Tutti Flora landscape design

Theresa did an amazing design on our side yard which backs onto the forest. The all native plant selection blends beautifully with our park like surroundings. Professional, helpful and attentive to our needs describes her work for us.

We moved to a small acreage in East Sooke from the prairies in November. While we love the natural beauty of the area, this small property cries out for landscaping that will bring out its full potential as a wooded retreat. With little knowledge of this growing environment, I was full of ideas but overwhelmed in terms of how or where to start. Walking through the property and listening to my thoughts, desires and perceived challenges (including deer resistant plantings and camouflaging an unsightly and unfortunately placed septic system), Theresa at Tutti Flora provided creative, natural landscape solutions that I am confident will help me transform the yard of my imagination into reality. Theresa has a gift for subtlety in design, brings clever ideas for working with what already exists within your environment, and has extensive knowledge of plants, trees and shrubs well suited to the local growing conditions. AND she is professional, personable, and a delight to work with. I highly recommend Theresa to help you bring your landscaping vision to life.

After searching for some time for a landscape designer prepared to bid on our project, Theresa was a breath of fresh air. She took time to listen to strata council members and was easygoing while developing a plan we could all be satisfied with. Always pleasant; willing to consider our ideas; cost effective; understood challenges of working with local authorities; excellent knowledge of plants and trees. Most importantly, Theresa was patient. As a strata property with multiple owners, it is not easy trying to please everyone. Feedback from owners about the now completed landscape project has been very positive and the result has added new life to what had been a dreary part of our yard for many years.

Theresa provided a landscaping plan for the total rework of our small back yard, transforming it from a boring lawn to a well thought out area with a variety of plants, shrubs and trees, as well as walkways and patio area. The service was very quick and professional, the plans and planting lists were thorough and easy to follow. The fee for the service was very reasonable, I have no hesitation in recommending Theresa for landscape design.

Theresa's local knowledge and experience contributed greatly to the successful design and implementation of our recent yard renovations. She is a talented designer, but more importantly, worked within our budget and provided design and planting that adds value to our property. We are very proud of the work done and would recommended Tutti Flora without hesitation.

From the very beginning, Theresa was a consummate professional. She listened to our vision and the scope of project. She showed us her impressive portfolio of previous projects. The attention to detail and beauty in the design, combined with her vast knowledge of what grows best and where to plant convinced us that she HAD to be the one designing our project. Our 1/3 ac lot was pretty much a blank slate with endless possibilities, with a modest budget. Theresa managed to capture the essence of what we wanted and presented her detailed scale drawings to us on time and on budget. There was no issue with small changes we made as the plan evolved. Honestly, not much needed to be changed as Theresa managed to capture almost every detail on the 1st pass due to her precise measurements and good taste. The landscaping company was able to use her scale drawings to construct, build and plant everything. The project involved large rock walls, patio, fencing, fountains, the works. Theresa's encyclopedic knowledge of suitable plants for this area was invaluable. Because we moved to Victoria from Calgary, where virtually nothing grows, we had no idea where to start. Theresa was a pleasure to work with and even popped by a few times to check on the progress of our project; which we are thrilled with. We would not hesitate to recommend Theresa at Tutti Flora for your project.

I can't imagine finding a more responsive and intuitive advisor that Theresa! She was immensely patient with our 'hurry-up-and-wait' approach to front yard design, and rolled with the many changes in 'concept' that we had as we moved forward (we hired her immediately post interior renovations, and before we had a clear sense of what we really wanted for the exterior -- other than a radical change!!). We had an exhaustive list of wants (deer resistant, drought resistant, both summer and winter colour/texture/interest), and I'm confident that we'll see them realized as we go through the first year of our new front yard -- we replaced the grass with perennial grasses, shrubs, and flowers. Theresa also went above and beyond -- she responded to questions relating to other parts of the yard, and gave us great suggestions for dealing with challenges in the back yard. I've put some of them into practice over the summer, and am delighted with the results (though have a long way to go!). I wouldn't hesitate to recommend Tutti Flora -- in fact, I have already - she has designed my mother's patio, and a good friends back garden, both with equally wonderful results.

We recently completed a landscape design project with Theresa Balak at Tutti Flora Landscape Design. We had been struggling for some time with a variety of ideas on how to make our property not only more beautiful visually but also more functional. In addition, to softscaping, Theresa helped us design our front walkway and front deck as well as create a patio space in the back yard that we are very pleased with. We greatly enjoyed working with Theresa. She is very knowledgeable in landscape design, plants as well as hardscaping. She has an artistic eye for detail and was able to help us with many drought and deer/rabbit resistant options. Overall, it was a great process with good communication and an excellent outcome. We would definitely use her services again should the situation arise!

Wow does Theresa know her plants!!! She helped us design and plant our Vancouver Island acreage gardens, even though we are often back in Calgary. The process was easy with Theresa, we meet, she listened, she created and then she delivered drawings via email. With these professional drawings, we could dream and discuss our gardens. Once plans were agreed upon, Theresa quickly coordinated with a local landscaper/gardener and now we have our dream gardens. She knows her plants, what works for Vancouver Island and what to avoid. Thanks Theresa, our acreage looks fantastic.

We had been considering for a couple of years redoing our small backyard which was bland with a small brick patio and a strip of grass. We asked Theresa to draw a design that would eliminate the grass, enlarge the patio area while getting rid of the brick, and incorporated some trees, plants and bushes easy to maintain. She produced a draft in one week and incorporated our minor feedback; she had a final drawing in about a week later. This final design incorporated a large stamped concrete patio area, a raised garden bed and a pergola. We love it! Tutti Flora also made our planning easy by introducing us to a pair of contractors who easily worked from her design. We have been enjoying our private backyard oasis for nearly two months.

Tuttiflora came highly recommended, so we engaged the company to provide full landscape designs for front and back yards. We were delighted not only with the quality, professionalism and personalized detail of Theresa's designs, but also with her innovative ideas and creative problem solving. Our yards are tricky and her designs were perfectly tailored to make the most of what we have within our budget. Theresa also was highly interactive, responding quickly to our many queries and uncertainties, and visiting the property frequently. We would definitely engage Tuttiflora again.

Theresa was so helpful and available. She listened well to what we wanted, was efficient and answered all of our questions almost immediately when they came up. Our garden isn't quite done yet but I think it will be pretty amazing when it is. It has been interesting bringing the plan to the nursery and having the nursery comment on what great choices of plants were made and how wonderful it will look. I would highly recommend Theresa and Tutti Flora for your garden plans.