Landscaping Consultations
Lawn Reduction / Lawn Improvement 
Want to make your lawn more beautiful? Are you thinking of reducing your lawn and exploring alternatives? Or are you wondering if you need a lawn in the first place? A Green Life Studios consultation can help. What are the long term benefits and costs of an artificial lawn? How much value does lawn add to your landscape? What can I replace my lawn with? How can I keep my lawn healthy using fewer chemicals? Less water? What should I do if I want to park a boat or small plane on my lawn? The questions are endless, options are many, and answers are here. The future of lawn is changing rapidly in California, for many good reasons. Fortunately, many green carpet solutions exist and you may decide it's time for something new.
Edible Landscaping 
Many homeowners cutting back on their water say that if they're going to use water, why not at least use it for more productive plants? Growing your own vegetables and fruit is not only satisfying, it can bring more variety to your table and lunchbox than store-bought produce can. Ever see a Vanilla Blood Orange in the grocery store? How about a Black Crim Tomato? Chocolate Mint, anyone? Or Purple Asparagus Beans? And, if you ever worry, like us, about eating chemically treated produce that's been shipped from Mexico, you might try your hand at growing your own in California's very hospitable climate.
Learn more about Edible Landscaping in our blog:
Low Water Landscaping 
Fancy a lush garden with almost no irrigation? Explore the beautiful possibilities! From the fine-leaved and aromatic to the broad-leaved and dramatic, low water gardens are both doable and lovable. Californians everywhere are raising the bar on their landscape with soft looking succulents and aromatic groundcovers that are low care, and delight more than the eye. Our designer/consultant can tell you what plants are appropriate for your soil, sun exposure and climate, explain how to reduce or remove your lawn and leverage new options for irrigation.
Read more about the future of California's water:
Low Maintenance Landscaping 
Messy trees, fast growing hedges, weeds of many colors, and armies of spent flower stalks... Not for you? Why not seek Green Life Studios' advice on legions of plants that won't need constant grooming and will let you sit back and admire them instead? Long-bloomers, no fuss perennials, evergreen groundcovers and fountains of grasses, perhaps a pot here and there. Butterflies and hummingbirds are the bonus. But how do you achieve year-round color, ward off pests and choose the right plant for the right place? Our designer/consultant will assess your yard's potential, suggest the best, easy care plants for your situation and help you create a new garden you'll love.
Firescaping 
"When it comes to fire, Califlornia is unlike any other state: it is the most flammable, the most dangerous, and its fire season lasts nearly eight months." So says Douglas Kent in his true gift of a book entitled Firescaping. The Oakland Hills fires of 1991 and the San Diego fires of 2007 taught Californians --and Green Life Studios-- a lot about how to create landscape that prevents damage and loss of homes to wildfires. Removing dead and flammable brush, creating defensible space, planning escape routes and knowing what to plant and what not to plant can seem overwhelming at times, but all of these actions are highly important. While these new methods are just beginning to become familiar, Green Life Studios stands ready to help you plan a landscape that will protect your beloved home or property, loved ones and pets from unthinkable disaster.
Read more about Firescaping in our blog:
Preparing Home and Landscape for Fire
Homeowners in the Hazard Zone
Watch this video:
Sheet Mulching 101 
Sheet mulching makes so much sense that one large commercial landscape maintenance company in Northern California is doing it on large scale condominium projects and public street medians. This "soil lasagna" of sorts can be done many ways. How you do yours will depend on your yard's size, slope, water quality, time frame and resources. Green Life Studios will help you develop a plan for your property, including calculating how much compost, cardboard and wood mulch you should use and where to get it. We'll teach you how to plant 1-gallon plants, 5-gallon plants and small groundcovers, and what to do about trees. Let one of our designer/consultants dial you in on one of Mother Nature's greatest tricks!
Water Management 
As many as 70% of Californians use too much water on their landscapes. Fortunately, water waste in the landscape is not extraordinarily difficult to fix. The average mow-blow-and-go gardener, however, is not educated enough to fix many irrigation problems. Cheap parts, faulty parts, improper parts and "mix and match" parts or water zones cause thousands of landscape properties to develop ever-increasing water usage. Proper spacing, adjustment and scheduling of irrigation, combined with smart controllers, eliminates many water waste problems, resulting in immediate water savings. Whether you're a home or business owner, we can tell you if your water bill can be reduced through water management.
The topics above are just suggestions. Green Life Studios' landscape consultations may include a discussion of plant health, soil health, lawn options, irrigation alternatives, drainage problems, plant choices, how to cut down on maintenance and water use, suggestions for path and patio placement and sizes, and a free irrigation check. Budgets for any construction projects you are contemplating can be explored too. Whatever your particular need, what your consultation covers is up to you. We tailor each consultation to your unique situation and interests.
Consultations: $150 for up to 2 hours.
$95 each additional hour.
Consultation fees may be applied toward the cost of design services if the design services are agreed to at the time of consultation. Sign up for our e-newsletter to receive discounts on consultations and other services.
