7:00 - Wake up, get up. Coffee, email clients, etc.

8:30 - Hop on a Citibike in Harlem. It's cold out. Suppress a whimper.

9:00 - Backyard terrace on the Upper East Side. This garden is primarily roses and boxwood. A pair of Japanese maples sits at the far end and a mix of small shrubs and perennials are dotted around. I didn't design this garden, but I like it. Actually, I like the client, and when I like a client I generally like their garden. The reverse is not always true.

Prune a little here, sweep a little there, wrap up. Pass by the church on Lex to clean up the street tree beds out front: cigarette butts, candy wrappers. No needles, this time.

11:00 - Courtyard on E. 67th. The hostas look miserable. I decapitate them. Prune a little here, sweep a little there. This courtyard has a woodland aesthetic, a dense array of Japanese maples, birches, dogwoods, redbuds, mountain laurel, azaleas and rhodies. Fallen leaves have covered over the expensive composted mulch I spread this summer. Should I rake them all up so it looks tidy, or leave them in place to promote the woodland feel and allow for en-situ compost? The great questions of our time.

1:00 - Fifth Avenue, 22nd floor. I head up the elevator with the housekeepers and service workers. There's a pair of arborvitae here that lost a lot of foliage this fall. Not sure if that was my fault or just the nature of transplant shock, a windy and exposed terrace, and/or the cultivar I chose (which I don't remember). Regardless, I'm just praying that they fill out next spring.

2:00 - Really expensive, not very filling, lunch. I should've eaten two hours ago - starting to get shaky.

3:00 - Planting tulip, daffodil and crocus bulbs on a tetris of terraces in Soho. It's fully unnerving how quickly gardens swallow up bulbs. 100 + of them gone in the span of 15 minutes and a dozen square feet.

4:30 - TGIF