Hard landscaping and planting across Ione, Amador County and the foothills around them. Every service below has one of our own job photos next to it — if we could not show you the work, we did not put a picture on it.
A whole front or back yard taken from bare dirt to finished — grading, the wall that holds the grade, gravel and cobble beds, planting pockets, mulch and the path through it all. We lay it out on the ground with you before anything gets set.
Foothill yards have their own problems: thin soil over rock, slopes that shed water in one direction, and summers that punish anything planted carelessly. We plan for that rather than fight it.
Segmental block, boulder and stone retaining walls that hold a bank and give you usable flat ground above it. Base prep, drainage behind the wall and proper backfill are the parts nobody sees and the parts that decide whether a wall is still straight in ten years.
Curved runs, stepped returns, and planting terraces built into the top so the wall reads as part of the garden instead of a barrier across it.
Dry-stacked natural stone, laid by hand, stone by stone. Each piece gets turned until it sits — no mortar doing the work that the fit should be doing. The gold, rust and grey fieldstone in the photo is local foothill stone, and it weathers in rather than fading out.
Low garden walls, driveway edges, raised beds and bank facing. Slower than block, and it looks it in the right way.
Irregular flagstone cut and fitted so the joints stay tight and even, set on a proper compacted base so nothing rocks under a chair leg. Patios, courtyards, entry approaches and curved walkways off a drive.
The warm tan and peach stone shown here was set with dark joints and edged into a river-rock bed, which keeps the gravel out of the stone and gives the patio a clean line.
Waterfalls and stream channels built into the existing grade, so the water appears to come out of the hillside rather than out of a kit. Rock faces shaped and set, the channel lined, the drop heights tuned so it actually sounds right.
Cobble borders, planting beds alongside, and the pump and plumbing kept accessible for when it needs servicing.
Larger excavated ponds set into a slope, with the banks held in dry-stacked stone and a rock inlet structure feeding one end. Shaping the hole, holding the edge and getting water in and out of it are three separate problems and all three have to be solved.
Pond work is site-specific in a way most landscaping is not, so this one always starts with a walk of the ground.
Dry creek beds that give run-off somewhere sensible to go, hand-set cobble rather than a trench full of tipped gravel, with graded crushed-rock edges and boulders set to look like they were always there.
Low-water rock gardens, decomposed-granite beds and boulder rings around specimen trees. It is the lowest-maintenance landscaping there is, which in this climate counts for a lot.
Above-ground pool installs, including the part that actually matters — getting the pad dead level and properly compacted before the wall goes up. A pool set on ground that was not prepared will tell on you within a season.
Ladder, pump and filter set up, and the surround tidied in so you are not walking through mud to get to it.
Repairs to existing fences — new rails and boards let into a run that is otherwise sound, posts reset, bottoms rebuilt where the ground has moved — and new fence where a repair is no longer worth it.
In the photo the lower rails and boards are fresh redwood against weathered pickets; the rest of the fence was still good, so it stayed.
Removals and cutting back, worked from a tracked lift where the tree is too big or too close to something to drop in one piece. Taken down in sections, bucked on the ground and cleared out.
Foothill properties carry a lot of pine and oak, and some of it ends up in the wrong place. If you are not sure whether a tree needs to come out, we will come and look at it.
We do not have a job photo of these two yet, so there is no picture on them. They are still on the list — ask when you call.
Synthetic lawn over a prepared and compacted base, edged and seamed. Useful where water is tight or where grass has never taken.
Overgrowth cut back, debris and green waste hauled out, beds cleared and edges redefined — often the first step before anything else gets built.
Call or text and we will come out, walk it with you, and give you a straight number.
JLS OUTDOOR