue hydrangeas.
We are grateful to the town for supporting sustainable landscaping and bringing us on board to make these changes. We are looking forward to monitoring the progress and will share more pictures as the gardens break dormancy. Please follow along as we paint the town with flowers! 🌸

Happy Spring everyone! We have some big exciting projects on the horizon and like everyone else, we are eager to get the...
03/21/2026

Happy Spring everyone! We have some big exciting projects on the horizon and like everyone else, we are eager to get them underway. 🪏🌳
HOWEVER!
The pollinators that we rely on to feed the birds and support the food chain are still asleep! They burrow underground and into hollowed out stems so it’s important to leave all that debris as cleaning it up now destroys all the life within. 🦋🐝
Try to wait until the ground is close to 50 degrees Fahrenheit. I know this is a challenge but now is a good time to focus on other areas, like removing invasive shrubs and trees such as barberries and ornamental pears. The best way to prune a pear tree is a single flush cut at ground level. These are appropriate garden activities until the insect kingdom has broken dormancy. 🐜🐞🕷️
Stay tuned for more updates and announcements! While we’ve been slacking at the social media we have been making big things happen here in real life. More to come!

Timeline cleanser. Flashback to the summer. We’re buried under a foot and half of snow currently and this is just so ple...
01/27/2026

Timeline cleanser. Flashback to the summer. We’re buried under a foot and half of snow currently and this is just so pleasant to think about. Please enjoy.

I prefer to talk about planting flowers and helping the planet but I can’t do that if I die at the hands of some untrain...
01/25/2026

I prefer to talk about planting flowers and helping the planet but I can’t do that if I die at the hands of some untrained rogue government agent for exercising my rights.
For clarity: I am not interested in working with or for people who support this attempted dictatorship; I don’t think our values align in any way whatsoever. I hope to never be contacted by anyone that carries so much hatred in their heart.
My company is doing good things for the Earth and all of its occupants, starting with the smallest creatures. By supporting the pollinators that are the building blocks of the food chain, we are supporting all forms of life.
Additionally, the entire American horticulture industry is built on the backs of immigrant labor. The plants that I install in my client gardens are grown by hard-working people that come to this country on an H1B visa to work. Without them, I don’t have a business. I will always take the side of immigrants over the side of ignorant, racist, white people. Because a few generations back, my family were the immigrants that were treated poorly.
Many people don’t know that this company was started with nothing but the help of my grandpa. He was my mentor. He’d let me borrow his truck to do landscape projects and we spent a lot of time together. I’ve chosen to carry forward the lessons taught to me by my devoutly anti-fascist WWII vet grandfather. He fought N***s in hand-to-hand combat and still believed in the good of humanity until his last breath.
His instructions will always echo in my memory, they’ve served me well thus far: “Be Good To People”
There’s really nothing else that matters.

Now hiring WOMEN ONLY Women have a better eye for the detail work we do and women are also better listeners who typicall...
06/12/2025

Now hiring
WOMEN ONLY

Women have a better eye for the detail work we do and women are also better listeners who typically do the job as instructed not as they see fit.

Let’s be real, men don’t want to take orders from women and listen to us trash talk the patriarchy while we work all day.

-Garden gloves and tools provided.
-Weekday work, Monday-Friday only
-Short shifts for short attention spans! 4-6 hours.
-Gig work available / summer help / temp help
-No exposure to or spraying of chemicals
-We work for nice people, no one will yell at you
-Job is mostly crawling around on the ground weeding
-There will be mosquitoes (bug spray provided)

$25/ hour
Work is mostly in West Hartford / Avon
If interested please reach out: [email protected]

Trans women welcome! 🏳️‍⚧️

Address

12 Coulter Street
Old Saybrook, CT
06475

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