Sarah Herman designed the new landscaping in my front yard earlier this year. It consisted of…read moredouble rock walls, low-water plants, and irrigation. It was an excellent design whose expert installation was performed by Christian Ehrhorn of Misty Morning Gardens. As one neighbour put it, my new front yard is an asset to the community. It was indeed a job well done.

I just had a landscape design consultation with Sarah at my house in Berkeley. It was soooooo…read morehelpful. She's awesome. She just saved me thousands of dollars and greatly improved the design of my yard. I had such a limited way of seeing the space before Sarah brought her design ideas. I'm really excited about what my back yard can be. She came prepared with images, plant ideas, websites for me to order materials and design ideas. She listened to what I wanted and totally got my style. Then she made some great recommendations. She was incredibly knowledgeable about everything from the type of plants to use to drainage to what types of stone to use for hardscaping. She knew so much about plant varieties - what to grow where and in what conditions. So many possibilities that I hadn't thought of! She also gave me some functional ideas - like how to expand my driveway so that I could fit two cars in it! That is going to make a huge difference so I don't have to park one car on the street anymore. Thank you, Sarah!

Leigh is incredibly talented and we couldn't be happier with the work she did…read more We'd been unhappy with our yard for many years--it's an odd-shaped space on a slope, with numerous challenges (strong wind, freeway noise, too much concrete). We were seeking ideas for how to make it into a sanctuary--or just improve it so we actually enjoyed spending time outdoors. We'd consulted with 2 landscape designers previously, but weren't happy with what we heard (no compelling ideas unless we were going to spend enough money to buy a second house). Leigh came over for an initial consultation and literally within minutes, she had a vision for what we could do that was super exciting and within our budget. She came up with clever ideas to block wind and noise, replace the concrete in our yard with a row of pretty trees and bushes, and maximize the part of our yard that was most private to give us that sanctuary. Leigh chose beautiful plants for our yard and was careful to check with us each step of the way to ensure everything was in line with our tastes. The crew she worked with were fast, professional, extremely detail-oriented, and committed to high-quality work. We feel so lucky to have the backyard space we have now--we're outdoors all the time and love it. Thank you, Leigh!

We worked with Leigh to renovate our entire backyard. It was a huge project, taking the better part…read moreof a year including design and construction. The end result is absolutely beautiful. We love our new backyard and have nothing but praise for Leigh. She worked with us on initial vision and detailed design, choosing materials and plants, figuring out how to deal with unexpected wrinkles that came up, and navigating the sometimes stressful intersection of perspectives between contractors, arborists, and vendors. Great working with you, Leigh. Thanks for helping us with our dream yard!

Tamar Carson is a gifted artist. She and her husband, Rogelio Giron, work beautifully together and…read moreare great problem solvers and complement one another's talents. Intuitively, Tamar came up with a beautiful design for redoing my front and back yards, after listening to what I wanted and sensing my environment. Her vision included creating a terraced garden with stone retaining walls and two serene patio areas. She and Rogelio really listened to what I like. I said I wanted blue grey patio stones and that I liked a few sprinkles of glitter. So they brought perfect blue stone and mica schist stones. I was delighted. I even thought the grout was beautiful. After requesting a list of plants I love, Tamar featured some of them along with those she knew would be especially good throughout the seasons. The plantings are beautifully balanced in terms of placement, color and height. To make my garden more manageable for me, they added irrigation, drainage and a few thoughtful safety features. For example, in the slightly sloping backyard, Tamar recommended a path of large, solid stepping stones, and on the deck a handrail and a serving shelf to easily move serving platters from the kitchen to the dining table on the deck. These things make my life easier and safer. Tamar and Rogelio provided good value with an estimate to which they adhered. If additional items were desired as we went along they discussed the cost with me and verified whether I would want them. I enjoy my new garden as a peaceful sanctuary to deeply enjoy nature and to share with friends. I highly recommend Tamar and Rogelio if you want inspired design and expert execution from true professionals. They are outstanding. They are a joy!

I had called as well as requested a quote via yelp and didn't get a response. Granted it was over…read morethe holidays, but yelp claims 100% response rate. Tamar later returned my call and was super gracious. It was very nice to speak with her and she was very honest and forthcoming.

Sue at first was pleasant to speak with. Sounded like she is good with plants. But than all went…read moredown hill. In middle of December the first draft on the project was due in two weeks. February 1st. Retainer paid. Absolutely nothing. Two weeks of call emails. Just ignored. Than was told that I should have texted and nothing is still ready. Plus I need to pay more money. Because supposedly she did put work in. But just never communicated and was just busy. Stay away

I've been working with Sue for about 4 years now. She does all the drawings that we need for our…read moreprojects. She is very reliable, skilled and very affordable. I highly recommend her!

Heidi helped design a new garden for me and provided several affordable options for working with…read moreher. She ended up doing my design and recommending plants and I did the purchasing and installation usingadditional help. Worked out great

We could not be more pleased with Heidi's garden coaching service--she's worth every penny…read more Can a novice research, plan, and install an entire yard without any professional help? Probably, depending on how much time you have to figure it all out. But where we got the most value out of Heidi was in narrowing the field of plants and other features that would suit our property, tastes, and needs, so we could do the work ourselves without having to personally become landscaping experts. In all, I think I can safely say that Heidi has saved us thousands (tens of thousands?) of dollars that we don't have, by guiding us through the process of redoing our yard. She listened carefully to our likes and dislikes, assessed the sunlight, soil, and drainage issues around our property, and came up with lists of appropriate plants and design features that would meet our goals. She was respectful of our interests, and never pushed anything on us that we didn't like. She also has relationships with other pleasant landscaping people, one of whom (irrigation guy Anthony Mattison) was particularly helpful. So now, after a year of working with Heidi, we have redone almost our entire yard (mostly) by ourselves, including flagstone, flower beds, a lawn, irrigation, and so on, and our property is starting to look awesome. Without her, we would probably have made some progress by now, but I shudder to think of all the expensive and time-consuming missteps, mistakes, and regrets we would have had along the way. Highly recommended.

I never thought our outdoor spaces could look so beautiful. Ingrid and team overhauled all of our…read moreoutdoor spaces after a remodel that killed much of our plants and dried out our soil. From the get-go, Ingrid was on top of everything and responsive to this major project. She was excellent at providing a vision, trouble shooting for unexpected problems and providing amazing results. I can't say there weren't unforeseen complications at times like with any other project but I found her reasonable and professional. My outdoor spaces speak for themselves from her late autumn work to seeing our first spring bloom.

Ingrid was great to work with. She has deep knowledge of plants, design, and how to combine it all…read moreto maintain a beautiful and interesting landscape year-round. I had a decent sketch of what I wanted to do when we connected. She picked it up seamlessly, provided a ton of great and creative ideas, and was very easy to work with, including providing clear options for different budget levels. She was flexible and was always ready to adapt if needed with creativity and expertise. Great communication, great crew, and great results.

Brian and his crew were doing work at our neighbors house and they were extremely pleased with the…read moreway their backyard project was progressing. We had become accustomed to their workers arriving in the morning and working through the day and that they were very cordial, friendly and considerate about parking responsibly. So, we asked Brain to come over to assess a drainage issue we had in our backyard where because of our clay soil, water would accumulate in our pathway (frustratingly at the the highest point on our property). He gave us a plan that involved removing our pavers (set in dirt), excavating some of the clay soil, digging a trench down the middle of the pathway and installing a perforated drain line to collect the water, connect the new pipe with proper grade into our existing patio drain line to carry the water to the curb at the street; backfilling with crushed drain rock (gravel/sand) to promote drainage and preserve the proper grade, and wrapping with filter fabric to minimize anything getting into the new pipe (other than water!). Then more fun -- putting the flagstone pavers back in place. These had been photographed prior to removal and numbered to ensure they went back into the right locations. There was considerable attention paid to spacing, and then settling them onto well compacted gravel one by one - some rather large and very heavy, and all are even with each other as you walk the path, amazing work. Finally the last several inches between the stones were filled with a complementary color decorative pea gravel (we had a choice from a generous selection). This was a great suggestion from Brian to eliminate planting between the stones which we previously had difficulty keeping weed free. We are very happy with all aspects of the work done. The crew was fantastic, hardworking and clearly talented individuals! Brian was super responsive when we had an occasional question. We were told it would take about 5 days, but it went to six -- no issue for us as we saw how the crew thoughtfully addressed unexpected hurdles that slowed things down (an underground electrical conduit right near the tie-in to the existing drain, existing drip irrigation that needed to be cut, then repaired to acommodate the project, etc). We look forward to talking with Brian and BWD for our future needs.

BWD gardens did an incredible job transforming our back yard into a beautiful and inviting outdoor…read moreliving space. Brian helped us completely reimagine the layout and make the best use of our space. He is a very thoughtful and creative designer, with a keen eye for details, and knowledgeable about his materials (plants, stone, mulch, lighting, etc.). He is also an excellent listener, and was great about balancing our ideas with his own - he incorporated our wants/needs while steering us gracefully to a plan that would be successful. It was really fun working with him. And then his team was efficient, professional, and friendly, and executed his plan beautifully, ahead of schedule! We ended up with a space that is exactly what we were hoping for, but not something that we could have dreamed up on our own. We're excited to watch our plants grow and enjoy spending time in our new garden!

Over a 6-month period we searched for the perfect contractor and finally hit the jackpot. Don't…read morewaste time interviewing pretenders and engage the best. Fr0om our initial on-site interview we knew there would be on need for another interview. Mathew arrived on time and shared a vision for our project. We were only looking for a backyard transformation but once we knew this was our guy, we added a front yard upgrade. Started and completed as agreed. No cost over-runs. Clean-up daily and when completed. monthly maintenance reasonable. Bottom line this experience has changed our world. We are out every day experiencing the transformation of our wonderful back-yard to a life-changing experience. Thank you Farallon Gardens. You are the BEST!!!

Wanted to show how incredible the garden has become in the last 3 years. It is so gorgeous and we…read moreget compliments on it all the time. Farallon Gardens have been serving it monthly and I am very happy with their service and attention to detail.