Landis Garden Design

I highly recommend Landis Garden Design. Tomi Landis was everything I could ask for in a landscape architect and project manager. She is creative, collaborative, and efficient. There was never a point where I didn't know what the current status and next steps of our nearly 3 month project. She totally transformed our sloping, water-logged front yard and transformed it into a beautiful space that fills me with joy every time pull into my driveway. Because of the slope of the front yard, mild to moderate rain would erode the soil underneath and it would float out on to our driveway. The steep steps to the front of the house, likewise, had eroded over the years and you could see where it was starting to cave in. She addressed the water issues with strategic regrading of the front yard and use of trees and landscaping to capture the water. She told us about the DC RiverSmart program, which allowed us to receive trees, provided by the city, to manage water run-off. Tomi also transformed our outdated front walkway into a true entry path with three distinct "landing" areas. Our steps have a clean, modern line and lighted. She also gave us sunken, front stoop where we now can sit and entertain. Thanks to Tomi's suggestion, we now have a modern, lighted address sign on the front face. So practical and stylish - especially since our house was hard to find because the old address sign was not lighted, too small, and falling apart. As if that wasn't enough (value added to the house!), we decided to transform the face of the house which had a pale, salmon colored brick on top and mismatched stones on the bottom half. Tomi worked with us to find the ideal color for the brick (light grey-blue) and refaced the lower part of the house to give us a stucco face (darker grey). Now our house has a mid-century modern vibe, that is complemented with the stair railings that Tomi recommended. Throughout this entire project, Tomi was a joy to work with and I recommend her to anyone who is thinking of outdoor landscaping. She is always open to ideas and gives realistic options that takes in to account the budget for a project. She also suggests long-term projects that can be done in stages to achieve the end goal. Tomi's project management skills are superb and she is always available to discuss options and give updates. Working with Landis Garden Designs was the best home improvement project experience I have ever had and I'm looking forward to working with Tomi again when we are ready to transform our backyard.

Tomi Landis is a first rate landscape designer and "general contractor." She designed and oversaw the building/installation of a new landscape in our fairly large garden (including new hardscape and plantings). Tomi brought to the job wonderful creativity and design vision, deep knowledge of plants and materials, a commitment to the environment, and a practical sense of what would actually work in our space. Tomi's work is reliable and tiimely, she pays attentions to all the details, and she is very personable and friendly. We are thrilled with our new outdoor space, and highly recommend Landis Garden Design.

From concept through installation, we were extremely glad that we were working with Tomi. Her design was spot-on for our yard, the gardening and electrical crews were both reliable and knew what they a were doing. We had a party last night and a lot of people were on the back deck. We were complimented several times on our landscaping. Great job, Tomi.

You cannot possibly find a better landscape architect than Tomi Landis: extremely knowledgeable, creative, committed to sustainable gardening, listens to your ideas so you get the garden you want but even better, a delightful person to work with. I now have a beautiful new backyard that not only contains a rock "river" and gorgeous plantings, but also much better water flow due to Tomi's astute analyses of my drainage and grading. Our garage has flooded for the past 25 years but she also figured out what was going on and that problem is solved. I will sit in my new garden every day and smile. Thank you, Tomi!

We could not be happier with the garden Tomi created for us. When we first met with her in the spring of 2015, we were despairing of finding a way to deal with our new home's very challenging backyard. For 40 years, a succession of owners had tried unsuccessfully to grow a lawn in an extremely shady and buggy area with poor drainage and very shallow maple roots; by the time we moved in, the lawn was basically a weed patch, surrounded by rusty chain link fence and a huge stand of very entrenched bamboo. We consulted a number of well-regarded designers, but to our frustration everyone tried to push a new lawn on us, even though we said up front that didn't want one. Tomi was the first person we spoke to who was excited by the possibility of doing something different. She was not deterred by challenges--ranging from budget constraints to difficult site conditions--but rather seemed energized by them. Moreover, she was the only person we spoke to who was truly observant and thoughtful about our tastes (mid-century design, for example) and our needs as a family (the spaces she designed function beautifully for entertaining and play alike). The final product--a multi-"room" back garden with an ipe deck and built-in seating, a fire pit, bluestone pavers, wood privacy screens, new fencing, and a series of regraded plant beds featuring improved drainage and native plantings--has vastly exceeded our hopes. It is not an exaggeration to say that the garden Tomi created has dramatically expanded our living space and enhanced our lives.

Tomi did an excellent job in designing and executing our large scale project covering the double lot back area and the two side areas of the house, within budget. The key requirement for our project was to manage the flooding, provide pathway for the rain water and design and plant a new garden. Specifically Tomi built a swale to absorb and convey downspout water on the side of the house that also acted as a pathway. On the other side, a bio-swale planted with native trees, shrubs and ground covers and a rain garden at the bottom of the stairs and fully landscape the backyard with a perimeter garden. She provided us clear technical explanations of the rain water management techniques, leveraged DC’s program to help its residents with rain gardens, instituted best environmental practices using native species, designed and built a beautiful garden for us. We are enjoying our decision of hiring Tomi everyday! She went the extra mile to explain the project to our neighbors on both sides. I would highly recommend Tomi for any landscaping project.

Tomi Landis translates creative garden ideas into stunning outdoor environments that incorporate native plants, water management systems, walls, patios and paths. Her memorably beautiful and sustainable landscapes, accented with her artful stone designs, will bring added dimension and value to any property.

As the project director for American Friends of the Czech Republic, I retained Landis Garden Design to design the Václav Havel Place monument in Alumni Square (37th and O Streets, NW, Washington, DC) at Georgetown University. We could not be more pleased and satisfied with the result achieved by Tomi Landis for this garden-based installation. Our opinion is shared by many others, including former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Dagmar Havlová, President Havel’s widow. Tomi’s contributions to the success of the project started with a thorough analysis of the best location for Havel Place, followed by a creative and interesting design solution. Her services included such details as finding the linden tree that is the centerpiece and ensuring that it was removed and balled in the right month of the year. She also identified a qualified contractor for the work and supervised his work from beginning to end. We highly recommend Tomi Landis.

Landscape design services for both front and back yards to deal with issues related to water and crumbling masonry, in addition to design work for removal of an old patio and installation of a new deck. Provided several options for the design, planting plan and decking materials.

We are very happy we hired Tomi at Landis Garden Design. She took our kind of blah and boring expanse of mossy grass, weeds and sagging brick walk that was our front yard and terraformed it into a mini nature preserve. We’ve been through one entire seasonal cycle and enjoyed the surprise of a different set of native plants blooming in turn each season. We have a challenging West facing site at the bottom of a hill. Tomi was not only great at recommending plants for the various levels of sun and soil quality our site offered, but proved to be a wizard with creative storm water management (while keeping that water on our site). This is evidenced by our much nicer reworked front walk (with reworked grade to keep water away from the foundation) and a circular rock garden in an especially shaded area of our yard where water had pooled and where little had grown. The installers that Tomi worked with and oversaw were professional and everything was reasonably priced. We would recommend Landis Garden Design without reservation.

We hired Tomi Landis to help us address water issues in our backyard. She created a plan that completely transformed our backyard, using native plants and trees, rocks, and swales to channel water away from our house. Her garden design plan was executed under her careful and attentive eye and we were thrilled with the results. We now have an outdoor space where our children can play, an attractive pea gravel patio for entertaining, and a lovely garden.

We hired Tomi Landis in the summer of 2014 to help design and install landscaping at the house we recently bought. We wanted someone who specializes in native plants and bird-friendly environments, and Tomi was the only person who responded to our queries! She's very knowledgeable about all kinds of plant & garden issues, is full of ideas and recommendations (which is what we really needed) and is extremely professional. Tomi did a property survey and marked off our land. She then brought over photo books and information, examples from other jobs she'd done, and did several sketches showing possible layouts around our property. She was interested in how we wanted to use the space, not just what flowers we liked. (If anything we were short on expressing a lot of ideas because we had not yet lived in the house!) She then provided several written proposals that clearly spelled out what plants would be used (referenced to the sketches), their cost, and the cost of labor. Doing revisions to accommodate our preferences, or to reduce costs, was no problem at all. The first installation phase was in the Fall. Tomi brought over an excellent crew (who we have since used ourselves) and actually supervised the work! At that time we put in ten trees and dozens of bushes and shrubs. She provided written instructions for care and watering, plus continued advice. Tomi also told us about a county program that gives rebates for managing storm water runoff on the property and we were able to recoup several thousand dollars just by following her suggestions on adding berms! In Spring of 2015 we finished the planned installation, which included several more trees and some other plants. Tomi also guarantees her plants, if they have been installed and maintained correctly, and she has replaced several that had failed for various reasons (other than the extreme winter). Those of us with little gardening experience, not knowing what to expect, might worry about problems with the plants, or wonder if it will turn out okay. All along Tomi was (and continues to be) responsive, willing to give advice, and always encouraging about the ways of the natural world. She was honest about needing a few years to see the full potential of the plantings, so we are looking forward to the eventual result! As for cost, this was a fairly large job, so not inexpensive, but we did not find her fees, cost for plants, or installation labor, to be outside of what we expected. In the end we liked Tomi and her professional approach so we never looked further!