Hawthorne Garden Design

Our front yard has been transformed by Hawthorne Garden Design. The roots of a magnificent old magnolia tree had destroyed the front walkway to our home, making it not only unsightly but dangerous. We also wanted a yard that was “no-mow” (NO grass) and filled with interesting shade loving plants. My husband (a working artist) recognized Tamara Belt's holistic approach to design and that was exactly the philosophy guiding Tamara’s design for our yard. The design we chose was inventive and beautiful. It’s full of texture—both with the hardscaping and with the plantings. We’re just a week into the finished yard, but already I slow down when I walk out the front door and take it all in. Serene. Tamara devised a brilliant solution to our magnolia root issue, creating an elevated curving walkway with engineered wood. All the component parts work together cohesively – confirming my husband’s initial impression of Tamara’s design philosophy. Tamara is a pleasure to work with. She is funny, honest, and insightful. Her knowledge is impressive. Always responsive, she listens carefully but isn’t afraid to argue her point if it’s important. That said, I asked for a plant swap when we were in the design phase, and she immediately offered a great alternative. Her crews are uniformly lovely people who work hard and cleverly find solutions to issues that pop up. Importantly, Tamara was frequently onsite supervising and consulting with her crews. When we had questions, we felt easy about querying her. We can enthusiastically and whole-heartedly recommend Hawthorne Garden Design. It was not an inexpensive endeavor, but we feel the investment was well worth it.

Stunning! Tamara and her team at Hawthorne Garden transformed my backyard and rooftop deck into incredibly two separate beautiful and tranquil sanctuaries. Tamara is immensely talented in garden design, landscaping and installation. She truly listens to what you would like in a garden, takes a holistic and thoughtful approach and ultimately creates designs that are sublime. Her installation and gardening services team is incredibly professional and have worked with Tamara for many years. She is simply a joy to work with and I highly recommend her and her team!!!

Tamara is a joy to work with! Our project started with an insightful discussion that helped us consider options for the front of our row house. Tamara probed and listened. We then received detailed plans for multiple options. The maps and pictures helped us envision the space. Detailed descriptions of every plant helped us understand how the space would change throughout the year. We made our selections, and scheduled installation. Construction was efficient and professional. Watching the wall builder was half the fun! A craftsman carefully fit beautiful stones together one by one. The front of our house is transformed! I wish we had another landscaping project. I would excitedly work with Tamara again.

Working with Tamara is a treat! Her industry knowledge and landscape design talents are evident from your first consult. Despite being a small DC urban project, she made us excited to design our front elevation with a stone wall and shrubs and perennials that will thrive for years to come. Her masonry and planting crews are professional and courteous, and she stays involved to the end. I only wish we had a back yard so we could work on more landscape projects with Tamara. I give my highest recommendation.

We are absolutely thrilled with the result! Tamara Belt, together with her design/build partner Andrew Sebastian, have transformed our outdoor space to make it a beautiful extension of our indoor living. We are enjoying the fire pit area, including the stunning Ipe wood curved bench, and entertaining on the beautiful stone patio. With path lights, uplighting and string lights, it dazzles! We can’t wait to see the colors pop in the garden and the vine climb the fence in the spring. We appreciate Tamara's expertise, creativity and attention to detail. She is a master of her trade! We are grateful for the hard work of the entire team who were dedicated to this project from start to finish and are talented craftspeople. We look forward to our next project together.

I simply cannot say enough good things about our experience working with Tamara and her team. She was highly recommended by a good friend, and yet somehow managed to exceed all our expectations. I periodically have to pinch myself to believe that our back yard is actually ours. Tamara is an exceptional listener and was able to synthesize our hopes and visions with her professional expertise to deliver a beautiful project. I don't feel like we wasted a cent on something didn't add true value. She's a wonderfully pleasant person and very easy to talk through ideas, changes, and challenges with. All of her contractors delivered high quality work and were extremely professional. Hire Tamara with confidence.

We had terrific experiences working with Tamara on both our front yard (fall 2019) and back patio (summer/fall 2020). The work included planting, stonework, and carpentry. She listened to our needs and preferences, and then proposed and executed creative, beautiful, yet low-maintenance designs. The installation and construction teams that work with Tamara were also very professional and executed great work. Finally, on a personal level, we found collaborating with Tamara to be a pleasure as we iterated back and forth through the design and installation phases. We highly recommend HGD!

We had a great experience working with Tamara. Beginning with no real idea of what we should do with our backyard other than “can we make it look better?,” Tamara was instrumental in conceiving, planning and executing a design that met all our expectations. With a new outdoor kitchen, patio, pergola, firepit and plantings we are now using our yard far more than we ever did before. The construction team was exceedingly professional, always showing up on schedule and working all day, with an execution on an early part of the stonework that led us to expand our order as things went along. Change orders were no problem, and the full project went according to schedule. We’ll be turning to Hawthorne Garden Design for additional advice and work in the coming years.

Working with Tamara and HGD was an absolute pleasure! We entrusted her to do a complete overhaul of our front and back yards. She was incredibly knowledgeable about what plants would and would NOT work in our yard. We so appreciated her expertise and recommendations and we are thrilled with the finished product. She also designed and built a beautiful outdoor kitchen on our back patio that we LOVE and will enjoy for years to come! Highly recommend!

As first time homeowners, we knew we couldn’t tackle our garden by ourselves. It was overgrown and not our style, and we needed a professional to come up with a plan. Tamara got our aesthetic right away and we were so excited when we saw the final drawings. We’re doing much of the work ourselves, so she came up with a plan which could be done in stages and met our requirements: easy care, lots of local plants, and color year round. Tamara has a keen eye, a great design sense, and an extensive knowledge of plants. She was very open to our feedback, and after she completed our plan, she continued to offer advice. The work we’ve already completed has made a huge difference and we can’t wait to see our garden when it’s all finished! We’d recommend Hawthorne Garden Design to anyone who’s looking for a consultation, a plan, or a complete garden renovation.

Hawthorne Garden Design created a beautiful and practical patio for us. Every detail was considered. Tamara is creative, flexible, responsible and a pleasure to work with. I can recommend her work without hesitation.

Hawthorne Garden Design turned our front yard from drab to stunning in one day! We loved working with Tamara to come up with a design that worked for our budget and our style. The landscaping team also did a great job with fall clean-up and now even in winter, our yard looks great.