Yuki Kozuki is the owner of the Kozuki Landscaping that has been around the bay area for 18 years. At least, that is what his business card stated. He is a licensed landscaping contractor. He told us his father is Japanese and his mother is Vietnamese. His English is very, very basic, but he understands what we want for our yards. We recently hired him to install/repair the sprinkler system for the front and back yard with a new timer in the garage, minor clean up in the front yard, river rocks in the front yard, new sod for the backyard (approximately 1000 sq.ft. of new lawn), and a MAJOR clean up in the backyard. He first quoted me close to $10k for the whole project. I waited and received 3 other estimates for the project. I called him back and told him what the other landscapers quoted me, which is around $7k. He dropped his price to the high end of the $7k. We wanted him to work on our yards, because he has his own stable crew. He works on-site along his crew members. He provided a huge photo album of all the houses he worked on in the past few years. His specialties are koi pond, waterfalls, concrete and wood works. We are not talking about the store-bought fountains or ponds either. He built them from scratch. His photos showed the step by step process of how he set up a waterfall/pond in one of his customer's backyard. Trust me when I say I distrust contractors like I distrust Bush's administration. I have had a horrible experience with a fraudulent contractor, so I was very skeptical of his promises to begin with. He took the $1k deposit and started the job the next day. He worked on my yards for 7 days and about 6 hours each day. He did not ask me to pay him in the middle of the work. He did go out of his way to make my yards look great. He welded a new faucet in the backyard, because the old one is too old. He replaced an old lumber in the walkway. He made sure everything is neat and tidy. He dug the holes for my new plants. He put drip irrigation in some area. The job was finished on 10/05. I noticed there was a small puddle of water next to the new valves on 10/07. I called him immediately and he came out today to look at the puddle. He promptly dug out the puddle and fixed the problem. I am giving Kozuki Landscaping 4 stars instead of 5 stars, because of the initial over-priced quote he gave us. For the final payment, he asked me if I can pay him in cash, all $6700 of it. I refused his request and he was very amiable about it. I would recommend his service for small or big projects. You can drop my name when he is giving you an estimate and ask him for a discount. read more

When we bought our home, the back yard was not landscaped at all. It was all tall grass and weeds. I called Kozuki landscaping for a quote to landscape our whole back yard. After we decided to move forward with Kozuki, we felt the concrete layout way great along with the design aspects. He bought in large boulders to our surprise at no charge for added rugged look. He also build a gazebo that we requested and installed the sprinkler system. I decided to paint the gazebo on my own to save some money. I think the pricing is average to high, however the quality of work is excellent. I guess the saying is you pay for what you get. You can tell the owner Zozuki is very straight forward and upfront, but honest. I'm glad we worked with him and would recommend his services. read more

5 stars might be a little exuberant, but I really love working with Yuki Kozuki. He has done 2 jobs for us: first, he put in a full irrigation system and sod (which involved jackhammers and breaking through rock), then we brought him back to do a retaining wall. We were happy with the first job, but he really blew us away with the second one. He did a very high quality job, beautiful construction of the wall and great attention to detail (such as mitered corners). He's helping me plan the projects that I can afford now, with consideration of what I'd like to do in the future. Added bonus: he and his workers are fast and can usually start a job with fairly short notice. read more

I had an aging front lawn that needed far more water than is permitted in this drought. Mr. Nguyen and his Kozuki Landscaping crew have converted that lawn into a beautiful garden. My neighbors compliment me on the eye catching beauty of the new garden. Mr. Nguyen is entirely responsible for the design of this garden. We selected the plants and the small stones together. He selected the large stones and designed the placement all stones and plants. They also converted my existing sprinkler system to drip irrigation for the plants and expanded the system cover the parts of the front garden I had been watering with a garden hose. Kozuki Landscaping is a full service garden and home maintenance organization so while they were here I had them cleanup a number of gardening chores I have been avoiding and they did a beautiful there too. The raggedy crab apple tree and holly tree are now neat and look better than they have in a long time. The wild looking ivy on the back wall has been tamed and all my weed patches and bare ground are now neatly covered with bark mulch. All this was completed in a timely manner and at reasonable cost. I had two additional bids for replacing my front lawn. The most expensive would have cost me more for the front garden than Kozuki Landscaping charged for the front garden and all the additional work I had them do in the back garden. I am very pleased with the work Kozuki Landscaping has done to improve the looks and water use on my property. They deserve 5 stars. read more

Buyer beware. Just did some research through the state. These guys do not cover employees with workers comp insurance. see for your self www.cslb.ca.gov Homeowners insurance does not cover workers injuries. Injured employees can sue a homeowner for damages. Thought you should know. read more

Horrible, slackened work from these guys. They show up with a blower for leaves and cut anything that is blooming. Maybe it's because the house we rent is in west oakland but it's really unacceptable. I did gardening as a teenager and did ten times the job they do! Avoid Kozuke Landscaping like the plague. read more

These guys do me and my neighbors yards and kick butt. Great prices and on time service. Never an issue with these guys and they always clean up after themselves, unlike other knucklehead landscapers.... :/ read more

Actually the picture that shows "Before and after" of a messy back yard is my yard! I had no idea Mr. Kozuki would use my place as one of his advertising pics. However, I'm glad he did, so you can see for yourself. First, Yuki was timely, professional and patient with me. I had so many questions. Not only did his company remove the ugly messy dead grass, roots, bamboo, etc., they installed the artificial grass, planted new flowers, added large rocks, small decorative rocks, Japanese round blocks, red bark along walkway on the opposite of yard ( pic does not show) drip irrigation system and ground lighting. It has been a year now and the company returned to service the artificial grass. I thought the price was high, but I love my back yard now, and my guest enjoy the serenity of the yard. Thank you Mr. Kozuki!!! read more

He came over yesterday and I showed him my front and backyard. We discussed planting some flowers and a few trees. After talking for a couple of minutes, he gave me a quote of $9000! And that was just for labor, not including the plants! He then asked how much I paid for my concrete work. I just told him I got a good deal. He then just walked away to his van and drove off. read more

Big ego....could use a lesson in manners. I found him to be very rude, over-priced, does not treat, nor pay, his employees fairly and lies. Does nice work if you can stand the aforementioned. read more

AVOID THIS COMPANY AT ALL COSTS! The company is nothing but horrible!!! They are 10 times the price of other companies, and they do lousy landscape designs. You can even walk into most of my yard because they put two huge shrubs blocking the only access pathway. They come along and chop things way down so they don't want to be bothered coming back. Unless you want to waste hundreds of thousand of dollars on an awful job, do not hire these people. read more