Once you purchase a design package, your talented team of Yardzen designers will gets started on created a custom landscape design for your unique property. When the design process is done, we’ll connect you to a vetted contractor to get the work done. To date, Yardzen has completed over 500 design in greater Los Angeles.

Yardzen works with hundreds of highly skilled designers who practice in the full spectrum of landscape and exterior styles. We guarantee that we have a designer who specializes in your specific aesthetic.

We've built a world-class database of plants, trees, and groundcovers that match up to planting zones, sun, shade, and water requirements, styles, and special features, like "deer-proof," "non-toxic for pets,'' and "year-round blooms."

After you purchase a package, you’ll have the opportunity to take a plant-preferences quiz during your onboarding. Additionally, we use satellite imagery, coupled with detailed photos and videos of your property, to assess sun and shade patterns throughout the day. We have a horticulturist who makes the final calls when choosing your design's plant palette.

At the beginning of the Yardzen design process, you'll go through our propriety Yard Builder™ exercise to help you understand what configuration of hardscape, softscape, and exterior elements will work in your outdoor space, and at what budget. With that knowledge, you'll share your all-in budget with your design team. (For people who plan to phase their build out, as many of our clients do, this is the budget for all phases.) Your designer will then create your design with that number in mind. However, there are always variables — like the materials and plant sizes you ultimately choose — that can bring down costs. When we match you with a contractor, budget is usually where that conversation starts. We believe budget needs to be a central part of the process for us to deliver a design you can implement. Please note we recommend a minimum budget of $15,000 to take advantage of our contractor matching services.

We partner only with the best, most responsive and diligent contractors for our clients' projects. We are very intentional about who we bring into our network. Here are some of the following criteria that we make sure our contractors have before bringing them on:

→ Licensing as required by each individual state

→ Professional, personality and exceptional customer service

→ Top notch online reviews

→ Impressive and comprehensive portfolio

→ Worker’s Compensation and Employers’ Liability Insurance

→ Commercial General Liability

→ Automobile Liability Insurance

→ Professional Liability Insurance

Our favorite topic! Our core ethos is that anyone who controls a patch of Earth has the potential to affect positive change. We're a team of landscape designers & LEED-certified architects, environmental consultants, conservationists, even bee keepers. We're here to empower people to make good decisions, which is why we'll lead you toward a low-water yard and educate you about rain catchment systems and why there are better choices than traditional sod. As a general rule, every Yardzen design includes low-water plants and a few attractors that lay the groundwork for wildlife corridors. We believe that if we all do a little we can do a lot.

Los Angeles is a beautifully diverse and complex place. Homes come in all shapes, sizes, and styles. Neighborhoods exist in baking hot valleys, cool coastal bluffs, flat urban expanses, and scrubby mountainsides.

With all this diversity, it’s no wonder that landscape styles are equally diverse. You’ll find traditional hedge and lawn landscapes (though lawns are increasingly being replaced by a variety of different landscape treatments). You’ll also find eclectic desert-scapes, with technicolor succulents and mixed gravel groundcovering. Increasingly, you find modern designs leaning heavily on ornamental grasses and xerophytic drought warriors, framed in crisp concrete with decomposed granite to lend a little crunch. For the majority of yards, the style borrows a bit from all of the above, following homeowners’ whims. Across the board, however, drought tolerance is a priority, by necessity if not out of willingness.

With year-round gorgeous weather, Los Angeles is ideal for outdoor living. Landscape designs in L.A. make the most of these favorable conditions by incorporating infrastructure for taking the indoors to the outdoors: cooking, dining, lounging, and flexible work/entertaining areas are all landscape staples.

Southern California sun can get intense, and shade features, from trees, to pergolas, to shade sails, are accordingly popular. So are water features, from big pools, to little pools, to prefab fountains, which are utilized not only to cool the air but to inject a little moment of Zen tranquility within the bustle of city life.

Drought tolerant planting is a must. Well-shaded synthetic grass (it gets toasty in the sun) for play or picnic areas is also on the rise, especially among households with small children.

Climate-adapted plants from regions like Australia, South Africa, and the Mediterranean can play an important role in a water-wise landscape. Rosemary, lavender, emu bush, Leucadendron, rock purslane, and fruitless olive trees are some of our favorite climate-adapted species for Los Angeles landscapes, offering beauty and drought tolerance in equal measure.

Having evolved to thrive in local conditions, plants native to the Los Angeles region are excellent choices for water savings. Native plants also go a step further, offering unbeatable habitat value. By including native plants in their landscape designs, homeowners can help in the broader effort to restore biodiversity. California buckwheat, California lilac, Canyon Prince wild rye, Channel Islands Tree Poppy, and a whole mess of sages, including white, black, hummingbird, and Cleveland sage, are all excellent natives available for Los Angeles landscapes.

Looking to max out your bird and bee visitors? Include keystone native species like willow and oak trees, California sagebrush, or coyote bush (the low-growing Pigeon Point cultivar is a popular option).

Water conservation and fire safety are both important considerations when designing a Los Angeles landscape.

Water conservation is crucial throughout Southern California. Minimizing or eliminating lawns is often the most impactful decision a homeowner can make to reduce their landscape water consumption, though choosing water-wise native and climate-adapted species is also crucial.

Homeowners concerned about fire should work with their designer to incorporate defensible space into their design. A good maintenance regime is also critical to fire safety - speak with your designer or look up local wildfire resources for guidance on fire safe landscape maintenance.

With such gorgeous natural beauty in the region, Los Angeles landscapes should capitalize on any views available from a property, especially for those yards in hilly neighborhoods, from Silverlake and Mt Washington all the way to Topanga and Malibu. At the same time, solar exposure should be accounted for - avoid blasting outdoor spaces with harsh late afternoon western light, unless shade trees or structures are being utilized.

We are happy to work with clients to develop designs that meet their level of comfort around fire safety. Choosing fire-resistant plant species and following best practices for fire safe landscape design are options that we encourage our clients to consider, and something our designers are happy to employ at a client’s request.

While careful design can help reduce the risk of fire damage, it’s important to note there are no fire-proof plants, and maintenance is the most important determinant of a landscape’s fire safety.

Want to learn more? Check out the Los Angeles County Fire Department’s recommendations for fire-safe landscaping.

Now! Any time of year is great to begin work on a landscape project.

When possible, we suggest utilizing the winter to work through the design phase - this sets you up to get on contractors’ books early in the build season, so you can have your design installed and ready to enjoy in time for summer.

If winter has passed, don’t worry, it’s never too late in the year to begin work on a landscape design project.