Outdoor Maintenance – Natural Renderings by Ruth Heil

Why a picture of a baby box turtle? It represents life that can occur when we give nature some space.

Natural Renderings specializes in helping you maintain and enhance your rural, wooded, and/or naturalized spaces. Unlike a typical landscaping service, this forward-thinking option lets Nature drive the design and considers the complex and ever-changing ecology within the system.

I am looking for property owners who want meticulous, strategic help from a conservation-focused, eco-conscious individual. Whether I work unattended or right alongside the do-it-yourself owner, my goal is to assist with the creation or maintenance of a vision that appreciates biodiversity, habitat, and a natural aesthetic.

It is my mission to help you keep natural areas and woodlots on your land. I employ basic ecological principals to modify or improve the habitat, function, enjoyment, and aesthetic of your nature-dominated spaces.

Who am I? Click here for the answer.

What Natural Renderings can do:

Improve wildlife habitat and enhance visual interest while preserving favorable vegetation, soil health, and other critical natural resources.
Improve the appearance, health, and function of property border zones other naturalized privacy buffers.
Prepare sites for new landscape installations by collaborating with your ecoconscious designer or planner, particularly for plans that aim to retain existing native assets.
Assist with tasks required to meet the maintenance terms of a riparian buffer or other conservation easement.
Connect you with ecology-focused resources for planting wildlife habitat, reducing stormwater runoff, generating income from woodlands, etc.

Other Service Examples:

Manually cut unsightly overgrowth or invasive tangles. This includes cutting woody vines (without harming favorable trees) or non-native shrubs and saplings that offer no value to the system.
Prune native shrubs; prune deadwood from small trees and saplings.
Create or maintain walking trails that encourage exploration, highlight visual interests, promote low-impact enjoyment and recreation, and safely avoid hazards such as (habitat-valuable) standing dead trees.
Clear existing paths and other usage areas of fallen limbs and storm debris.
Improve soft-edge transitions from lawns to natural spaces.
Weedwack invasive grasses prior to unwanted seed production.
Girdle invasive trees (i.e., notch to kill without cutting down).
Build wildlife-habitat brush piles or cut campfire wood from fallen or storm-damaged limbs and other debris.
Retrieve litter from streamside buffer zones after flood events.
Prepare garden beds for planting organic vegetables or native flowerbeds.
Create artful, habitat-valuable brush piles or slow-compost piles from debris and organic waste.*
Work side-by-side with the overwhelmed do-it-yourself gardener or be a companion to those whose physical abilities have become limited due to age or injury.
Work with rural or organic farm property owners to manually clear fence lines or foundations of unwanted vegetation

What Sets Natural Renderings Apart From a Typical Landscape Service:

Think of me as your property-maintenance partner, because I will..:

Discuss your broader, land-stewardship goals before any work begins.
Perform all the work myself with pre-approved exceptions.
Retain leaf litter and encourage vegetation diversity.
Avoid soil compaction as much as possible.
Limit the use of power tools to a weedwacker, chainsaw, and on rare occasion, a leaf blower.*
Refrain from the use of chemicals or synthetic fertilizers*
Look for opportunities to reduce future maintenance requirements.*
Share decades of experience and a reputable network of individuals, organizations, and resources in the environmental conservation and ethical tree care arena. In short, if I can’t do it, I likely know someone trustworthy who can.

What Natural Renderings Does Not Do:

Mow or maintain lawns
Use any heavy equipment
Hire laborers or run multiple crews
Apply chemicals*
Design landscape installations*
Build walls or other hardscape*
Haul material (to or away from site)*

*I can refer you to others for related services that dovetail mine. For example, brush chipping and removal is available from a partner contractor.