Privacy is one of the most common things people ask me for when I’m designing their yard. We can see straight into the neighbor’s yard. Their second story looks right down into ours. Our front yard feels completely exposed to the street. I get it. Nobody wants to sit down for dinner and make eye contact with their neighbor. But I also don’t think the answer is automatically planting a giant hedge around your entire property. I want to figure out what we actually need to block and create...

If your yard gets blasted by the sun all day, don’t fight it. Design for it. Full sun can feel like a problem when you’re trying to figure out what to plant or how to landscape your yard. Some plants look great at the nursery and then fry by August, and keeping a thirsty landscape happy through a Southern California summer can feel like a full-time job. The good news? There are plenty of landscaping ideas for hot, sunny yards that are beautiful, low-maintenance and built to thrive in Southern...

You probably have a pretty good idea of what you want your yard to look like—but do you know what it actually costs to build it? Before we start designing, we need to talk about one not-so-fun (but really important) thing: your landscaping budget. Knowing what you’re comfortable spending helps us create a landscape design that’s realistic for your goals. It also helps us prioritize the wish list and figure out where it makes sense to save or splurge. So, what does a landscaping project...