Garden Architecture

I found him extremely difficult to work with. We experienced numerous delays starting our project, which, once started, took much longer than anticipated. Thoughout, communication was difficult. Probably the most frustrating aspect, however, was the fact that he had a very definite aesthetic in mind, and would not, or could not, listen to my ideas. As a result, I ended up with almost the exact opposite of what I wanted (I wanted something classic and traditional — his taste is more towards modern). Second most frustrating was the amount of time fruitlessly expended in meetings with him. As an example, we had a 2 hour meeting with him towards the end of the project to select the plants. He arrived with blueprints and lists of plants and printouts from websites to show us photos. Great. We laboriously selected each and every plant and where it would be placed. Two days later he called to say that 80% of what we had chosen was not available at this time of year. He proceeded to substitute what he thought would work as alternatives. We did not object as we had no time or energy to go over all this again. But, really, as a supposedly experienced landscaper, he couldn’t have predicted this? Why not start by researching what was available and having us select from THOSE options? It was almost as if he had just graduated from landscaping school.
In his defense, everyone who sees our yard says it is beautiful. However, it’s MY yard and every time I see it all I think about is how difficult he was to deal with and how I ended up with exactly what I didn’t want — a bunch of roses and 50 different kinds of plants I don’t like and a huge concrete stucco wall that’s twice as thick as what I had before. Oh well. A first world problem for sure.

I had the pleasure of working with Robert Trachtenberg and his team from Garden Architecture from April 2012 to January 2013.
Although I’ve had no prior knowledge of the company, I decided to contact the company based on their online portfolio. I immediately felt at ease after my initial meeting with Robert. He was honest, to the point, and very pleasant. He assured me that the workers were his staff, and that he only sub-​contracts for tasks beyond his specialization, like paving and tree removal.
Robert assigned the designer David Lindberg for our project. Being a professional artist myself, I wanted to work with someone with a solid design sense and David fit the bill perfectly. David was very easy to collaborate, and both he and Robert had great ideas to infuse sophisticated modern curb appeal to my outdated mid-​century ranch. Referencing the image board that I provided at our initial meeting, they designed a gorgeous garden which was not only beautiful, but fit my lifestyle as well as water-​conserving.
Robert made a daily visit to check in on the progress during the construction, and he was quick to address if he foresaw any problems. He even accompanied me to my neighbor’s house during a minor hiccup regarding the property line, as well as following through with the stucco mason when he discovered a damage to our garden wall during our final walkthrough. I’ve always felt that I was in good hands with Robert, and that was very important with a big project like landscaping.
And last but not least, I have to commend on the yard crew spearheaded by Oscar Hernandez. I witnessed them work tirelessly over a few months through rain and shine, both in cold and hot weather. Oscar and his crew were at my house promptly at 7 every morning, and did an amazingly thorough job each day. I really appreciated that they work very clean, and maintained the work site in order each day.
Without saying, I highly recommend Garden Architecture to anyone who is looking for a good design and build landscaping company.