We have over 30 years of experience with landscaping, hardscaping, and construction.

Inhabit Your Property

Designing changes to an area that lives and breathes presents some special challenges. Formal training combined with extensive experience is what’s required to understand what goes into designing a comfortable, beautiful landscape.

Plants

Your outdoor living space is LIVING….and constantly in flux.

CONTAINERS — Vicky has a special love and talent for container gardening that she developed through working at Broadway Terrace Nursery and Bay Plant Company. She applies her skills with clients in neighborhoods such as Rockridge, Piedmont, and Montclair where modern, traditional, tropical style homes are complimented so beautifully by well designed and thoughtfully placed containers.

A container garden is a small scale landscape - like a living bouquet that tells a story. Vicky’s fine art training taught her the fundamentals of texture and color, and it’s the foundation for the choices she makes.

The containers themselves can be almost any shape and size based on what’s appropriate for the space and the needs that are fulfilled by the plants. Larger containers can hold crops of bamboo for screening, citrus trees for their fruit, or sturdy plants for windbreaks. Smaller ones can accent a patio table or railing. Vicky likes them to be modern and low-profile, like metal troughs and lightweight composite containers which are perfect for decks.

Flexibility is a major advantage of container gardens. Move them from place to place; change out annuals for fresh color; have a rotating palette of succulents. Long-lasting perennials or succulents can be the cornerstone to a plant story that’s continually renewed with changing seasons or decor.

Maintenance needs are pretty simple: a little trimming and some fertilizer goes a long way. Vicky can add irrigation to make them worry-free in between her visits.

Boundaries

Your yard can be a sanctuary. You can have that feeling of dropping into your own private world with some careful design.

PERGOLAS — Commonly used for shade, pergolas create an outdoor living room for entertaining and relaxing. DVA will help you pick furniture, integrate it with outdoor cooking, and plan how to use it as a support structure for climbing plants.

FENCING — What could be more secure than a fence that defines your property and maintains a boundary. DVA will carefully observe property lines and take your view and privacy needs into consideration. Long-lasting materials are a must : cedar, redwood, metal, and wire grid mesh. DVA can finish it off with a gate, complete with a locking latch.

RETAINING WALLS — A simple concrete ridge can accomplish so much, whether it be for erosion control, defining separate planting areas, making a transition between patio and flower bed, or simply creating visual interest. Many kinds of wood can be an ideal material as well.

Warmth

KITCHENS — Brick pizza oven, food prep areas, sinks, refrigeration, bbq grill, dishwasher!!? If you want to know what could make your backyard more heavenly, this is definitely it.

FIRE PITS — The luxury of relaxing around a fire is undeniable. DVA is experienced with installing custom fire pits, often partnering with Concrete Works of Oakland. Fuel options can be propane or natural gas (clean burning for Bay Area) or wood-burning (traditional) depending where you live. Our favorite building materials are stone, concrete, or metal. They can be free-standing or built right in to a wall or patio.

PATHWAYS — An intentionally built pathway is such an important element to the garden. It’s the narrator to your garden’s story by threading together the different spaces and providing a cohesiveness. What story do you want to convey? Crushed gravel is used for the best footing and comes in many colors. Flagstone is a wonderful choice for longevity and works great for stairs. Or choose wood for a boardwalk feel underfoot. And don’t forget the low-voltage lighting for safety, elegance, and a touch of drama.

DECKS —  In a climate where lawns no longer make sense, DVA are building decks, porches, landings and patios in a wide variety of materials. Sustainably sourced hardwoods such as mangaris, batu, Brazilian ipe, conheart redwood, select redwood are favorites. A modern option is composite - plastic and wood molded into planks. There are pros and cons that we can talk about if this interests you. DVA also loves concrete for a super stylish alternative that really opens up creative options when it comes to design.