Falling Waters Landscape Inc.

Our experience with Falling Waters has been 100% positive — beyond anything I could have imagined. I saw Ryan’s work at the SD Garden Show. I chose him over the others because his exhibit combined native drought-​tolerant plants with hardscape features and a sense of whimsy that left a smile on my face. A few weeks later we met. Soon after, we had a design that we loved. He and his team were professional, efficient, knowledgable, hard-​working, responsive, creative, and wildly talented. I think that only one plant — of the hundreds they planted — is not currently alive and thriving. And that one? They replaced it within a week of me letting them know.
The whole process was a joy, and it still gives me a daily sense of well-​being every time I walk through my yard. I must say that I am surprised to see a negative review. My experience with Falling Waters has led me to recommend them to friends and to use them again on a new project. Not because they are the cheapest in town, but because they are amazing. It’s not easy to find in one company responsible stewards of the land with extensive knowledge and vision, professionalism and a keen sense of style, proportion, grace, and whimsy. With Falling Waters, you get it all. Ryan Prange is that rare combination of professional businessman and visual artist. Choose him and you will get something great that increases the quality of your life and the value of your property.

My first experience with Falling Waters was while filming an episode of a television show on HGTV named «Bang for your Buck». I was the featured Realtor on the show and Ryan was a featured designer for one of the back yard spaces. His design ended up winning! I was hooked on his work and style from there. A few months later while filming a 2^nd episode, I discovered Ryan had again designed one of the backyard spaces and absolutely killed it again. I knew I could trust Falling Waters with the design of my own backyard and had zero hesitation in hiring them. Ryan exceeded all of my already high expectations. I consider myself to be a pretty creative person but knew that Ryan could take my ideas to the next level and he did. I gave him a budget and he stuck well within that budget. We are hiring Ryan to handle the design of our front yard as soon as tax time is over!

Falling Waters designed, built and is maintaining our landscaping. Can’t recommend Ryan and Falling Waters enough. We have a new house so we were starting from scratch. During the design, Ryan really tried hard to take our input into consideration but also come up with original ideas that there is no way we could have thought of alone. We found Falling Waters originally because they were featured in a number of magazines locally (since then they’ve been featured on HGTV a couple times too!). So a side benefit is that our yard has ended up looking so nice it might get featured on TV or in a magazine!
Our project and the subsequent maintenance are not cheap but the money was well worth it. As for maintenance, they’re always VERY responsive to anything that comes up. Things get taken care of quickly whenever they arise and its always easy to get in touch with Ryan.

After meeting with several reputable landscape designers, we ultimately chose Ryan to create a landscape design for our entire home based on his enthusiasm for the project and his willingness to work within our budget. The design took longer than expected and we were surprised how little involvement (none) we had after the initial consultation. Regardless, Ryan and Brett presented us with the design which turned out to be exactly what we were looking for. Ryan assured us the design was within our discussed budget. We were so impressed that we hired Ryan to complete the front yard portion of the design, saving the backyard for a later date.
The process itself was less than desirable. An example; Ryan’s crew lacked the knowledge, skills, or ability to tie a simple irrigation supply line into the existing water line which resulted in a water leak. Instead of addressing the leak, the crew left early to work on another job which left us without running water overnight. Ryan was unapologetic and indifferent to this problem. The job took longer than expected with Ryan’s crew not showing up some days and only working for a couple hours on other days. Ryan’s enthusiasm for the job waned during the process and he seemed more concerned about collecting payment than anything else.
Upon completion of the project we were initially (see below) pleased with the result. We asked Ryan for a proposal for the backyard. Ryan presented us with a proposal that was over twice what the discussed and budgeted design was for. Ryan’s prices were outrageous. An example; 520 sq ft of concrete for $ 7488. That’s $ 14.40 a sq ft. (I later found out industry standard for reputable licensed, bonded, and insured concrete work is currently around $ 6 sq ft.) When I asked Ryan if there was any way to get the proposal more in line with our budget and his response was to do some of the work myself and to eliminate some of the key design elements. After that Ryan did not responded to my e-​mail. Needless to say we decided not to use Ryan to complete the backyard.
Its been 3 months since Ryan completed the front yard. Many of the plants are not growing and do not appear healthy. I had to re-​stake several of the plants due to poor workmanship. I also had to install new edging because the edging installed was of poor quality and poorly installed. In the design we chose to go with a low maintenance decomposed granite (DG) and gravel ground cover. We are finding many spots throughout the yard where the layer of DG is so thin (¼″ or less in places) that the drip irrigation lines and dirt below are now exposed.
As far as the backyard goes, we took Ryan’s advice and decided to move forward on our own. I have managed to hire reputable, licensed, bonded, and insured contractors to complete the project for ¹⁄₃ Ryan’s estimated cost and well below our original budget, without sacrificing the design. From a design standpoint Ryan is very talented, from a build standpoint Ryan leaves a lot to be desired.

I love the design, quality and workmanship of this company. The numerous awards and magazine features is what originally drew me to them. I recommend them to all my friends and really enjoy the finished product.

I had a really bad experience with this company, they deliberately gave me false promise, after taking my deposit, they raise the price and wouldn’t refund. Stay away from crooks like them!