Black Forest Landscape Design Studio LLC

My husband and I recently contacted Dan Lee about providing a landscape design to adapt some sections of our mature landscape that needed revision and renewal. He did a superb job for us, starting with a visit to our property to understand exactly what we wanted to change and our likes/dislikes. For us, after a second visit to study/measure, he came up with a plant plan that would provide us with balance and design at the moment of installation but also be suitable to mature well in the location and provide all-season interest. He then promptly provided us with a detailed visual layout of his design as well as very well organized practical information about each proposed plant. In our case, we chose to hire a landscape crew on Dan's recommended list to do the installation. They were excellent and we were able to have Dan present at installation to lay out the plants exactly according to his design, etc. Dan is professional, knowledgeable and, moreover, just such a pleasure to work with because of his calm manner and obvious enthusiasm for his work. FYI: In this times of COVID, Dan has adapted his business to "stay smart". He'll arrive with mask, keep a distance while paying close attention, and Zoom you through any meeting about details.

I must say that my husband and I are more impressed with Dan and his work than we've been with any other land/house professional we've ever worked with. We really needed some help with deciding how to do our yard, but we did not want to pay some 'do-it-all' company many thousands to come do everything from design to complete installation. While we will likely contract out much of the work, there is also some that we can do ourselves. Dan is just the guy for someone that wants to do things in that way. He came out and walked around the front and back yard with us, looking at what is already there and talking to us about what we maybe had in mind and what we liked and didn't like. He came back another day and did a variety of measurements and then came back about a week later with a fully drawn landscaping plan. He walked through every item on his plan and discussed his reasoning on it, gave us colored printouts of the suggested plants, some recommendations on contractors and places we could get plants, a list of the order that things should be done in, and finally a full cost analysis of the work. While the entirety of this project would likely cost around $50K if contracted out, Dan's work on the planning cost less than $1K, so we feel that we most definitely got our money's worth. Now we have a solid plan that is realistic and that we can work from over the course of the next year or two as our time and budget allows.

Dan provided the landscape design for our new house a number of years ago. His design and suggested plantings have provided at lot of beauty and enjoyment over the years with not a lot of excessive maintenance. We thoroughly enjoyed working with Dan and having his design implemented.

Dan was great to work with. He was patient in working through multiple revisions of our landscape plan until we were completely satisfied. On top of that, even though it was not specified in our contract with him, Dan helped us work through some problems we had with some of the vendors that installed his design. I was very impressed with his professionalism and have reccommended him to several of my friends.

Dan is really terrific to work with and did a great job creating landscape plan for our home. He's a great listener and is full of clever ideas.