A small design-build studio in Toledo. We draw it, we build it, and we publish what our projects actually cost, so you can work out whether we're the right fit before you have to ask anyone.
Not a gallery. Each of these is the brief we were given, the thing about the site that made it difficult, what we built, and what it cost. Photographs are ours. No renderings, no stock.
"Somewhere to eat outside that isn't on a slope." Two teenagers, a dog, and a garden they walked past for nine years.
An eight-foot drop across the width. Retaining that in a single wall would have looked like a parking garage, so we split it into three low terraces.
Limestone terrace, three dry-laid retaining walls, cut-in steps, 340 perennials, low-voltage lighting to the top level.
Design Feb–Mar. Built over seven weeks in April and May, weather-permitting.
Thirty feet by twenty-three, north-facing, and overlooked on two sides. The owners wanted it to feel bigger, not busier.
Almost no direct sun and a mature Norway maple taking most of the water. Half the plant list had to be rewritten after we dug test pits.
Reclaimed brick paving laid to match the house, a single multi-stem tree, shade planting, and one bench built to the width of the wall.
Design in November, built the following March. Small sites go in fast once the ground thaws.
Water was standing against the foundation every spring. They wanted it fixed and they wanted it not to look like an engineering project.
Heavy clay, and nowhere to send water except a rain garden. It had to be planted so it reads as a border, not a ditch.
Regraded the front slope, built a 430-square-foot rain garden, gravel path, and replanted the boundary. No pump, no drainage to the street.
Five weeks, September into October, deliberately, so the planting went in before the winter rain tested it.
Before
After
Same viewpoint, same time of day. The wall on the left is the first of the three terraces.
People hide their budget because saying a number out loud feels like a commitment, and we can't design anything without one. So here's ours first. Real ranges from real projects in this area.
Survey, concept, planting plan and construction drawings you can take to any contractor.
Beds redesigned and replanted, existing hard landscaping kept. Includes two years of aftercare visits.
Natural stone or clay paver, properly bedded, with the drainage and levels sorted underneath.
Hard landscaping, planting, lighting and irrigation together, like the projects on this page.
Same design, built in stages. Costs 10–15% more overall and stops it being one enormous number.
A rough rule people find useful: homeowners tend to invest somewhere between 10% and 20% of a property's value in its landscape over time. That's a sanity check, not a target. Plenty of the gardens we're proudest of cost well under it. If your number is below these bands, say so anyway; we'll say whether it's doable or point you at someone better suited.
Ninety minutes in your garden. We'll walk it, ask what you actually use it for, and be straight about what your budget will and won't reach.
Survey, a concept plan, then a revision after you've lived with it a week. You own the drawings whether or not we build it.
Our own crews, not subcontracted. One project at a time so nobody disappears to another site for two weeks.
We don't mow, and we don't do spring clean-ups. When a garden we built needs looking after we'll recommend two people we trust and step back.
Full survey through to construction drawings. Roughly a third of our clients take the drawings and build elsewhere, which is fine. That's what they paid for.
Terraces, retaining walls, steps, paths. Dry-laid stone where the site allows it. This is the part that has to be right, because it's the part you can't redo cheaply.
Perennial-led, structured with shrubs and multi-stem trees so it holds together in February. Two years of aftercare visits are included in every scheme.
Low-voltage, warm, and less of it than you'd expect. A garden lit like a car showroom is worse than one not lit at all.
Usually invisible and usually the reason a garden survives its third summer. Includes rain gardens and regrading where water is the actual problem.
"The budget page is why we called. Every other studio wanted a meeting before they'd say anything about money, and we'd already had two of those where we left knowing nothing."
"They talked us out of a water feature we'd set our hearts on, explained exactly why it would look wrong in a courtyard that size, and were completely right. Two years on I'm still glad they pushed back."
"Beautiful work and the drainage has held through two bad springs. It did run about three weeks over, mostly rain, and I'd have liked more updates during the gap. Still the best money we've spent on this house."
Five questions. One of us (there are only three of us) will call you back within two business days to arrange a visit.
Design through the cold months, build as soon as the ground opens up. Spring slots go early.