Homeowner stories
What homeowners say
Patios that sit level after a Vermont winter, drains that work in a downpour and gardens that look settled by the second summer, in our clients' own words.
Elliot walked the whole back yard with us and spotted that two downspouts were emptying straight towards the foundation. His master plan dealt with the water first, then laid out a bluestone terrace we could build in two phases. The consultation fee came off the build invoice exactly as he said it would.
Our HOA wanted a scaled drawing before it would approve a new front walkway. Elliot's plan passed the board on the first submission, and Caleb's crew set the base with a laser level rather than by eye. Two winters on, not a single paver has heaved.
Nora chose and tagged every tree for our fence-line screen at the nursery herself. She mixed evergreens with a couple of flowering natives so it would not look like a wall of hedge. By the second summer the neighbours' deck had disappeared from view, and the deer have left it alone.
The side of our garden stayed boggy until June every year. Caleb traced where the water was actually coming from, cut in a French drain that empties into a cobble swale, and covered the lawn with mats while they dug. After the next heavy storm the grass was dry within a day.
Maya zoned the beds apart from the lawn and put the planters on drip lines. The controller skips a cycle whenever it rains, our July water bill came down, and the hydrangeas no longer wilt by mid-afternoon. She had us in the diary for the autumn blowout before I thought to ask.
Nora and Maya pruned our overgrown hydrangeas and the old crabapple by hand instead of shearing them into balls, then mulched every bed. They talked us through each cut, and this year the shrubs flowered harder than they have in a decade.