We offer garden consulting in Fox Chapel, Allegheny County — $85–$130 for an in-person visit that produces a hand-drawn layout, written plant list, and regional timing guide for your last frost zone. Wooded, hilly, estate-character borough with significant terrain variation. Every Fox Chapel property has its own set of constraints, and the plan we put together reflects them.
A lot of vegetable gardening content is written for climates that are nothing like ours. Here in western Pennsylvania, our last frost date is typically May 1 to 10 around Pittsburgh — that's later than most of the country, and it compresses the warm-season growing window considerably. Tomatoes and peppers go in after that date. Raised beds help because they warm up two to three weeks faster than in-ground soil in spring, which can genuinely extend your season at this latitude. Across the service territory, conditions vary meaningfully: the WV panhandle runs similar to Pittsburgh — zone 6a to 6b — while central Ohio typically sees its last frost around April 25 to May 5. Move into central Indiana and you're looking at April 15 to 25; southern Indiana can be as early as April 5 to 15, which opens the door to warmer-season crops with a longer run. What thrives in zone 6 with minimal struggle: tomatoes (with the right variety timing), winter squash, beans, kale, garlic. What you'll fight every year: melons unless conditions cooperate. We also connect customers who want to grow their own food with our community plant pickup program, where you can source transplants ready to go in the ground at exactly the right time for this region.
For Fox Chapel specifically: variable across the large estate lots that characterize Fox Chapel. Wooded areas have organic-rich forest duff over clay subsoil. Lawn areas have been intensively managed for decades, improving topsoil quality. Some properties have ravine and hillside soils with high erosion risk.
You keep everything we produce during the session. That means the layout sketch — drawn on site, with bed dimensions and plant placement — the written plant list with varieties and quantities, timing notes for your specific region, and our soil recommendations in writing. This isn't advice that evaporates when we leave. What you walk away with is a physical document you can refer back to all season, bring to a nursery, or hand off to someone helping you build the beds.
Step one is a short call before we ever come out — we want to know roughly what you're hoping to grow, whether you have existing beds or are starting from scratch, and what your site looks like. Step two is the site visit itself, which runs about an hour and a half to two hours. We walk the yard together, map the sun across different spots, look at the soil, assess drainage, talk through layout options. Step three is where it comes together: we sketch a garden plan on paper right there on site, including bed dimensions, paths, and what grows where. We build out a plant list specific to your conditions — varieties that perform in zone 6, quantities that fit your space. We go through timing in detail: what to start in March, what to wait on until after last frost, how to succession plant lettuce so you're not drowning in it one week and out of it the next. Step four is optional: a follow-up visit two to three weeks in, when you have questions that didn't exist until you started digging.
An initial garden consultation — site visit, sun assessment, layout sketch, plant list, and timing guide — runs $85 to $130. If you want a full garden plan with a follow-up visit included, that package is $225 to $375 depending on site complexity and plan scope. Remote consultations by phone or video are available at $50 to $75 per hour.
Yes — Garden Soon provides in-person garden consulting in Fox Chapel. We come to your property, walk the site together, and produce a plan specific to your conditions. Call (724) 201-9484 or use the contact form to schedule.
We start by walking the yard together and mapping where direct sun actually falls through the day — that determines where beds can go and what will produce well. Wooded, hilly, estate-character borough with significant terrain variation. From there we sketch a layout on paper during the visit and put together a written plant list matched to your conditions and what you want to grow in Fox Chapel.
Our consulting focus is vegetable and food gardens, which is where our depth is — soil prep, crop timing, layout for production, season extension. That said, companion planting questions come up regularly, and we're happy to talk through integrating flowers like nasturtiums near squash or marigolds around the border. If your primary goal is a purely ornamental garden, that's a better fit for a landscape designer.
Late winter and early spring — January through March — is the best window, because that timing lets us build your plan before the season starts rather than catching up to it. In western Pennsylvania, cool-season crops like lettuce, spinach, and peas can go in the ground in March, so planning in February gives you time to act on what we put together. We also do consultations in fall for customers who want to plan ahead and get beds prepped before winter.
We can, and a site assessment is especially useful in shady yards because 'shady' covers a lot of ground — there's a real difference between four hours of morning sun and four hours of afternoon sun, and between consistent shade and dappled light. Leafy greens, herbs like parsley and cilantro, and crops like kale and chard can manage on four to five hours. Tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers need six or more and won't perform well in true shade, and we'll tell you that honestly rather than set you up for disappointment.
Customers who do a garden consultation in Fox Chapel often connect with these other services:
Garden Soon
Licensed & insured in PA · Rated 4.8★ on Google
Providing Vegetable Garden Design in Fox Chapel, PA and surrounding areas.