What a landscape installation covers
Installation is the day the drawing becomes a yard. We take a finished plan, whether we drew it or you arrived with one, and put it in the ground in the right order: grades first, then the largest plants, then the understory, then sod and mulch. The unglamorous part is the soil. Atlanta’s red clay holds water and compacts hard, so beds that will hold shrubs and perennials get broken up and amended with compost before anything is planted. Skipping that step is the most common reason a healthy-looking install thins out by its second year.
Sod choice follows sun and use. Bermuda and Zoysia want full sun and reward it with dense turf, while tall fescue carries the shaded lots that make up much of intown Atlanta. We set sod on graded, raked soil with tight seams, and where seed makes more sense we prepare the ground the same way. Beds are finished with shredded hardwood mulch or pine straw depending on the look the plan calls for, cut to a clean edge against the lawn. Larger trees are staked only where wind exposure calls for it, and everything is watered in the day it goes down.
Our process for this service
01 · Layout and staking. We transfer the plan to the ground, paint the bed lines, and set plants in their pots where they will live so you can see the arrangement before a hole is dug.
02 · Grading and soil prep. We shape the finish grades so water moves away from the house, then break up and amend the clay in the planting beds with compost worked into the top layer.
03 · Planting and sod. We plant from the canopy down, largest to smallest, then lay sod or seed the lawn areas. Root balls are set at the right height, never buried below grade.
04 · Mulch and cleanup. We mulch the beds, water everything in, blow down the hard surfaces, and walk the property with you before the crew leaves.
What’s included
An installation includes the plants at the sizes the plan specifies, the soil amendment and grading the beds need, sod or seed for the lawn, mulch, and a clear watering schedule for the first several weeks while roots establish. Because the same studio designs, installs, and maintains, the crew reads the plan the way it was intended and the handoff to ongoing care is a short conversation rather than a cold start. If something needs to change once we see it in three dimensions, we tell you on site instead of building a mistake into the ground.
Where we work
We install across the north and intown metro, from Sandy Springs and Roswell down through Brookhaven, matching plant and turf choices to each site’s light and soil. A sunny new-build lot and a shaded established garden get different palettes even when the plan shares a style, and the install is timed so plants go in with the best chance to root before the hardest heat of the year.