Hortus Design Sustainable Landscapes

I highly recommend Vijaya of Hortus Design. We engaged a separate landscape designer and a separate general contractor when we build our Palo Alto house from scratch. Despite coming into a situation where she could not control everything, Vijaya worked within our constraints and delivered us a beautiful result. City demands we repair the public sidewalk unexpectedly as a condition to receive Temporary Occupancy? No problem, concrete was bring poured in days to keep us on schedule. Rough poured stairs from another contractor not done to the correct grade? No problem, creative solutions were implemented. One plant dies from over-exposure to the sun? No problem, a better choice is swapped out a day later. No large project is without bumps and changes—some by us (reasonable!) and some by others (unreasonable!) but what you really want in a partner is someone who can advise with knowledge, but roll with it when we choose to go another way. Vijiya is such a person, and she and her subs all make problems go away.

Six stars out of five! After interviewing four other landscape contractors we spoke to Hortus Design based on a recommendation from a neighbor who was very happy with their landscaping. After speaking to Vijaya from Hortus, we commissioned a plan. We made some modifications to the plan in consultation with Vijaya and then went into the contracting phase. Bottom line is that we found Vijaya to be both very knowledgeable, friendly and flexible. We had some unexpected fence replacement work, and Vijay assisted with this unexpected need at a fair price. Per the plan, we also needed to replace a retaining wall. She designed the replacement wall at a higher standard than the wall that was removed. The new wall incorporates drainage and a scheme that keeps soil away from the redwood, thus potentially increasing the life of the retaining wall. Vijaya selected plants for front and back yard to maximize color, minimize maintenance and be adaptable to the prevailing sun and shade. She also selected low-water plants that met our county's requirements for a rebate based on turf-removal and the installation of a drip irrigation system. The rebate was welcome, and we are pleased that we will be saving water in the future. We are delighted with the results that were done to the highest standards. Our neighbors have told us that our landscaping is very attractive. We are pleased to recommend Hortus Design. The service was excellent.

I needed to re-landscape an industrial building for drought-tolerance. It seemed like most companies were too small: doing only residential--or too big: doing shopping centers. Hortus Design had no problem replacing 4,000 sq. ft. of lawn, retrofitting my sprinkler system to drip, and installing a weather-based controller--and making sure to adhere to all the regulations for me to get rebates from Alameda County Water District. I could see when I first met Vijaya that she was very competent and knew exactly what I needed. She was absolutely undaunted; I felt she could handle any challenge. When the wholesalers were out of some of the plants specified by my designer, she suggested other varieties that would substitute beautifully. When there was a miscommunication and she needed to pull out existing plants she'd thought I wanted left in, she changed direction immediately and without fuss. She quoted the job quickly, gave me a prompt starting time and finished everything within two weeks! Wow! Thank you for a beautiful job with no problems! June 2015: Ooops! There WERE problems! The grass sprung up within 10 days. She had not sprayed a pre-emergent weed killer, nor put down weed fabric! Since the job was to replace lawn, that seemed to me to be an intrinsic part of the job. When I called her attention to it, she maintained it was weeds! Nope, it was grass. I pushed back and finally she had two guys come and remove the mulch and put down weed fabric in the worst area, at no charge. Later, I had to pay $300 to replace a valve that was incorrectly installed. I was pleased to begin with, but she doesn't know her stuff well enough to provide lasting satisfaction.

I highly recommend using Vijaya of Hortus Design for landscaping. I had a barren hillside that she transformed into a beautiful terraced garden. What really impressed me with Vijaya was her communication and responsiveness, which is a rare trait among landscapers. She is a true professional. Her crew was hardworking and artful. They were on-time. Her budget was reasonable and she would have stuck to it, had I not asked her to do several extra things while she was on site (and those extras were reasonably priced).

We had an exceptional experience from start to finish with Hortus. I will post pics with this review. Here were our goals: -multi-phased approach, starting with the implementation of our front yard -do the back yard ourselves in later phases. -a native garden with less water and maintenance requirements, -a native lawn for our children -privacy since our front windows are large, but create a welcoming appeal, not a fortress. We got everything we wanted and beauty and innovation as well. Vijaya of Hortus plussed the design with ideas of her own such as a half-moon stone area in front of our door with an enormous pot to give us further privacy when we leave our front door open during mild weather. We had the added benefit of having our designer (Kim Leichner of KL Designs) as our project manager. We were already comfortable working with Kim since she is our designer. Vijaya was meticulous, and spent a lot of time on-site when Kim wasn't on-site. She spent hours having the crew clean the tiniest debris and tweak the sprinklers until they were perfect. We are very conservative in our spending, yet very picky in our work, and we've been waiting for years to find someone like Hortus who could meet our demands, yet do it at a reasonable price. We were utterly delighted, and found the experience so positive, that we're seriously considering hiring Hortus again for the back even though we had originally planned to do it ourselves to save the money. They're worth the price, and our entire front yard was done in four days.

We hired Hortus to completely redo our backyard, from demolition, to adding new sprinklers, landscape, lights, deck, arbor, retaining walls etc. From the beginning Vijaya has been very professional, knowledgable and easy to work with. She visited the worksite several times a week, always kept me inform of the process, and answered any questions that I might have. She also showed me many samples for which I could choose the stones, light fixtures etc. Additionally, she stayed on budget. More importantly, when part of our new decked was discolored due to work on our railing, she re-sanded and re-stained the deck (even though she had sanded and stained the deck prior to the railing work) without any questions or hassles.