Our Services

Since 2007, we have been designing and installing ecological landscapes throughout the Central Piedmont of NC. This entails working primarily with native plants to support insects, birds and other wildlife as well as edible and medicinal plants for people. By listening to our clients goals, vision, and practical concerns, we help them to implement plans tailored to their budget.

We work with beginning and experienced gardeners alike to create beautiful, diverse, and delicious edible landscapes at the residential, neighborhood, or community scale. Our experienced design and installation team works with clients to identify obstacles and provide solutions that go beyond people’s expectations.

  • Native plants in front of home.

    Native Plants

    Planting a landscape with native perennials is beautiful, rewarding, and a key to lower maintenance landscaping! Native plants sustain surrounding wildlife and feed the entire food web, including pollinators, birds, and beneficial soil organisms, which create more resilient landscapes. The best reason to plant native-dominant landscapes is the success of these plants in our climate, which in the long run saves our clients money while inviting nature back into our gardens and our lives, making our homes, habitats.

  • Native pomegranate

    Edible Landscapes

    We are one of the oldest edible landscaping companies in the country, and are leaders in creating sustainable, beautiful, and prolific edible landscapes. Our gardens simultaneously grow vegetables, fruit trees, berry bushes, herbs and perennial flowers which regenerate the soul and the land. Our landscapes capture and store rainwater, build soil, and provide nectar and habitat for beneficial insects and animals. They create abundance for both human communities and the environments they’re tied to. Whether you have 10 acres, a city lot, or a prospective community garden site, we can help you to achieve your goals.

  • Rain Garden with lush water loving plants.

    Rain Gardens

    Rain gardens are powerful tools that can solve multiple issues while greatly enhancing the overall landscape and protecting your watershed. The typical residential home’s roof is around 1500 square feet, shedding almost 150,000 gallons of stormwater in a typical year! Most of the time, this water is simply redirected away from the house, often directly to your neighbor’s house or directly overwhelming stormwater sytems. Usually in just 100 square feet (10x10), we can take nearly all of this stormwater into a beautiful and extremely low-maintenance rain garden. Rain gardens are planted with a host of beautiful native perennials and even some edible fruits. Read more...

  • stone patio

    Stone Work and Hardscaping

    We use natural stone to create patios that look like you just stumbled upon an ancient druid temple during a walk in the woods! Our patios enhance outdoor living spaces and provide an anchor for our landscapes. Our site prep is calculated and thorough, and each patio is unique, tailored to the client. Because our patios are non-mortared, they allow stormwater to sink and flow through the landscape more easily, enhancing rather than complicating existing drainage patterns. And we surround our patios with low-growing plants so that people can truly feel a part of nature while relaxing.

  • meadow with plants

    Organic Lawns and Meadows

    Whether you are looking to break free of the chemical lawn feedback loop or establish a one acre wildflower meadow, the process for broad seeding establishment is similar. Our experienced team are experts in removing persistent existing vegetation, from pernicious bermuda grass to young forest overgrowth, making way for a seeded area is hard but rewarding work. For larger spaces, mixed wildflower and perennial grass seeding can be a cost effective option when trying to cover a lot of ground. And our organic lawn transition includes all the fertility and long term support plants (e.g. clovers) needed for a vibrant and healthy lawn, creating a low maintenance lawn and recreation area.

  • Keith installing vegetable beds at community garden.

    Community and Municipal Projects

    Over the years we have partnered with many community groups and several municipalities to implement larger scale mini-orchards, pollinator habitat, community gardens, educational and demonstration gardens, community scale food forests, tree plantings, mixed meadows, urban farming, and more! Some of the great organizations that we have worked with over the years include: Carrboro Community Garden, Anatoth Community Garden, City of Durham Parks and Recreation, Town of Cary, Holton Recreation Center, Durham Food Co-Op, and many more. We work with project leads, city managers, community groups, schools, non-profits, and others to create ecological landscapes that are beautiful, lower-maintenance, and abundant.

Our Process

  • A consultation provides you with a detailed assessment of your site’s challenges and possibilities as well as an opportunity to discuss your goals. We charge $100 dollars for a one hour consultation This helps us to map out our next steps to get growing, building on the foundation of your gardening dreams.

  • We create unique designs tailored to your needs and resources, from small organic vegetable gardens to permaculture orchards and everything in between. Each design begins with a detailed examination of your storm water, soil, and sun conditions, to ensure that our landscapes work in perfect harmony with the surrounding environment.

  • Fact: Under every great garden is a great soil foundation.

    Which is why we prepare regenerative treatments to restore and build your soil, creating the ideal conditions for abundant growth. Our methods ensure a perennially easy, rewarding, and sustainable experience.

  • We use only the highest quality-locally sourced materials and plants to build great gardens. Many clients choose to work with us during this part of the process to learn some of our techniques and develop a relationship with their new plants. Most people are simply amazed by what our crew can accomplish in just a day or two!

  • While our landscapes are designed for maximum self-maintenance at minimal cost, most folks want a little help growing into their new garden. Our custom maintenance plans reduce the learning curve, keeping the landscape in optimal health.

Want to learn more about what to expect from a consultation?
Download the consultation outline here.

Kate working in a native pollinator garden.

FAQs

  • Easy! You can book a consultation via this website, call us, or email us to book a consultation. These are 45-60 minute walkarounds where we get an idea of your vision and goals, and our experienced team measures the advantages and disadvantages of the site. Following the consultation, we will provide you with a short written report summarizing our recommendations for design or installation.

  • This is a difficult question to answer because of the variety of landscapes that we come across, but generally, most of our residential jobs are between $5k-$15k. Of course there are many jobs that are less than that, and some jobs that are more, but that is the typical range. An $8k job could include: a 125 sq. ft rain garden, a 150 sq. ft. mulched perennial garden, 6-10 fruit trees/berry bushes, a culinary herb garden, and a small vegetable garden.

  • While we have always welcomed and encouraged clients to help and take part in the installation, 95% of the time, the labor help will not decrease the cost of installation. Fixed costs are fixed costs, so unless you are doing the work of 2 people, it will likely not reduce cost. However, taking part in the installation will enable you to do a lot more in the landscape so it is always welcome.

  • It depends! Many plants grow quite quickly (figs, peaches, blackberries, many drought tolerant perennials) and others grow fairly slowly before hitting their stride (apples, blueberries, baptisias), but once they do watch out! Fruit trees are overyielding and native perennials go nuts after they are comfortable, usually not longer than a year. Our landscapes do take some time to reach maturity because we are utilizing native plants, landscaping plugs, and young plants to fill the landscaped area and save our clients money on plant costs. Typically you will see a dramatic difference within one year! But most landscapes when just starting out are ‘browntiful’ as the plants catch up to their new environment. We do everything we can to insure a great start by thoroughly clearing perennial weeds and creating ideal soil environments.