About

I started Summers Gardening in 2024 with a shovel, a few tools, and years of hands-on experience transforming my own Lexington yard into something wilder, more alive, and more resilient. Now, I help others do the same.

My work is rooted in building relationships — with landscapes, and with the people who care for them. I take time to understand each site: the soil, sun, water, weeds, and history. Just as important, I get to know you — your aesthetic style, your maintenance goals, your vision for the space — so we can make choices that will hold up and keep evolving over time.

Whether we’re removing invasives, starting from scratch, or reviving existing beds, I aim to create spaces that are both ecologically rich and personally meaningful.

Alongside residential work, I hold municipal contracts with the Town of Lexington to design and maintain town plantings. I also have donated time to install and study pro bono pocket forests — small native forest patches on private and soon public sites. These dense plantings grow fast, require little maintenance, and provide a powerful tool for climate resilience, biodiversity, and beauty in small suburban spaces.

My background is in design and operations management. I have a degree in industrial design from Carnegie Mellon, spent over a decade managing client services and an engineering team, and now bring that same process-driven approach to planting — balancing creativity, logistics, and long-term thinking.

I also serve on the Lexington Tree Committee, and the boards of both the Lexington Field & Garden Club and Lexington Climate Action Network (LexCAN),, and am an organizer at the Lexington Interfaith Garden, a community giving garden, and host a local seed sharing library. 

If you’re ready to make your landscape more self-sustaining, more beautiful, and more connected to the world around it, I’d love to work with you.

- Rachel

The photos below are from my home garden — a long-term lawn-to-foodscape conversion that began during the pandemic and took shape alongside a major home renovation. What started as a post-construction blank slate is now a layered, low-maintenance landscape full of edible and native plants.

It took work to establish, but the design is meant to evolve and take care of itself over time. You’ll see photos from one year after planting (September 2024), a few in-progress shots, and the bare lawn that came before.

Client projects are usually smaller and more focused, but this space is where I experiment — testing plant combinations, soil strategies, and low-effort ways to build habitat and beauty.

If you're curious to follow along, I share more photos, ideas, and in-progress projects on Instagram @sunchokefalls.