Issue No. 1 — High Desert
Gardens that belong
to the ninth driest
state in the union.
Reno gets seven and a half inches of rain in a good year, swings forty degrees in a day, and freezes into May. Most of what a garden centre sells you will die here, slowly, at your expense.
We design the other kind. Native and adapted planting, stone that came from this side of the Sierra, and irrigation sized to what the plant actually drinks — laid out so the whole thing looks intentional in February as well as June.
Selected work
Six gardens, and
what each one had to solve.
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01
A south slope in Somersett that cooked every July
Decomposed granite terraces cut across the fall line, planted to rabbitbrush, blue grama and Apache plume. Three boulders placed to throw afternoon shade onto the seating area. Irrigation dropped from eleven zones to four.
Design & build2,400 sq ft2024
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02
A Midtown courtyard eleven feet wide
Board-formed concrete bench along the long wall, a single multi-trunk desert willow, and gravel in two grades to read as a path without one. Everything drains to a dry creek that handles the once-a-year downpour.
Design & build310 sq ft2024
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03
Replacing 4,000 square feet of fescue in Sparks
Lawn removed in stages over one season so the family kept usable yard throughout. Sheet-mulched rather than sprayed. Water use down roughly two thirds by the second summer; the client kept a 600 sq ft play lawn on its own zone, which we recommended.
Conversion4,000 sq ft2023
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04
A wind-scoured lot in the North Valleys
The client had lost two rounds of planting to wind. We built a staggered screen of Utah serviceberry and mountain mahogany on the prevailing side first, waited a year, then planted the interior into shelter that already existed.
Design, phased buildHalf acre2022–24
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05
Old Southwest, where the trees were the whole brief
Two mature Modesto ash the owners wanted kept. Everything else was drawn around the root plates — no trenching inside the drip line, planting chosen for dry shade, and a gravel path floated on top rather than cut in.
Design & build1,900 sq ft2023
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06
A rental duplex the owner wanted to stop watering
Not every job is a design job. Sprinklers audited and re-headed, lawn reduced to the front third, and the rest put to gravel and six shrubs a tenant cannot kill. Two days on site.
RetrofitTwo days2025
The practice
What we do, and
what it costs.
Design fees are fixed and quoted before we start. Build is quoted per project after the design is settled — we have never issued a change order for something we should have seen at the survey.
- Site walk & written assessment
- $0
- Ninety minutes in your yard. Soil, drainage, sun, wind and what your irrigation is actually doing. You get the write-up whether or not you hire us.
- Planting plan
- $1,400
- Scaled drawing, plant schedule with sizes and quantities, and a watering regime for the first three years. Yours to build with anyone.
- Full garden design
- from $3,800
- Grading, hardscape, planting, lighting and irrigation drawn together, with a build sequence and a real budget. Two revision rounds included.
- Design & build
- quoted
- We build what we drew. One crew, one point of contact, and a two-year warranty on planting we installed and maintain.
- Lawn conversion
- from $4.10 / sq ft
- Turf removal, soil repair, planting and drip. We file the regional water authority's rebate paperwork for you; most clients recover a meaningful share of it.
- Seasonal care
- $180 / visit
- Four visits a year — spring start-up, summer check, autumn cut-back, winter shut-down. Gardens we designed, and gardens we did not.
Field notes
The Truckee Meadows
garden year.
Zone 6b–7a, roughly 4,500 ft. Pick a month for what we would be doing in your garden, and what it should be drinking.
Bar height is relative irrigation demand across the year.
0" supplemental water — system is drained
Dormant. Leave it alone.
Seed heads and standing grasses are structure, not mess — they hold snow and feed finches. Prune only what is broken. This is the month we draw next season's plans.
0" supplemental water
Prune fruit and shade trees.
Structure is visible and the trees are still asleep — the only honest window for real cuts. Hold off on anything spring-flowering or you are pruning off the flowers.
0.4" per week, hand water only
Cut back grasses. Do not start the irrigation.
Ornamental grasses down to a hand's width. It will feel like spring for about nine days and then freeze again — every year, without exception. Charging the system now splits pipe.
0.8" per week
System start-up, and the last frost that gets people.
We charge and test zones, replace the emitters that split over winter, and set the controller low. Average last frost is mid-May, not April — planting tender things now is the single most common mistake in this valley.
1.2" per week
Plant. This is the month.
Soil is warm, frost risk is finally gone, and roots get eight weeks to establish before real heat. Everything we install goes in now if we can help it. Mulch to two inches.
1.8" per week, before 6am
Move watering to the early morning.
Midday irrigation in 8% humidity mostly waters the sky. Deep and infrequent beats daily and shallow — you are training roots downward before July decides to test them.
2.3" per week — annual peak
Peak demand. Watch the new planting.
Established natives are fine. First-year plants are not, and a single missed week in July undoes a whole spring. We check drip pressure on every maintenance account this month.
2.2" per week
Shear back what has gone leggy.
Catmint, salvia and penstemon give a second flush if cut now. Stop feeding anything woody — you do not want soft growth heading into autumn.
1.4" per week
The second planting window, and the better one.
Warm soil, cooling air, and the whole winter for roots to work. Shrubs and trees planted in September outperform May planting by our count. Dial the controller back as nights cool.
0.7" per week
Bulbs in, leaves stay.
Plant bulbs through the month. Leave the leaf litter in the beds — it is free mulch and it is where the native bees overwinter. Rake the paths, not the planting.
0.3" deep soak, then shut down
One deep watering, then blow out the lines.
Plants go into freeze better hydrated. After that the system is drained and the backflow insulated. We do this for maintenance clients in the first two weeks.
0" supplemental water
Knock the heavy snow off the evergreens.
Wet Sierra snow splits upright junipers and arborvitae. Sweep upward with a broom. Then go inside — the garden is doing exactly what it should be doing.
What clients say
They talked us out of the pergola we asked for and put the money into drainage. Third winter now and the patio has never once flooded.
The written assessment was more useful than the two paid consultations we had before it, and they gave it to us for nothing.
Our water bill in July went from $310 to $104. The garden looks better than the lawn did.
Where we work
Book a site walk.
Ninety minutes, no charge, no pitch at the end of it. You get a written assessment of your soil, drainage, sun and irrigation either way.
Service area
Reno · Sparks · Somersett · Caughlin Ranch · Old Southwest · Midtown · North Valleys · Verdi · Spanish Springs · Washoe Valley
Incline Village and Carson City by arrangement, April to October.
- Licensed
- Nevada landscape contractor, licence on request
- Insured
- $2M general liability, certificate on request
- Studio hours
- Mon–Thu 7am–4pm · Fri 7am–noon
- Site walks
- Tue & Wed, plus Saturday mornings in spring