It’s time to make your garden water-wise
Landscapes account for 50% of the domestic water used in California.
Our mission is to design beautiful, water-wise, low-maintenance and sustainable gardens.
As a company, our focus is on sustainable landscape design - selecting plants that use the least water possible, and materials and hardscape features that maximize the rainwater we do get. We believe in native plants, promoting wildlife, and avoiding the use of plastics, chemicals and gas-powered tools wherever possible.
Low water gardens don’t have to look hard and sparse: In our designs you might see the bold forms of Agaves, Aloes and succulents, as well as the softness of Salvias, Cistus, and native California plants. The bright colors and pollinator-friendly characteristics of many drought tolerant flowering plants are key elements to our designs too.
With this approach, you can have a lush garden of any style without much water - a California cottage garden, a tropical style contemporary, an aromatic Mediterranean style garden, a Japanese-inspired zen garden, or a garden that celebrates California native plants.
We don’t install lawns or large water features, but we’ll help you grow a sophisticated, lush garden without excess water. And we not only design gardens and install them, we provide a few other services: we install high quality, low voltage landscape lighting, we source specimen-sized plants from specialty growers throughout the Western USA and grow our own unique specimens too. We also maintain the gardens we install to keep them looking their best, and we can help you get set up to make the most of the water and garden waste you have with composting bins and a rainwater collection system.
And what about a garden tour? We’ll visit some of the Bay Area’s spectacular botanical gardens with you and talk about how their plants could work for you.
Our focus though is on design and installation. Read on to find out how we work with our clients to realize their landscape dreams.
Services
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Consultation
If you’re not sure if your garden needs a total revamp, we can assess your space in person, finding out how it does or doesn’t work for you. We’ll provide our written recommendation for new plants or features that can revitalize it.
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Landscape Design
Keen gardeners sometimes just need inspiration, and we will provide a blueprint for your garden that you can implement. You’ll receive to scale plan views, elevations or mockups to illustrate the design, and a plant list with care instructions.
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Concrete, Pavers, Natural Stone
We work with some of the best specialized concrete, paver and natural stone installers in the Bay Area to realize our designs for these elements. Whether it’s a dry stone wall or a custom poured contemporary paver design, we oversee every detail.
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Low Voltage Lighting
Lighting design adds visual appeal, increases property value, creates ambiance, and highlights key landscape features, all while ensuring safety and providing illumination for navigating your outdoor space at night. We install high quality AMP and FX Luminaire fixtures, among others.
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Tree and Plant Sourcing
We collaborate with suppliers of rare species and unique specimen-sized tree and plants throughout the Western USA, as well as growing some of the most sought-after species exclusively for our clients.
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Maintenance
We provide expert garden maintenance services for landscapes we have designed, following our principles of low maintenance garden care. We find that 4-8 visits per year is sufficient for xeric gardens.
OUR PROCESS
It starts with a feeling
Whether it’s a sanctuary, a celebration or a showstopper, your garden should inspire emotion.
Here’s what to expect when you work with us.
First, we get to know you
Each client has unique needs, and their garden space is unlike any other. What do you want your garden to bring to your life? You might want a quiet place of reflection. A place to gather family and friends to eat, to talk, to celebrate. You might want your front yard to add curb appeal to your home and your back yard to provide a place for nature and wildlife to thrive.
In order to do this, we’ll meet with you on site, spend some time in the space, and talk through your unique needs.
The area to be planted: We’ll take square footage measurements, photos and videos so we can accurately estimate the volume of materials needed to complete your job.
The presence of pests like gophers, deer, insects or soil borne pathogens that can hurt plants. We’ll discuss various options to mitigate pest damage in the garden.
Ecosystem: What grows nearby, the prevailing winds, the soil type and quality, the slope and other drainage factors, the amount of sun and shade your garden enjoys, and the general environment your new plants will need to flourish in.
Goals: We’ll also discuss what plants to keep, likes and dislikes, hopes, dreams and more!
Our initial consultation is a $150 flat fee, and that’s credited back to your account if you sign a design or design and installation contract with us.
The next step is to develop a plan for your garden’s transformation. In order to get your creative juices flowing, we will create a private Pinterest board for you to start collecting ideas on. Meanwhile, a Project Brief will be developed that outlines our plan. It will detail what we will do and a cost estimate for our services.
Each step of the project is identified and itemized so a budget can be established: From design to area preparation, through every step of construction and materials, we’re transparent with our pricing so you know where your investment in a new garden could be spent.
If you already have a realistic budget in mind, we will stick to it. Through material selection or via new design ideas, we can help keep your project on track without overspending. During installation, we will keep you informed on the running total for your project if it looks like certain areas may go over budget.
Remember estimates are just that - a best guess based on what we know. The more detail you can give, and the clearer you are on what you want from the beginning, the better. We’ll adjust the line items until we’re all satisfied it’s comprehensive, and you’re comfortable with the Project Brief.
At that stage, we’ll send you a “time and materials” contract and request a 10% deposit to start the design phase of the job and secure your spot on our calendar for installation.
Developing a plan
Design, refine
This is where the fun starts. We’ll develop a design philosophy for your site, a color mood board, discuss the Pinterest board you’ve added to, and produce design images for your approval, going through as many rounds of design changes as needed until you’re satisfied.
You can choose a design image style that works for you. Some people love a plan view - seen from above the layout of the garden just makes more sense to them. Other people want to see elevations (views from the side) or even photo mockups where we place images of the actual plants we propose using over photos of your current garden.
Below you can see the styles you can choose from. Since this work is done on an hourly basis, you can choose as many as you like, and we will let you know how many hours each design will take.
After a design review with you, we’ll adjust the sketches and renderings for final approval. This final plan includes the type of materials to be used, the locations and sizes of the planting areas and other details that have been discussed.
We will also create a Plant List for your design that gives you lots of detail about the proposed plants and how to care for them. This is an opportunity to think about how plants behave through the seasons - whether they’re evergreen or deciduous, bear fruit or flowers, and how much maintenance - or how little - they might need.
We bill our design and consultation time by the hour at $100.
Design style examples
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PLAN VIEWS
The plan view is our most commonly used design style, developed primarily to help quantify materials needed for the project. From this we’re able to space plants in a layout, and also give a sense of color palette.
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MOCKUPS
In this design style we can help you imagine the finished product - your garden, fully grown in after a couple of years. Using photos we take, we superimpose plant images and the result shows the color and texture palette beautifully.
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ELEVATIONS
To visualize scale, lines of sight and get more detail on changes of grade, an elevation can be really helpful. Hand drawn or developed on the computer, elevations give a sense of the design from any perspective you request.
Sourcing
With an agreed-on design, we’ll get down to business finding the perfect plants and materials to make it all come to life. We’ll receive your mid project payment around now..
We’ll be visiting all our suppliers and growers to find out what plants are not only available, but in the perfect shape and size for your project. Unlike other landscape designers, we hand select each plant - the best available.
We also make regular trips to Southern California to find specimen-sized plants like tree Aloes, larger Yuccas and Agaves, and other plants not commonly available here in Northern California.
Depending on the time of year, sourcing your plants can take a few weeks, but in the meantime we will be scheduling your installation date, and the materials and teams needed to complete the task.
More about plants
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Quality and availability
Plant availability varies a lot for different reasons. Crops often sell out, and aren’t available again for some time since plants take time to grow.
Some plants go dormant over winter, especially in colder areas, and suppliers cut them back so they emerge with fresh shoots in spring. They may appear like they’ve had a recent haircut - even though they’re just resting and ready to grow.
Some may grow faster in a warmer climate, and may require us to visit nurseries on Southern California to acquire them.
When choosing plants for your garden, we visit many suppliers and select the best looking plants from those available at that time of year.
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Plant size, pot size
Similar to plant quality, what pot size to choose varies a lot too. Some plants grow very quickly during spring and summer. Buying a 5 gallon version of them doesn’t always make sense, because a 1 gallon size will grow to the same size as a 5 gallon plant in just a few months.
On the other hand, some plants grow very slowly. Large shrubs, trees and many cacti, Agaves and Aloes can take many years to grow to a good size. It’s worth spending more on larger versions of these plants.
We’ll recommend the optimal size based on the species, time of year, and your budget.
(Prices shown here are for illustration purposes only.)
Installation
From the first day of on site preparation through to the final lighting installation, our goal is to complete the project carefully and efficiently.
A design reaches its full potential only through meticulous construction. Careful selection and placement of plants ensures that your garden will thrive and will bring enjoyment to your life and value to your property for years to come.
First we will set a date for site prep, when we’ll be removing old plants and hardscape, adding soils and composts, and generally preparing for the work to come. Hardscape work will be scheduled on subsequent days, depending on the scope of the project. Once that’s complete we will deliver plants to the site, lay them out and begin the work of installing them - along with gopher protection if needed.
Occasionally if some plants were unavailable from our growers in time for install day, we might come back later to plant them.
With your irrigation (if used) and mulches installed, lighting comes last, and the vision is realized. You can start to enjoy the process of watching your plants grow in and fulfill their potential.
This is when your final payment is due on the project. We will be back to inspect the garden after installation at two points: one week post installation, and one month post installation. This allows us to adjust irrigation and monitor plant health while they’re establishing a new root system, but if you’d like help to maintain your garden after that we’re happy to be there to keep it looking outstanding, and we’re always available to answer your questions about the garden.
Maintaining your oasis
Your garden is a living, breathing ecosystem, with complex inter-dependencies. As time goes by, your plants will grow and change with the seasons, and maintenance is essential.
Our goal is to design using low maintenance plants that, after they’re established, don’t need lots of pruning, watering, spraying or other help to stay alive - the right plants should thrive with little help. We find that 4-8 visits per year are sufficient, focused in Winter and Spring when weeds are growing.
Your Plant List will help your regular garden maintenance team understand the needs of the plants we have installed, but we are also available to help maintain the gardens we install.
When you’ve signed a maintenance contract with us, we’ll schedule regular visits to weed, prune, deadhead and generally care for the plants in your garden.
And don’t forget: if you refer a new client to us who signs a contract, you get a free maintenance visit hour.
Other Services
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Consultations
Just not sure if your garden needs a total revamp? We can come to your home and spend some time assessing your space, finding out how it does or doesn’t work for you. We’ll provide our written recommendation for new plants or features that can give it a mini face lift. We charge $100 per hour for the site visit and write-up, with a 2 hour minimum.
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Composting & Rain Water Collection
Interested in recycling your green waste on site to create usable compost, or collecting rain water to get your plants through the heat of summer? We can show you how, and set up the system you need to get better connected to your environment. Consultation is charged at $100 per hour, and installation is on a time and materials basis.
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Garden Tours
The Bay Area has some of the most beautiful drought tolerant gardens and vendors in the nation. We’ll take you to visit the ones that interest you and help you gain design inspiration from the trip. This is a great way to learn what you want from your own garden, and we charge $100 per hour on site for this service.
