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03 · Landscaping & Hardscapes

Landscaping & Hardscapes in Blount & Knox County, TN

A backyard you actually want to be in.

Patios, retaining walls, fire pits, walkways, plant beds, full re-designs. Built on real base prep, not pretty stone laid over bad ground. We design around your actual yard, your actual sun, and the actual way you live in it.

Pondless waterfall feature in a finished landscape
Photo · finished landscape
Project · East TN
Pondless waterfall + stacked-stone beds
Established planting around the feature

The problem

Most outdoor "upgrades" don't last because the base didn't.

You can build a beautiful patio over four inches of compacted gravel, for about three winters. Then it heaves, the joints crack, and the pavers tilt. The fix costs more than the original install. We've torn out enough of these jobs that we know exactly where they fail.

Hardscapes in the foothills have to handle freeze-thaw cycles, clay that swells, and 50+ inches of annual rainfall. That means deeper base prep, properly compacted in lifts, with drainage built in before the stone goes down. We do that part right, even though you'll never see it.

And on the soft side: most "landscape installs" are just a load of mulch, three boxwoods and a hosta. We design beds around how plants actually grow in clay, what your sun exposure really is, and how the bed will look in year five, not just the day it's installed.

  • Existing patio cracking, settling, or sloping toward the house
  • Retaining wall bulging, leaning, or shedding stones
  • Foundation plants leggy, dying, or wrong scale for the house
  • Backyard you'd use if there was somewhere to sit
  • Slope too steep to mow safely
  • Brand-new house with builder-grade landscape that needs a real plan

02 · What we build

Hard side, soft side.
One crew, one design.

We don't sub out the hard work to one company and the planting to another. The same person who designs your patio picks the plants going around it.

Patios & walkways

Flagstone, paver, stamped concrete, dry-laid bluestone. 6"+ compacted base in lifts, polymeric joint sand, edge restraint. Pitched to drain. Built to last 20 years, not three.

Retaining walls

Swap tired railroad ties or a leaning old wall for stone that matches your beds and actually holds its line. Boulder and natural-stone for character, with drainage and proper footing built in behind every one so it stays put.

Fire pits & outdoor living

Wood-burning or gas, stone or modular block. Built on a proper non-combustible base with the right code clearances. Full outdoor kitchen builds aren't our service.

Plant beds & foundation plantings

Designed for our foothills clay and your actual sun exposure. Native and adapted plants that survive year three. Real bed prep: amended soil, edging that holds up, mulch sized to the bed.

Rock beds & river-rock gardens

River-rock beds and rock gardens with clean cobble borders. Low-maintenance and tidy, and they carry runoff away instead of washing mulch into the lawn. One of the things we install most.

Full yard re-designs

Concept sketch, plant list, hardscape plan, phasing if you want to spread cost over two seasons. We design it, we build it. No middleman, no "the designer said one thing and the crew did another."

Sod, seed & lawn install

New lawn from scratch on graded soil; sod or seed depending on slope, sun, and budget. Tied into irrigation if you've got it. Warrantied for the season.

03 · How it works

Four steps, start to finish.

The same way every job runs, whether it's a quick fix or a full build. No surprises between the steps.

01

Quote & Bid

We come look at the actual job and give you a real number.

02

Design & Scope

We confirm exactly what we're doing before anyone picks up a shovel.

03

The Work

We get it done, the way we said we would.

04

Quality Control

We don't leave until you're happy with it. Questions later? We're a call away.

04 · Pricing

Quoted to scope.
Never quoted by square foot alone.

A 200 sq ft patio over flat compacted soil and a 200 sq ft patio with three feet of fall, a regrade, and stone steps are not the same job. Anyone quoting hardscape by the square foot online is either lying or about to underbid the base prep.

We quote your project after we've walked it. The quote is fixed. If we hit a surprise underground (rock, buried trash, an old septic line), we tell you the cost before we touch it, not after.

What affects your quote

  • Material grade (paver vs. natural stone)
  • Square footage & complexity
  • Base depth required
  • Slope, retaining, & drainage
  • Plant material count & size
  • Equipment access to back yard

05 · Recent work

A mix of hard & soft from this season.

View full gallery →
Pondless waterfall feature surrounded by stacked-stone planting beds Photo · finished
HardscapePondless feature
East TN portfolio

Pondless waterfall + stacked-stone beds

A water feature without the pond maintenance: pump in a buried basin, water cycles through the stack and disappears into gravel. Layered stone beds around it tie the feature into the house. The kind of yard that earns its own name.

New flagstone path along a stone-foundation home with fresh plantings Photo · after
Hardscape + plantingFoundation path
East TN portfolio

Foundation flagstone path + edging plants

Weedy dirt strip against a stone foundation became a flagstone walkway with new edging plants on both sides. The path itself stops the runoff from pushing mulch into the lawn: drainage hiding inside a landscape detail.

Lush hostas and a stone path at a home's front entry Photo · after
Full re-designFront entry
East TN portfolio

Sparse front entry to lush hosta walk

Stripped the tired juniper-and-mulch entrance, re-shaped the beds, anchored with hostas chosen for the shade pattern and a stone walk that reads like it was always there. House looks ten years older now, in a good way.

Refreshed foundation beds with blooming azaleas along a brick home walkway Photo · after
Bed refreshFoundation planting
North Knoxville

Front-bed refresh with seasonal color

Cleaned up the foundation line, re-cut the bed edges, and let the established azaleas carry the front of the house. The kind of refresh that resets curb appeal without a full re-design.

Landscape & hardscape projects in Blount, Knox & Loudon County — and the towns between.

MaryvilleAlcoaLouisvilleFriendsvilleKnoxvilleFarragutLenoir CityGreenbackBlount County

On the border or not on the list? Send your address — we'd rather decline a job than make a neighbor count themselves out. See service areas →

From the blog

More on this from our crew:

Free site walk · No pressure

Tell us what you want the yard to feel like.

We don't need a Pinterest board. Just tell us how you want to use the space, what you don't like about it now, and we'll come look. The site walk and the first sketch round are both free.

Things we'll naturally bundle in.

Big projects rarely happen in isolation. Once the crew is on site, here's what's worth doing while we're here.