Home Services reviews in Berkeley, California

Our experience with Farallon Gardens couldn't have been better. Matt and his team were thoughtful and attentive to the plant selection and design of our landscaping. They were quick to respond to an unexpected irrigation issue and promptly resolved it. They're great communicators as well. Farallon Gardens were on time and on budget, too. Thanks for everything, Matt and team. We love the yard, it's absolutely beautiful.

I have been very happy to work with Mathew on my front and back yard project. He conducts his business in a professional manner with clear scope of work and pricing. I converted my traditional front yard with a lawn into a drought tolerant style. I didn't know how to start but he guided me and gave me advice. It has been only a few weeks after the completion of planting but I have been getting quite a few compliments on my yard. Most importantly, I am delighted to see my yard everyday and excited to see my yard grow. Thank you, Mathew.

We have been very fortunate to have worked with Mathew and his team over the last 7 years. When we purchased our home in the Oakland Hills, there was practically no landscaping—just erosion, mud, and lots of weeds. Mathew created a beautiful low-maintenance, low-water garden that we enjoy every day.

Mathew’s team designed and built a large combination retaining wall/planter bed that holds a magnificent combination of succulents. Besides this retaining wall planter, Tomas also built a number of trails around our yard which happens to be very steep. We also have a creek that runs through our property, and the landscaping is the perfect complement to the creek.

Whenever we are out in the yard and someone walks by, they always stop to appreciate the beauty and share their compliments. We love our yard are feel very fortunate to have had Mathew and his crew create and maintain it.

Mathew and the whole team at Farallon Gardens are incredible. He completely redesigned, landscaped, and irrigated our front and back gardens, built a new beautiful fence (shout out to Tomas who built a perfect fence and is a consummate professional), and is carefully and thoughtfully doing all the maintenance for us. Working with Mathew is a dream—he is extremely knowledgeable about plants, and maybe equally importantly, he works like an artist. We can’t wait to watch our garden fill in over the years and couldn’t be happier to be working with FG! Oh, and Mathew is extremely kind, responsive, fair, honest—all great qualities in a person you’re working with to build your dream garden.

Mathew McGrath and his staff at Farallon Gardens installed a beautiful front yard garden for me. They did the work efficiently and still maintained high standards while ensuring that every area around my house that they touched was left clean and in many ways better than they found it. Mathew listened to my concerns about the types of plants he was planning to use. I am thrilled with the variety of plants, the color of the foliage and the color of the flowers that will be produced as the plants mature. Mathew and his crew take pride in their work and it shows.

We moved into our home right before the pandemic, and got a local gardening business to help us with our front yard landscaping. At first, everything looked great, but within 6 months, all the plants were overgrown and our front yard looked like a MESS. We tried contacting the original landscaping owner several times, and NEVER heard back from him. It seemed like he had taken our money and we had to start back at square one.

This time around, we had enough experience to know what NOT to look for, and more intentional in our search and questions. I did a lot of research and came across Farallon Gardens and contacted Mathew. He was professional, certainly knew his plants, and had a vision.

From start to finish, everything was done exactly as Mathew had said it would! It looks so so beautiful and we are so happy with our front and backyards Mathew designed and get compliments all the time! When things have come up, and we needed Mathew's attention, he always quickly responded and there to help us. If you're looking for quality and professional landscaping design and maintenance, you can rest assured Mathew has your needs covered!

We have had a wonderful experience with Farallon Garden design. Matthew came out for a consultation hour to help us with a landscape design we had started to conceive. We found incredible value in his ideas, plant recommendations and gardening and maintenance expertise. He is a joy to work with. Wether you hire this firm for a full project or, like us, get a consultation, I think they are fantastic!

Mathew is very nice to work with and was very prompt and attentive right from our first communication. We met with Mathew on several occasions to discuss the vision we wanted for our garden — a fairly low maintenance, drought tolerant one with flowering plants, grasses, and succulents. Mathew provided his vision yet was very open to our ideas and worked with us every step of the way in choosing which plants and colors we wanted for our garden. After our meetings he sent pictures of his plant suggestions to make sure we liked his choices. His knowledge of plants and best placement for them in our garden was amazing! Mathew also handpicked six boulders for the front garden that truly enhanced the natural beauty of it. Mathew and his friendly team of workers were very efficient and completed our front and back yard within a few days; and our garden turned out more beautiful than we had imagined and is even more spectacular a year later! Mathew has been very pleasant to do business with and has been great with any follow-up questions and guidance we have regarding how best to maintain our garden. We really made the best choice in choosing Farallon Gardens and can recommend Mathew and his team 100%!

Matt is a true artist! I knew I didn't want a cookie cutter front yard, he helped make my dreams a reality. He listened to what I wanted and added valuable input all while respecting the budget. We had a lot of fun and you can tell Matt loves what he does. The garden is only days old and I am already receiving compliments daily and one person even stopped their car to look at everything. His crew was very respectful and worked hard to make everything come out perfect. We are already asking Matt about our back yard projects and have hired him to carry out the maintenance. So glad to have found him!

Excellent design work, sustainable and beautiful specimen selection, quality workmanship, great company overall. Low maintenance garden is spectacular- so say all my guests.

They also do the maintenance and that work is also top notch....

Farallon Gardens created a gorgeous front yard for us in February 2020. We were able to sit back and let Matt take the lead - we trusted his vision completely. We appreciated that Matt was completely upfront about his style of working, his passions, as well as his boundaries. Better yet, Matt keeps up with our annual watering schedule, and anytime we have a question or concern about a plant in the garden he's happy to answer it. One day he even stopped by to plant a few clippings from another yard that he thought would look nice in ours. We're so grateful to have chosen to work with Matt / Farallon Gardens - and to watch our beautiful yard grow in and explode with colors as we were trapped at home during the quarantine. Our yard's all the rage on the block. Matt's good people - we've already recommended Farallon Gardens to inquiring neighbors.

We are extremely pleased with our beautiful new garden. Matt and his crew did a wonderful job. They were organized, friendly, professional and Matt had a great vision as to how to design our yard. We saw his company’s sign at a neighbor’s house that we had been admiring on our walks around the neighborhood. Our front yard has been transformed into the most beautiful spot around and we couldn’t be happier. Matt is a pleasure to work with-we would totally recommend him to transform your yard.

My experience with Farallon Gardens was fantastic. Mathew brings a wealth of experience and knowledge about all things landscaping along with a keen artistic sensibility and kind demeanor. He came up with a beautiful design that was deer resistant on our front and back yard of our hillside home. He is a great listener as well as designer and worked with me to come up with a very adventurous, sculptural landscape design. He brought so many plants that I'd never even seen before, so its been a great learning experience as well. We are thrilled with all the beautiful plants that we get to live with everyday. I enjoyed working with Farallon Gardens and will look forward to working with them as our garden grows. I highly recommend Farallon Gardens for a sculptural, exciting, adventurous, exotic garden!

I cannot say enough good things about Mathew McGrath and Farallon Gardens. Mathew delivered us an amazingly beautiful desert garden w tropical aspects, a mini private botanical garden really. He completely transformed our cookie cutter landscaping (front and back) to something we enjoy looking at every single day. It’s beautiful from the outside obviously, but the the views from the inside looking out are super sweet too. It was exactly what we were looking for. It’s like his website describes… a living work of art.

Mathew is incredibly creative, thoughtful and knowledgeable about plants. He was a pleasure to work with from start to finish, a true professional who takes pride in what he does and truly cares about his work and his customers (kind of rare nowadays). He is patient, always willing to answer any questions. His crew was super respectful, professional and efficient. I would highly encourage you to check out his website and Instagram to see his beautiful and amazing work. You cannot go wrong with Farallon Gardens!!

Matthew and his wonderful crew at Farallon Gardens created the front and back yards of my dreams. Matthew was able to work within my budget to create amazing gardens of native, sustainable plants with a tropical flair, a tiki oasis. His expertise and creativity brought beauty with irrigation, lighting, ground covers, and unique touches to the project. Hanging out in the backyard is like being on a vacation now! I also appreciate the continued maintenance of my gardens, ensuring they will remain beautiful for the future. I highly recommend working with Farallon Gardens! Mathew and his crew are experts, courteous, on-time, and fun to work with!

It's been well over a year since Mathew and team designed and install my garden, and I couldn't possibly be more happier with that decision.

Mathew was enjoyable to work with. He led the way in designing and recommending plants based on a mix of my vision/wants and his expertise and experience. Mathew found ways to incorporate and blend in pieces and plants I wanted to keep, and found clever ways to reuse some existing features (e.g. large rocks) that elevated the space. The crew that demoed and installed was notably careful, and detail-oriented. David and Troy have been coming by monthly for garden maintenance and doing an exceptionally meticulous job. The entire team's craft is admirable!

Over the last year, the plants in the garden have quadrupled in size, and almost every plant has blossomed a flower at one point in time. It's been a real delight.

If you're looking for someone to redo your garden, go Farallon Gardens. You'll be so happy you did!

Once we decided to do a complete makeover of our front yard, I interviewed a number of potential landscapers. Farallon stood out; Mathew really listened to our hopes and expectations and his work reflects it. Mathew also brings a real artist's eye to his work. He's able to envision how every individual plant works to comprise a coherent and beautiful whole. The passion comes through, and we definitely benefit from it.

I love the front and backyard gardens that Mathew created for my new home in Rockridge. I really didn’t have a clear idea of what I wanted, other than drought resistant plants, drip irrigation, and a colorful, lush feeling. Mathew took these requirements and transformed them into beautiful gardens. The configuration of the spaces and light were challenging, but Mathew picked plants that worked with those constraints. I get compliments all the time. His associate, David, does a terrific job of keeping everything looking its best with once a month maintenance. I am really glad a friend told me about Farallon Gardens — they are the best!

I was referred to Farallon through my garden designer to do maintenance on my yard. My understanding is they generally only maintain gardens they have designed, but over the past year they have been doing monthly trimming and clean up and the yard looks great and is thriving. Dependable quality work.

I cannot say enough great things about Mathew and his team. We contacted him a few years ago for a bid to completely remodel our overgrown-with-weeds front yard. We wanted something drought-tolerant and very specific (I had one photo I was really trying to achieve). Mathew went above and beyond to make our dream a reality, including searching resources he has in Palm Springs for healthy Saguaros. Farallon Gardens not only had one of the most reasonable bids, the end result was such an incredible transformation, I believe no less than three of our immediate neighbors contacted them subsequently to transform their gardens. Our garden is so low maintenance and I absolutely now love driving up to our home, delighted by his masterful work. We also LOVE Dan, who helps us with monthly maintenance at an affordable rate.

Matt is a knowledgeable and talented horticulturist. He designed and installed the plantings at my corner lot home in Alameda. I asked for low-water, salt and sand friendly, and leaning more towards unusual choices. He delivered. And Daniel does an outstanding job of maintaining the garden's beauty; he's so thoughtful and zen about it. It's been a pleasure doing business with Farallon for the past 5+ years.