Cool Designs for Landscapes

After extensive research to find a landscape designer, we hired Katie Cool to help us redesign our front yard to be water-​wise and easy-​care. We are so very happy with our choice! We looked at Katie’s website were impressed with her previous designs and thought they were just what we had in mind for our project.
Katie has proved to be extremely knowledgeable, creative, professional, easy to work with and flexible. I knew we had made a great choice when, during our first meeting, she really listened to what we wanted to do and took the time to understand exactly what I liked and did not like in garden design. She did not force a pre-​conceived idea of a cookie-​cutter design on our project, but made a unique design for our site that is beautiful and exactly what I had envisioned. She made wonderful choices in plants and developed a cohesive color palette with a variety of plant textures. She was also able to reuse some of the plants currently in our yard in the design.
Now our yard is so much more interesting than before. We have an inviting decomposed granite path that leads to a lovely redbud tree and subtle changes in elevation. Our neighbors have commented that we really raised the bar of garden design in our neighborhood!
Katie recommended a great contractor that worked very hard in the heat doing the yard demolition and installation of the plants and drip irrigation. Katie herself sourced the plants (drought tolerant plants are getting scarce in California because so many people are re-​landscaping), laid them out, and supervised their installation. She also helped to sculpt the elevation changes.
She was always prompt to respond to our questions and was patient to wait for us to receive our notice-​to-​proceed for our water company turf removal rebate. We can hardly wait to see how the yard matures and the flowers bloom. This was by far the best experience we have had with a design professional. We highly recommend Katie Cool.

We have a small backyard (about 400 sq ft) that was in dire need of a major make over. Because of the Southern California climate and the on-​going drought, we wanted an outdoor space that is an extension of our living area – both in style and functionality. After meeting with three other landscape designers, we decided to work with Katie; and we couldn’t be more satisfied with the entire process. From the initial phone conversation to the final walk-​thru, Katie was very professional, honest, attentive, and responsive. She listened to our wishlist and provided constructive feedback when she felt that it could be done differently and/​or better. What really impressed us was how thoughtful and well designed her first design proposal was; the plant selection, the layout, the focal point of the backyard, and the color scheme were exactly what we wanted.
We were out of the country on vacation during the contractor selection process; Katie negotiated the bids on our behalf. We met to finalize the bids by removing items that we didn’t need, and Katie was instrumental in creating a final design that represented our taste and vision.
We also decided to hire Katie as the project manager during the construction phase, and it was one of the best decisions we had made. We got a daily update, and if we had any question Katie was only a text away. As an OCD person, Katie alleviated a lot of my anxiety and was more than happy to give her opinion on furniture and accessory pieces that I found on Amazon.
In the end, we are so happy of the final result. Our backyard is a place where we can relax – it’s beautiful, peaceful, colorful (without going overboard), and, most importantly, a reflection of who we are and our lifestyle. It was truly a pleasure working with Katie Cool, and we can’t recommend her highly enough to anyone who is looking for a landscape designer.

When it was time to re-​landscape our front yard, we chose Katie as our landscaper after reading about her drought-​tolerant approach in our local newspaper. She worked with us to develop a design we loved (soft and aesthetic as opposed to harsh and desert-​like). We are so pleased with the results! Our «thirsty» lawn is gone (a no-​brainer due to the rebated offered by the OCMWD), replaced with a variety of California-​friendly plants. Katie quoted and successfully completed a 3-​day project without any problems (and at a reasonable price)! We highly recommend Katie — she’s easy to work with, and very, very good!

My wife and I have been dreaming of a oasis back yard ever since we moved into our house in 1993. Its a very large yard and already has a pool that we had re-​plastered years ago. But everything is old and overgrown. After 20 years we finally had Katie come over and work on a design. She has great ideas and a very good eye. She listened very carefully and came back with a great design and ideas. We must have revamped it 8 times but it all worked out. The main feature we wanted was a full patio cover to block out 100% of the sun and water. She and our contractor Charlie came up with a great way to accomplish this for an astonishingly great price. They we very creative and worked with the city and engineer to get it approved. Katie was very professional and we love our new shady, dry, comfortable oasis back yard that now has a BBQ island, new irrigation, all new drainage, fire bowl, new plants, 5 fruit trees and LED lighting.