Samantha's Gardens

Twenty Google ratings averaging 4.8 — and nearly every one that comes with words is about a Christmas shop. Samantha's Gardens works out of 120 Tewksbury Street in Andover, running a garden and landscape design practice alongside a seasonal retail operation of trees, wreaths and workshops on the same site. The company says it has been at this since 2008, founded by landscape designer Samantha Mannarino, who leads it as president and owner, and it describes itself as women-owned and operated. Its stated territory reaches from Andover and North Andover out to Newton, Wellesley, Weston and Wayland, plus Newburyport, Boston and Seabrook, New Hampshire. Angi's profile adds a Certified Women Business Enterprise designation and membership in Massachusetts Landscape Professionals. Those are the directory's listings, not something confirmed against a registry. On the landscaping itself, the written history is short and dated. The fullest account is a 2020 Angi review from a homeowner who took a design all the way through installation: the designer produced what they called a beautiful design and stayed involved through the build, the crew was easy to talk to, and the owner was available for questions throughout. A homeowner writing in December 2023 mentioned picking out a tree and a custom wreath with Samantha and Vlasta, and said separately that they had worked on many landscape projects with the company. Andover's published contract archive lists the firm for on-call landscaping and gardening services. The one clear negative deserves to be stated plainly. In an April 2022 Google review, a prospective customer said they booked a landscaping design and planting appointment and nobody came; the reply, after they left a message, was an email saying the company was really busy. That is a scheduling failure rather than a workmanship one, but it is the only detailed account of what trying to hire them for landscape work was like. The rest of the recent writing is about the seasonal shop, and it is consistently warm — a December 2025 reviewer described Samantha backing a local domestic-violence awareness effort, and 2023 and 2024 visitors wrote about the tree lot, the hot chocolate bar and the wreath-making workshops. If you want a designer-led garden — planting design, seasonal containers, estate garden upkeep, holiday installations — the single detailed design review here is a good one. Go in knowing the landscaping side of the written history runs 2020 to 2022, and get the appointment and start date confirmed in writing before you count on it.