Installation experience will guarantee a successful garden. Having completed over 100 landscapes, Andrea Taylor Landscape Design can undertake all aspects of the installation process except hardscape. Irrigation, soil type and preparation, plant siting and planting are the areas of expertise a customer can expect with the installation. Following a design with the installation and maintenance thereafter is the ideal configuration for success.

A garden is only as good as it’s maintenance. As a highly experienced gardening service, proper pruning, staking, fertilizing, irrigation management, and problem assessments are standard. Andrea is all-organic, and focuses on soil health with compost, compost teas, biodynamic sprays, and integrated pest management. Blowers are not her specialty unless on hardscape only, and she is a firm believer that leaves on the ground are a valuable resource for the soil and can be managed without a blower scouring the earth away. Andrea charges hourly, with a two-hour minimum.

Andrea was a farmer before she was a gardener. She developed her skills at food production as a farmer at Green Gulch Farm in Muir Beach, growing and harvesting kale, chards, spinach, beets, potatoes, favas, lettuces and broccoli. Now she sees how fabulous it is to have these beauties in the home landscape. From raised beds to integrated inter-cropping to herbariums to citrus, Marin can have so much food abundance. Why not?

The plant that will survive the best in Marin is the native plant. They can find nutrients in the heavy clay soil, water in the depths, and survive the fierce sun or wet foggy dells without fuss. Sticky monkey flowers, cistus, yarrows and salvias, penstemons and native grasses, arctostaphylus, oak/bay/madrone guilds, ferns, nettles, columbine and california poppies, the options are many and strong choices for a landscape that is hardy and perfectly appropriate for the microclimate.

The habitat of a garden is a refuge for both humans and creatures. From hummingbirds to salamanders, habitats will attract them if we build them. With habitat loss and species extinction on the rise, this consideration in design can be met in many ways. Do you have a bat box to bring in these mosquito eaters? Bird feeder? Fountain? Plants that butterflies need to survive? A garden has something for every living thing.