Choosing Zach Elledge and Urban Soil Landscape for our backyard project was the best home improvement decision we have ever made.
Our very large backyard has always been too big of a job to tackle by ourselves; so it just sat there, ugly and unused. We really didn't know what we wanted, but we were tired of its sorry state and knew that it was time to call a professional. After talking to a bunch of landscape designers who all pushed the same off-the-shelf hardscaping products with the high-pressure tactics of a car salesman, meeting Zach was a breath of fresh air. He is calm, friendly, and patient. He asked us questions about what was important to us and really listened to our answers, taking time to fit that into the plan he was forming. After about twenty minutes he had a rough sketch of a design that cleverly divided our large, weedy mess into several pleasant areas all woven together into a harmonious plan with winding paths and focal points. Since it was such a big change that was hard for us to visualize, he offered to do a detailed scale drawing for a small fee. We agreed, and about a week later he came back and presented us with a really beautiful hand-drawn site plan, complete with plant and tree choices, watering design, and lighting options. If you know what you want, you could probably skip this step, but it really helped us see what he had in mind and know that he was the person to choose.
Once we got started, our opinion of Zach and his whole team rose to new levels. First of all, Zach was always reachable by phone if we had questions, but that was not really necessary because he was here on site nearly every day. The team showed up on time every day, worked hard all day, and left the area completely clean and organized at the end of the day. Everyone on the team is professional and friendly. If they say they are going to do something, they do it thoroughly and correctly and get all the little details right. For example we added a patio with pavers which has a border of contrasting colored pavers. In all of the 90-degree corners, they did this really intricate bevel design that looks great. We did not tell them to do that, and it would have been much easier not to, but we are so happy that they did. There are many other examples like that that I could talk about, but this would go on forever. Let me just say that by day 2 or 3 we had complete trust in this team, and we were never disappointed.
We are so happy with the final product and were blown away with the short amount of time it took Zach and Urban Soil to create it. We started with a weedy field and ended with a patio, a fence, a deck, a fire pit area, a lawn, two raised beds, an arbor, and a succulent garden all tied together with curving pathways and framed by beautiful plants and trees. Once work started, this all took 10 days. Incredible.
It should be obvious by now that I could not recommend Zach more highly. If you are looking for a real Landscape Designer (capital L, capital D) who cares about their customers and has pride in their work, look no further than Zach, and Urban Soil Landscape.