We had a great experience working with Carol to redesign our backyard. When we called Carol, we had two major issues we were trying to fix. First, we had just lost two big old trees in the backyard due to disease; they had been the focal point of the yard and without them the backyard was just a big muddy hole. Second, there is a tall apartment builidng immediately behind us which, without the trees, was very imposing and we felt like we had lost our privacy and personal space in the backyard. What could we do to mitigate the feeling of being under the watchful eye of a dozen apartment windows?

Carol came up with clever, attractive, affordable solutions for us. We knew that getting a tree as tall as the ones we lost would take a lot of time, so she designed a bermed central planting island that both breaks up the space nicely and creates a screen between us and the apartments, even with a young tree. Also, she integrated native plants and drought tolerant plants to make the whole yard low maintenance. And she worked in my obsession with edible plants, adding blueberry and huckleberry bushes, plus tons of culinary herbs throughout the garden.

Carol referred us to D and J Landscape Contracting and Donna Burdick was a gift. Working with a contractor who already knew and had a good working relationship with Carol made everything easy and smooth. The contractor was on board to help us save money without being cheap. There are a lot of little touches in the landscape from Donna Burdick which were not on the drawing but had been discussed with Carol so they were a great team – we even have a small rain garden.

It’s a wonderful space and we love spending time in our backyard. The apartment building disappears behind our eye-catching plants and flowers. I love watching the garden change and grow through the seasons – we love it more and more every day!