Mark A. Leone, Landscape Architect

Mark was awesome from beginning to end. Very thorough and thoughtful design. Great help and follow up with the contractor and tradesmen. Highly recommended.

Mark is very friendly, professional, and patient. He had a good understanding of what we wanted and gave practical suggestions for hardscape, boulders, and plants. His design included many drought tolerant plants and with photos provided for each plant. The process took longer than we expected due the need for several drafts, the year-end holidays, and our out of town trips. He usually addressed our comments, but some were missed. We liked his final design plan; it was clear, creative, and well-thought out, incorporating our vision. Our one disappointment is that the final plans were well over our budget, which we had communicated to Mark. This has resulted in having to modify the final design significantly, a learning lesson for us. In retrospect, working with a contractor(s) during the design process would have avoided this situation.

Mark was incredibly responsive to our tight schedule, he made several trips to our home including on a Saturday to fit our schedule.  He researched the style which interested us and matched best with the new interior design.  He was responsive to our requests, likes, dislikes and specific needs due to budget, market value of home, kids and dog.  I highly recommend Mark for your design needs and will definitely employee his services for any landscaping need we have or move we make in the future.

Working with Mark was a terrific experience. From the very first meeting to the last it was a great experience.  He is a consummate professional.  His creative plan was terrific and he listened to our input every step of the way.  We had multiple iterations of the plan which only improved with each revision.  He focused on the details, provided pictures of recommended plants and related materials and even had a referral for a contractor to do the work.  To be clear, Mark just does the planning.  He is very clear that he does not do installation.  His plans are very detailed and any competent landscape contractor should be able to follow them without any problem.  I highly recommend Mark for any size landscape design project (ours is certainly bigger and a bit more complicated than most).  We are excited to get contractor bids and get started on implementing Mark's terrific redesign.

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Mark met with my husband and myself to get to know what each of us is hoping for in our new backyard.  We purchased a house with a yard that most people would not know what to do with.  The yard has a massive slope that the previous owners could not get past.
He took copious notes on what we were looking to do in the yard, pool, drought tolerant plants etc.....  He guided us through the conversation beautifully.  He managed our expectations wonderfully, he told us it would take him 2-3 weeks to get the preliminary drawings back to us and that we would modify it from there, adding anything he missed etc....
When we met 2-3 weeks later both my husband and I were just floored by the design he had created.  It met everything each of us was looking for in the yard.  It was gorgeous.  There was no need to add or detract from it.  He hit is on the head!
I have already recommended him to several people.

Mark was very personable and understood what I was looking for right from the start.  He is knowledgeable about plants, the proper names and their care.  He wasted no time preparing a rough draft of the design after measuring and getting an idea of the type of plants I was interested in.  He made some suggestions for plants, design and made the yard plans architecturally balanced and pleasing.  From there he added in the specific plants and rock to the plans and came back with another draft to look over and modify as needed (which little modification was needed) before putting the plans on the much larger and very detailed blue print type plan paper.   He provided two copies of the plans so that I could provide one copy to the gardener doing the work or one I could use in the yard as work progressed.  So far the plans have provided a nice foundational type design to work from.  He was also helpful providing the right height of plant, tree, mounding, pathway cover and rock to make this project a success and made recommendations for providers.  He is flexible, easy to communicate with and a joy to work with.  He is also now doing one of my neighbor's yards just down the street.   I would highly recommend his service for anyone who is considering turf removal.  My yard is .72 acres by the way and had over 9,000 square feet of turf to remove, so no small project!!

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Mark did an amazing job, he took all of our ideas and made a plan that was exactly what we were looking for.  He did a great job listening and was always punctual.  He provided plans and updated plans when he said he would.  We would recommend Mark to anyone looking for a Landscape Architect.

We hired Mark to provide plans for our back yard. We want to do a lot of the work ourselves, so we were really looking for someone who could help us design a project for our 3/4 acre lot that we could accomplish in phases. Mark came out to our house several times to discuss ideas and take measurements (he never charged extra just to take a look and prepare a proposal). When I saw the first set of plans, I was speechless! Mark incorporated all the details we discussed, and then added a few creative ideas of his own.  I saw the backyard of my dreams on paper, and can't wait to get started.
Mark's knowledge of landscaping and plants alone made the plans worth doing. We knew we wanted privacy, but adding to the fencing was not appealing. Mark made suggestions for plants that would create that privacy, while adding to the beauty of the yard. This is something we would not have been able to figure out ourselves. We just don't know enough about plants.
Mark's patience with us was unending. As we began seeing what our yard could be, we started asking Mark to add this, and take away that, and then add things back. It was insane, and Mark just kept redrawing. 
I hope someday soon I can add to this review with before and after pictures!

It went very well. Mark was timely, professional and very prepared. His design was creative and refreshing, in spite of a limiting HOA guidelines. Mark was very responsive to every question I had even after his and quot;scopeand quot; of work was completed. He was great to work with and was able to help us work within a tight budget, making important recommendation that saved us money and kept our costs down. His services were well worth it.

I have to say Mark's attentiveness to detail is amazing he listened to everything we said and came up with a set of plans that I don't think anyone could match. He was always prompt with appointments, communication was perfect, we felt we got great value and would definitely recommend Mark to anyone that is looking to redo their yard or for new construction. We are currently accepting bids for the project from landscapers and look forward to showing off his design when it is finished.

We found Mark Leone through another landscape consultant who was too busy to take us on. She felt Mark would be perfect to help us create a landscape design plan for our entire property. We're glad she recommended Mark. He gave us exactly what we wanted and his landscaping expertise was invaluable. We recently completed a remodel of our home, going from less than 1,000 square feet to 2,100 square feet. Our total property measures 12,500 square feet and we hadn't touched the large yard so it was a mess of overgrown ivy, dirt, river rocks and a smattering of half-dead trees. We wanted a complete design for our large yard that emphasized xeriscape and drought-tolerant plants. Mark contacted us and was very professional. We worked together for less than a month, us explaining our ideas and he making suggestions, before he came up with a plan for us to review. When something wasn't exactly what we wanted, Mark re-did it and brought it back to us without a problem. He even provided us with a full-color rendering of the design. The plans he provided included a hardscape plan with elevations, a planting plan and a lighting plan. Our plans include several mounds for plants, a design feature we liked; pathways in front and back; an enclosed courtyard in the front with a wall fountain and wrought-iron gate; an outdoor patio in the back with a built-in barbecue; a seating area that surrounds a built-in fire pit overlooking our canyon view; an area for a greenhouse and composting pile; raised garden boxes on the side of the house with a work table; and a swim spa for a later phase. Mark helped us use our river rock in the new design, which created a very natural-looking design. We wanted to do as little watering as possible. He put a small bit of synthetic grass in the front yard that will give it a perfect splash of green. His design came with a planting plan that has dozens of plant names and suggested quantities, which we helped pick out with his help. Each of his plans is detailed and explains exactly what is needed and exactly what a contractor needs to build it. Mark really put a lot of effort into the plan and while it took us a while to save up for our major landscaping work, we are finally working on it. We can't wait to finish it. We highly recommend Mark to anyone looking for landscaping design work. He is a genuinely nice guy who was easy to work with. He designed a plan for our home that was everything we were looking for and that we couldn't have done ourselves.

I could not say enough great things about Mark's work. First of all, we didn't know what we wanted. We had a rough idea of the style we were going for, but not really much detail. Mark met with us to interview us and ask a lot of questions. He asked us to find pictures of what we liked so he could get a feel for the overall style we were going for. Mark also personally went with us to the nursery and rock/stone fields to pick out the exact plants and stones we wanted for our backyard. Mark even went with us to the tile location to pick out the best tiles for our fountain, which is the main feature of our outdoor project.

We could not be happier with the level of final drawings and design we received from Mark. In addition to the high quality work, he was always on time for every meeting. I never felt like we were being and quot;nickel and dimedand quot; with our hundreds of questions/requests. He took the time to really get to know what we wanted and ensured that we were totally satisfied with the final product. He is very personable, always on time and communicates in a timely fashion.

We have completed the first phase of Mark's design already and are about to break ground on the second phase. It is always great to have someone of his experience and knowledge to walk you through the design process to ensure when you are ready to bid the project that all the details are in place. With detailed drawings, you will be able to compare bids from contractors very easily. I would absolutely recommend Mark to anyone who is considering an outdoor project.

Mark was the landscape architect for the installation of the entire landscape for our new home. We have enjoyed and appreciated our landscaping very much. Mark was always prompt in responding to our questions and concerns. He caught our vision of what we wanted the exterior of our home to feel like. The plants and hardscape were carefully selected, placed, and appropriate to our desire to have beauty, yet low maintenance. He was very knowledgeable about the plant material that would work in our particular location and advised us about plants we were interested in having in our yard. He incorporated our ideas about how we wanted our landscape to function, feel, and look like. He made the whole process painless! A true professional and a pleasure to work with. We highly recommend him with no hesitation.