Bio Friendly Gardens

Lou Dixon is a magician. He knows design, he knows plants and planting, and he knows budgets. Just over three years ago Lou and his crew transformed our corner lot into a meadow oasis. He used branches pruned from our cedar tree for railings and an arch over the gate which is also clad with copper panels scavenged from recycled sofar panels! He produced huge rounds of wood cut from a trunk he had stored for steps coming down to the gate. He installed several large boulders and his positioning of them is spot on. Now, all this time later, work we did to add a light caused other lights to stop working and Lou came back on a cold, damp, and darkening evening and fixed the problem for us. I can’t recommend him highly enough. His work is beautiful and well thought out and it lasts.

Lou and his crew just finished building us the deck of our dreams. Clean, modern aesthetic — sunken hot tub, fire pit, kids’ play area — and lovely well-​integrated design created with thoughtful care and a deep understanding of the complexities of building on and in the Berkeley Hills.
Lou is clearly an artist — respectful of space and a thinker of how his clients will use the space he is creating. But, Lou is also very practical — keeping things within an agreed-​upon budget, offering creative solutions to complex problems, demonstrating a deep know-​how on all elements of construction from the ground up. He communicated with us each step of the way, and finished the project on time — with amazing efficiency.
He and his hard-​working team were kind, clean, and incredibly capable. We are thrilled with his work, and recommend him without reservation.

We hired Bio Friendly Gardens because we wanted a Japanese theme design for our front and backyard. Lou’s design proposal was exactly what we wanted.
He has a great eye for detail in creating the dry creek with beautiful surrounding plants/​trees in the front and an azumaya, planter boxes, and the artificial grass for our backyard.
He is great at communicating via email, text and phone calls to answer all my questions and requests. His crew is very hard working, professional and makes sure my yard is cleaned of debris at the end of each day.
We love the garden and have enjoyed spending more time outside, even in the cold weather.
We would definitely hire him again for any future projects.

Lou is really one of a kind. He is everything Dawn H. says and more. Lou just finished a beautiful and unique Japanese clay wall fence and shingled gate for our Professorville house in Palo Alto. He is both incredibly organized and creative (a rare combination!) and he has a wonderful philosophy of finding and re-​using natural materials.
As he was building it, many neighbors stopped to watch and admire — one of the English neighbors loved what he called «wattle and daub». Our fence was unique in its structure and building technique, but his crew was very talented and able to handle it. We were pleased with his organization and the way they left the worksite (our garden) neat and tidy every night as well as upon completion.
Lou also partially re-​did our garden and irrigation. They were very thorough in tearing out tough old roots and hauling in lots of new compost. He re-​used what he could but brought in lots of new plants too. A much needed renewal! The lighting he put in is beautiful too —

Lou is amazing… we remodeled our basement last spring and we had piles and piles of dirt and concrete everywhere and no idea what to do with it. Our contractor recommended Bio Friendly Gardens, he told us that they did amazing work and he was right. We met with Lou and gave him our ideas and toured our yard. He really listened and quickly understood our vision for the landscape. For only a few hundred dollars he did a conceptual drawing and we loved it! We had met with other landscapers who wanted thousands for a detailed plan bud we just didn’t feel that was a good use of our money.
His design incorporated our ideas but also included a number of his own creative concepts to make our yard a unique and beautiful oasis. It expanded our living area by making two wonderful patio areas for outdoors living. For our main patio, I had visions of swirling brick and stone and had drawn a very rough design for it. Lou was able to translate this into a beautiful, one of a kind work of art! (
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The transformation of our yard was truly unbelievable. Lou and his crew hauled in truckloads of soil, huge boulders and tons of stone and brick. They were quick, professional, detail oriented, and really cared about giving us the yard that we dreamed of. We highly recommend Bio Friendly Gardens for both their design skills and their ability to execute their highly creative designs!