Wild Natives

Wild natives helped us clean up and revitalize our ten year old ornamental garden. Julie was especially helpful in creating a solid foundation and color palette from my old overgrown patchwork quilt of too many different specimen plants. She was sensitive to my taste preferences while making good suggestions of plants that would do well in our location based on experience.

The rates are reasonable especially for the expertise that comes with it. I have experienced many cases of mow'n'blow butchers hacking away plants and killing them, in both my yard and my neighbors--you get what you pay for. Now my garden is maintained on a small monthly budget and is always ready for us to enjoy without me doing any backbreaking work!

Julie has been a godsend for our garden! It had become overgrown and lacked a cohesive plan. She has a very pleasant personality and is easy to work with and confident in her knowledge of plants and garden planning. She also was able to work with our existing pots to create the food garden I wanted. She now keeps our garden maintained with very few hours a month. I've really appreciated the whole experience working with Julie - her skills, personality and communication have all been great. Highly recommended!

I highly recommend Julie and her team. I called her and she came to my house for a consultation, which was comprehensive and very creative. Her recommendations to me were well thought out and cost effective. She brings extra gardeners as needed and they all show up on time and are extremely professional and courteous.

I now have a front and back yard that I am proud to come home to!

Tamara C.

I highly recommend working with Julie. She is responsive, knowledgeable, and creative. She communicates thoroughly and has been a delight to work with.
Julie has been doing monthly maintenance on our native garden for a number of months now, and she always has great recommendations for plant replacements, or adjustments to watering schedule, etc. She comes when she says she will and email communication is easy with her. This is hands down the best experience I have had for garden maintenance !!

Julie is a delight to work with! She loves what she is doing and it shows. She is passionate about native plants - and knowledgeable - yet she is open to non-natives if her client really wants certain ones. She is responsive and patient with your concerns, and as she creates landscape designs, her imagination is flexible.

When I first worked with Julie, she listened very carefully for direct and indirect info about the goals that I wanted for my yard. Later, as she presented her promised two plans, I expected them to be similar in basic ways, but I was surprised at how different they were. Of course some plants are better when paired with certain other plants, but Julie was willing to work with me when I liked aspects of both of her plans.

It is worth noting that she tried to save money for me by retaining the skeleton (large trees, patio) of my yard. Ultimately I decided to replace much of the skeleton as well. I simply had to experience my new yard to understand what it really called for.

My yard feels completely transformed from an embarrassment to a place where I really want to spend time. I am very grateful for Julie's ability to envision that kind of transformation. In addition, she wants to stay in touch with the yard, keeping it looking its best. I have resisted frequent visits for financial reasons, and Julie has been willing to work with me on that as well. I have realized that her ongoing interest is a major benefit to me, that she is taking responsibility for the execution of her vision and for the success of my yard. Now I am more than proud to show my yard to anyone interested. And I am more confident that, between Julie's work and mine, its beauty will be maintained.

We'd had an empty lot for 20+ years and needed a workable vision, in the context of planting CA natives which would require little, if any, extra water, and would promote the lives of native insects, birds, and fauna. In short, we asked Julie for a sketch for a layout for a simple native wildlife preserve, and suggestions for appropriate plants and trees for our native sandy soil. She delivered exactly that, and per our request, left us to do all the work ourselves, which we did. (She didn't push us in the unwanted direction of hiring out the work, or arranging for regular upkeep.) Julie has been unfailingly available for consultation and advice though, as our garden fills in, and questions arise about proper pruning, mulching, gopher control, etc. Everything is thriving, and we're getting more adventuresome adding plants as they become available - 34 native varieties so far! Couldn't be more pleased.