Mark and his team did a masterful job. It was about a six-week project, completed just before Easter 2010. There were some delays, primarily caused by rainy weather, but the duration of the job, given its complexity, was well within my expectation. The job began when a massive number of Diamond Pro stone blocks was deposited in my driveway, and sand and gravel was dumped in the street. A port-a-loo in the drive meant our house did not have to be open to the workers. The loo was cleaned regularly and promptly removed at the end of the job. Prior to and during the job, soil compaction samples were taken. At the beginning, Mark’s crew brought in a Cat to clear the growth from the slope, and carve terraces as needed. The lower wall began to take shape. The City inspector and I became good friends; he confirmed the width of the wall’s trench and the depth of gravel, and the placement of the drains behind the wall. When the first wall was complete, construction on the upper wall began and I began to see what the final product would look like. As the job progressed, the workers created conduits for the low voltage wiring and the drip sprinkler pipes, as well as planned how to connect the drains into the main drain under the back lawn that feeds underground and ultimately into the street. After the walls were complete, caps along their top were secured with mortar, and the stones comprising the steps were individually cut into dozens of pieces by a craftsman, a time-consuming job that yielded an eye-pleasing staircase. The last stage, which took a couple weeks, was to lay down the DG and laboriously tamp it down with a machine to ensure that the new path was fully and properly compacted—this step impressed my neighbor, who watched through the gate from across the street. The plantings finally arrived, and within a few days, the flora were in place, each plant served by an individual drip emitter, and the lights were fully operational. The grass in front of the wall had been heavily damaged from the process. Without my saying anything, Mark came out and directed his crew to cut away about 5 x 80 ft of existing damaged grass and resod it. During the job, I did ask for some $4,000 of extra changes. Mark’s sprinkler guru replaced many of my old valves with new brass ones, converted one circuit to a drip circuit, split two grass circuits into three to address some dry areas, put in lighting along the west side of the backyard (an impressive 240 ft low voltage run with lights on the end that illuminate fully), and constructed a sidewalk across the grass to the new slope steps from the patio. I speak of Mark only in superlatives. Although it’s painful to spend over $50,000 in back yard landscaping improvements, my wife and I comment on the beauty of our yard nearly every day. Mark has a gift for design that few landscapers have. Give him the opportunity and he will both surprise and please you. He has talented crews—we were served by two of them: the construction crew and the finalizing crew, who handled the planting, wiring, and watering. Price. When you hire Mark, you are getting a gifted designer and a skilled crew. In our case, we consider it money well spent.