Garden Plan or Landscape Design

We offer two distinct yet related services: Start with a Garden Plan as a quick and simple version of the planning/design process that includes a helpful project outline and additional resources for the homeowner. A comprehensive Landscape Design plan can take your garden from start to finish with all the details. Samples on our Design page. Basics below.

Choose your level. We are pleased to simply get you started, to help you with any phase independently, and/or to expertly guide you through your garden or landscape project as a whole.

For design + build projects, Rebecca’s Gardens landscape designers proudly partner with Outdoor Craftsmen, top tier landscape installers and builders.

Our focus is on honoring native ecology while creating your dream form and functionality in relationship with the natural world. Likewise, we value right relationships with those involved.

By placing value on ecological and other perspectives, we keep the true needs of all levels at heart while implementing our creative intensions, fostering respect and win-win solutions in the process.

Together we design, install, and steward leading sustainable and regenerative landscapes for authentic living.

Clients we find the most beneficial partnerships with are those who have a keen interest in learning how to create and sustain a relationship with their land.

Custom inquires welcome.

How We Work

START WITH A GARDEN PLAN

Garden Planning is a consult or series of consults. It is comprised of anything you need it to be— such as a strategy, a sketch, a resource list, a solution to an issue, or all of the above. We may also be able to provide a rough-estimate range for your idea. When you garden plan with us, you might…

(A) Visualize your yard (B) Organize and schedule your goals in detail (C) Get experienced plant/material suggestions (C) Have a plan to give to the maintenance team (D) Get a custom DIY action-list for yourself or fam (E) Access fresh ideas and solutions with our experience in planning and design, such as:

• What plants are best where? What materials are recommended? How best to nurture my soil?

• What do I need to listen to from the environment or take into account once I have an idea I want to implement?

• What action steps need to happen before/as we get started?

• What irrigation adjustments will be most impactful?

• What is a sample estimate range for labor and for plants/materials in this industry?

• What options do we have to prioritize certain goals within budget?

We provide hourly consultations with an experienced Garden Specialist who will meet with you to come up with an organized approach, plant list, visual concept, or other relevant deliverable. We also help with specific issues or show you how to lead your goals in the best direction.

Garden Planning is a flexible service for anyone who wishes to tap into our expertise to suit your specific needs. Features a highly customized session or monthly series, designed to help support you every step of the way. Think: a curated care plan just for you and your garden.

Again, Garden Plans can be used in preparation for, or independent of, our full service design process.

DESIGN + INSTALL

For projects that need more detail or are larger in scope, we will begin with a process similar to garden planning and then begin your design proper:

PHASE ONE Begin your project with Rebecca’s Gardens. Here we listen and create solutions for your goals. We Introduce, Learn, Organize, Research, Plan, Design, and Evolve. Receive master gardener knowledge to help integrate your needs with the needs of the environment. We support regenerative processes and local connections wherever possible.

PHASE TWO Here our partners at Outdoor Craftsmen will Translate our design, and diligently Source, Install and Maintain your landscape solution. You will estimate and contract separately with them for your installation. You can trust their commitment to excellence in workmanship, and detailed communication at every stage, giving you choice and flexibility throughout. Build your vision and keep making it better throughout implementation.

Benefits Of Integrating Our Specialization With our combined expertise, we offer an exceptional win-win partnership for the design-and-install experience from start to finish. Good people make magic. We invite you to enjoy the process as well as the result.

EXPERIENCE THAT SERVES

Our services make use of our decade-plus experience with horticultural, herbal, and vegetable gardens, soft and hardscapes, soil, irrigation, and microclimate requirements, and local resources. Our offerings come complete with helpful recommendations and continuing care information.

Our work focuses on beauty, ecology, education, and building awareness of the interconnected life of people and land

With industry leading experience here on the front range, we provide you with strategic tools to realize your goals, including: best strategies, professional networks, informational resources, helpful DIY guidance, logistical planning, and nuanced plant or material selections to achieve your goals in harmony with nature’s.

OUR PHILOSOPHY

To achieve your goal, our work is based on purpose, passion, and values. We build each beautiful landscape from a foundation for structural integrity and ecological health that supports you at various levels in your enjoyment of sustainable living. We invest in quality relationships and long term vision. We aim to work with nature’s principles to create a functionally beautiful space with unique features and a sense of connection. Interwoven principles, from use-of-space, to biodiversity, are active throughout our design process and applied alongside our targeted methods for best results.

We support a multiple bottom line philosophy, or spectrum of economies that include defining wealth in interconnected sectors such as health, social, emotional, wisdom, ecological, time, and resources, in addition to financial. This values-based perspective provides helpful strategies through which to plan for your ideal life-goals both during the process and when living with the completed project. With your values in mind, we can customize to suit your budget and taste. Small or grand, you're in good hands with Rebecca's Gardens Design.

INSTALLATION REFERALS

We partner independently with industry leading local landscape businesses, each with an experienced installation team and manager, to whom we refer you. We do not provide labor services in-house at this time. 

Now that you have your design and chosen elements mapped out, you can seamlessly hand it over to our recommended (or your independently-chosen) installer to see it come to life.

MAINTENANCE REFERALS

We refer installations, clean ups, and regular maintenance to our trusted industry partners or to a vetted 3rd party independent specialist. Contact us for your custom referral.

Rather than create an in-house install team with crew management, this allows us to focus on our plans + design with you, to give your project the attention, wisdom, and communication needed for your success. With your design in hand, we are open to communicating with a wide community of specialists as necessary to fulfill your vision. As such we look forward to providing an inspired and evolving plan for your earth based needs.

HORTICULTURAL GARDEN DESIGN

ALL SEASON | XERISCAPE

• Groundcovers and Flowers

• Succulents + Grasses

• Shrubs + Trees

• Choice Seeds or Bulbs

• Soil Cultivation

• Composting Recommendations

• Holistic Solutions + Recommendations

• Outdoor Porch Planters

• Pathways + Other Features

HARDSCAPE DESIGN

ENVIRONMENTS WITH STONE OR PATIO

VIEW DESIGN EXAMPLES

• Landscape Design | Planning

• Incorporation Of Existing Natural Elements

• Native Plants | Trees | Shrubs | Flowers

• Entrances | Patios | Private Spaces

• Borders | Walkways | Retaining Walls

• Natural Boulders | Statues | Artful Planters

• Pergolas | Trellises | Shade Trees

• Berms | Leveling | Soil Fill or Replacement

• Custom Stonework | Terraced Hillsides

• Mulch | Gravel | Flagstone | Unique Materials

Get A Free Estimate

Custom Consults

ESTIMATE  Start with an initial walk through (30-60 min) to familiarize us with your property. We hear your ideas and collect data. We make note of your goals, perceptions, and the needs of the environment. We help answer questions, offer clarification, experience, and vision, and we recommend ideas or solutions. We may even do a little research before we follow up. We allow our experience to serve as we look at best options with you.

Receive a free estimate with relevant options and service pricing. Garden Plans are most cost effective and quick to implement. For Landscape Designs, we’ll take a look at relevant info on the table and outline clear steps to achieve your goals. If we are estimating for a full Design and Install, you will receive an estimate broken out into those 2 parts, reflecting our two specializations, for the most accurate range.

• SCHEDULE AN INITIAL ON SITE WALK THRU

• INTRODUCE VISION, OPPORTUNITIES, LOGISTICS, BUDGET

• RECEIVE ROUGH ESTIMATE

• ASK QUESTIONS + CLARIFY PREFERENCES + HONE GOALS

• UPDATE ESTIMATE, SCHEDULE, BUDGET

• MOVE FORWARD AS PLANNED

Beginning Your Design / Install

For those who identify their project We will apply the cost of your extended consultation to your new design project. Estimates available by request:

DESIGN

• INTAKE QUESTIONS + RESEARCH

• REVIEW INITIAL CONCEPT DRAWINGS

• REVISE + REITERATE

• REVIEW MASTER DESIGN

• REVIEW WITH INSTALLATION PARTNER

INSTALL

• RESERVE SPOT IN INSTALLATION SCHEDULE

• TRANSLATION + IMPLEMENTATION OF DESIGN

• MATERIAL SOURCING

• YOUR DESIGN COMES TO LIFE

Get more than just a number estimate. For a small initial fee get a clear, customized walk-through of the project from all angles. Helpful data and perspective up front make a big difference in the result. Start your landscape design with peace of mind.

GOT A PROJECT IN MIND?

ALL SIZES WELCOME

Small or Grand, you’re in good hands. You may have need of a full design team, or just one designer as your dedicated specialist. Dream it ~ Design it. All projects are welcome.

WHAT’S YOUR PROCESS 

INITIAL WALK THROUGH

Meet with Rebecca on site for an initial walk through (1hr) of your property or area in question. Working from a simple yet effective assessment, we will address your desired focus and draw your attention to anything necessary to help you achieve your goals, including: overall vision, recommended approaches, best practices, industry comparisons, or DIY tips as relevant. 

STRATEGY

Receive a private website page and/or PDF by email outlining the information discussed in the initial assessment. An overview of the basic project requirements, potential type of service providers needed, rough timeframe within budget, and recommendations for research or next steps are provided. A week or so is typically given in between the 2 meeting times — useful for recommended research, information gathering or considerations on both the clients and our ends.

FOLLOW UP

So you have your plan of action. What’s next? A follow up meeting (1hr) may be helpful via phone or zoom as to clarify your options and to discuss implementation or educated next steps toward your goal. Essentially, you can continue to evolve your Garden Plan into a Master Design, which can then be installed by a recommended local company.

RECOMMENDED NEXT STEPS

Plan your next steps in sync with the way you work best. Everyone is unique, and therefore even with structured project phases, every project will also be unique. Here are some options for how we work with you. If our planning and design services can help, we make them available to you at each step. If curated DIY resources are your best option, we’ll invite you to access our media + website resource ‘database’ and choose what works best for you— or sign up for weekly or monthly DIY emails to help keep you in step with your goals and aligned with our recommendations. If you are more fluid and less structured in your Garden Planning, and wish to engage a more conversational-style, we’ll set your conversation in motion and email you recommendations, outline, or research as relevant. For most, if working with a solid landscape design is indicated, we have you covered and next steps can be proposed.

WHO A GARDEN PLAN BEST SERVES

Anyone wanting to talk with a professional about your garden idea or plan of action. This is an essential and clarifying first step for any project. Do you need curated DIY resources, just an idea or sketch for a Garden Plan, or a real clear Landscape Design? Do you have some key questions in order to get started? An initial consult is designed to help you check-in and learn what’s of most benefit to you, given the needs of your project. You’ll learn how the various planning tools can serve your process best and fit your budget. Our goal is for you to feel empowered in your planning and decision making process. Be able to ask the right questions, know what you need to take into account to achieve your vision, how to assess timeframes, who you can consider or compare for implementation, and other essential decision making tools that can cut out the stress and give you peace of mind. We know where you’re coming from. We’ve been helping clients with their projects since 2011. We’re happy to be able to meet you where you’re at and be your sherpa from the foothills to the peaks of landscaping on the front range.

GET STARTED TODAY!

DID YOU KNOW?

Biodiversity Is The Best Value

HOMEOWNERS We specialize in native landscape care and cultivation that increases the value of your property by increasing the health of the land and soil as well as the aesthetics. Ask us for details.

• Increase garden health with a balance in the biodiversity of your soil to create synergy with essential nutrients, minerals, microorganisms, humus, compost, mycorrhisa.

• Plant kinship species that help each other grow, such as vegetable, flower, or tree guilds, and attract pollinators.

• Build soil structure to increase root health, balance moisture, aeration, and create best conditions for your microclimate.

• Balance over-story (trees), under-story (shrubs), and ground cover for a healthier range of flora and more efficient use of space.

HERB + VEGETABLE GARDEN DESIGN

ORGANIC | RAISED BEDS

• Design for Season + Taste

• Planting Schedule + Species Tips

• Irrigation Recommendation + Tips

• Raised Beds | Custom Planter Design

• Seeding | Companion Plants

• Soil Health | Cover Crops

• Harvesting and Composting

A Flowering of Ecology and Humanity

NURTURING YOUR INNER + OUTER NATURE

Humans, and all living things, are directly influenced by our natural environment. It’s a symbiotic relationship that we are each aware of to varying degrees. So why are we trained to think of nature as an inert backdrop to our lives, with quaint seasonal cycles that we reference only in relation to our schedules? Why do we feel so separate from the land we traverse daily, or think we are that collectively separate, whether from the trees outside our home or from the disasters happening around the globe?

Why is it that we feel compelled to continue the ancestral habit of blindly dominating our environment, unknowingly causing costly or unidentified disturbances that could easily be avoided, rather that seeing the value in working with it more efficiently and meaningfully while meeting our needs? For both are entirely possible, and we have the technology and the interest to do so en masse. So why the delay?

Collectively, we’re of many camps. While there are some who are pioneering the values inherent in learning and implementing nature’s small ways and great forces, there are many who are like an individuating teenager who are still going with the crowd and learning to think for themselves. And when they do, at first they believe they know it all while straining the mother’s heart and resources sometimes ungratefully or unaware.

Others are tried and true in their ways and beliefs and take a lot to be swayed toward change, even when the planet is on the brink of systemic dis-integration. We have become myopic, mis-informed, and forgetful. Those who demonstrate current lifestyles and values for us span a spectrum so wide it’s hard to know who we stand with, between the daily habits we’ve been taught and the changes we need to make in this very generation. 

We simply haven’t been listening, and that has to change today. In fact, we may have forgotten that we get back what we put into all our relationships, and that the environment is no different. When was the last time you felt or expressed gratitude for nature? What did it look like, and how did it feel?

We need a good reminder and guidance in re-embracing these core truths of nature back into our daily beliefs and actions. We see an industry that markets to ‘green values’ yet caters to consumers who have yet to understand or care for how their environment really works beyond aesthetics and thinking their products are natural. This does little to actualize the changes that are needed at scale to return us to balance. It appears it is a collective worldview that needs an upgrade. While such an upgrade is demonstrated in many ways by permaculture principles on the outskirts of many lives, the values on which it is based have yet to penetrate the daily habits of millions more whose minds are distracted by media, and whose lives follow the grid that was established in some ways out of sync in the first place. There is great momentum behind each camp, yet they are disparate and in need of integration for the health and sanity of our species and all who are a part of the birthing of this new world.

What it takes is an understanding of systems and context to be able to choose what’s needed and make requests for services that can truly make a significant difference for the health of our ecology and ourselves.

Our lives are intertwined with nature but our attention has been diverted from it. Nature is not something that only moves slowly in the background or that constantly causes disruption, fueling further fear retreat and warfare against it. That is human belief and/or collective emotional vibration projected back at us to wake us up to our own responsibilities toward right relationship. There are many natural processes we are misinterpreting that can easily be redirected and seen as beneficial while solving our perceived issue in the process. 

We have to understand that in many ways, not all, we have in some way a presence to these mass vibrations, these waves. In different parts of the world, for different reasons, our actions thoughts and emotions have collectively contributed to conditions that build up and set in motion in nature’s language tsunamis, droughts, fires, quakes and more. As noospheric co-creators and dreamers of reality, not just perceivers, we are given the ability to see where we are angry, fearful, hurting, and overwhelmed, and to witness how this is reflected back, not always in logical cause and effect ways. Not the other way round. Symbiosis, not polarity.

Our evolved natural and heartfelt response now must be to attend to our relations, with ourselves, with each other, and with our environments, which are a living field of biodiversity just waiting to respond to us with life giving solutions and to help us establish systems of holistic processes that can work symbiotically with technological advancements if we cultivate the values to align it that way. And harvest the benefits rather than weather the wars.

Nature speaks to us and through us from our environment every day. Start paying attention and asking how you can cultivate a mutually beneficial lifestyle as you walk out the door, and you’ll receive more value than you know what to do with. You don’t even need to become a hippy to live in regenerative splendor. But you do have to change some habits for the better, and actively engage group efforts at building a more regenerative lifestyle so your successes can be shared and amplified.

With simple cost effective biodiverse choices, and new planning, our yards and our ecological neighborhoods can easily thrive. Our society may have kept us from growing into a more self-aware and grateful teenage species, but we’re waking up now. And Rebecca’s Gardens is here to help you thrive…

EVOLVING WITH YOUR DESIGN

Rebecca’s Gardens draws you into balance in your next steps within your environment. Our understanding of ecology and socio-cultural systems gives you fresh perspective. Our experience gives you solid options to achieve your goals. Our passion gives you inspiration. Our relational values highlight new opportunities to help broaden your understanding of how both you and ecology can benefit.

Did You Know You and Your Property Are A Key Part Of These Social Changes?

In the big picture, 2023 has become a tipping point in terms of the way things have been done or the way we as a community and as a society have been conditioned to believe they are done. It’s no surprise that the larger environment is seeing extremes and catastrophes that are also mirroring unparalleled human stress and division. And we are stepping up as best we can. You can read about how some are addressing the drought to the Colorado river basin from 2022.

Now closer to home, with respect to sub/urban landscaping, gardening, and especially in agriculture or wild land management, this year is the time to be willing to reeducate ourselves on exactly how we value what we have and how we can align with regenerative actions that truly make a difference within the natural systems and resources that sustain our health and pscho-social balance, as well as our land, and interconnected communities.

Rather than continuing to take for granted our property’s landscape as a passive backdrop to the market value of the house materials and neighborhood, we must outgrow that stagnant lesson with all its constipated results on our health, homeowner responsibilities, and mental stress. For a healthier happier life, we are now invited to truly begin to understand and to raise our valuation of both our property’s local natural resources, as well as how our property reflects being in balance with the larger ecological context in which it is situated. Learning how to upvalue our property to include nurturing land and water use changes the game. It refreshes our sense of connection to our land and strengthens our sense of community. This change of attitude puts us at the forefront of a beautiful new synergistic demonstration of green ecology and social standard that is in sync with nature’s healthy processes for our high alpine zone.

There are many ways to do this, and we are achieving this both as individuals and as groups in our neighborhoods. And we are partnering with like minded groups around the globe. As larger systems based on old thought begin to give way to new challenges and opportunities, we begin to realize the power of community creativity that is changing our world for the better — one project at a time.

How do such ecological values fit into the marketplace? They aren’t supposed to. Rather, with this change of attitude, we realize that we are actually responsible for fitting our socially-defined marketplace values to integrate and support nature’s local ecology. Creating a movement toward more balanced and multifaceted economics in the eyes of the market happens with a shift in homeowners and realtor’s (aka community) values, something that is happening in our community as we speak. Each one of us is poised to make that shift. And each year we are closer to the momentous tipping point for positive growth, around which movements really make a difference, with enough social momentum to become a new regenerative standard in support of values like the health of the soil, water and micro-climate management, native species, diversity, pollinators, personal use, personal health, beauty, and integration that defines ecology as part of the intrinsic value of our health and our community.

Achieving this isn’t as much an asterisk or a benefit accessible from the % return on our property assets as it is the new bottom line that gives back to us exponentially more than what we have invested, starting with our very survival, our personal and communal health, and our raison d’etre aka joy of living — and growing to include unique surpluses, abundance, and sharing that our communities are desperate for both emotionally and resourcefully. This mirrors the very definition of permaculture according to its founder Bill Mollison, which is that it is a conscious system between humans and nature’s patterns, a system that produces more energy and value than what it takes to create it. So this shift in perspective and valuation opens the door to considering new integrated approaches, ones that introduces greater alignment with our way of daily living, based on modern technologies that can operate in symbiosis with the organic systems of which we are a living part.

Rebecca’s Gardens is dedicated to helping you become more aware of your valuable and magical link with nature starting from the land on which you live, work, play, and grow. If your work places you in front of the computer for hours a day, it’s essential to reestablish your natural grounding, which will in turn help your health, state of mind, productivity and enjoyment of life. Through our designs, practices, education, collaboration, donation, and more, we are taking action this year to help uplift awareness in individuals and the social collective for an advanced cleaner happier more loving and interconnected green future. We hope you’ll join us!