All reviews for Dogwood Designs

I appreciate Mike for coming to Elk River to give me an hour of his valuable time to consult on what can be done to tackle a couple issues in my yard. He knew I only had the design fee to spend, which he even adjusted for me, that he'd not get a big ticket job out of it but he loves to consult with DIYers like myself and help me figure out how to solve some water flow and worn pathway issues. I'm so grateful for that time; I learned so much!

Mike did an amazing job designing our backyard and working with our landscaper to see the project all the way through to the final beautiful result!

Mike was great to work with... very open to incorporating client feedback. Design, once installed was gorgeous! Very happy with how it looks and getting great passersby feedback.

Highly recommend Dogwood Designs! I was impressed with how quickly he responds to questions and how prompt he is with appointments. Very professional and takes the time to listen and is passionate about what he does. Honest and friendly, really a good person to know if you have any landscaping design needs.

Appreciate the timely connection and strong attention to detail. Great knowledge and insight in planning our project.

Mike was great! He was very professional, responsive and timely. We had a few gardens put in around our new patio as well as a our side yard fixed from bobcat damage from another contractor. Turned out great!

I was referred to Mike at Dogwood Designs by a neighborhood Facebook group. I needed someone to redesign my front yard, incorporating year round color, pollinator attraction and fragrance. Mike showed up exactly when he said he would, listened to my needs and understood my long-term goals of low maintenance beauty. He designed a plan and had it back to me sooner than promised (love it when when contractors over deliver!) and it was better than I could have hoped for. I think I know a lot about plants, but Mike had WAY better recommendations that are going to transform my front yard. I can't say enough great things about this talented designer and his incredible knowledge! HIRE HIM NOW!

Mike was great to work with on the landscaping around our home. He is a true professional. He is extremely knowledgeable and listen well to the customers concerns and wishes. We really loved his design and look forward to seeing the results next spring when everything starts growing and blooming. Mike recommended the landscape installers Lunseth Lawn Care. They were great. Mike was onsite multiple days to ensure everything was being installed properly. We would highly recommend both teams.

Dogwood Designs has been integral to moving our South Minneapolis dream landscape closer to reality and we couldn't be more happy about our experience.

Some things we like about Dogwood Designs:

Integrity:
Many landscapers advertise themselves as “designers” without the education and design tools to truly back it up. Dogwood Designs is exactly what they advertise themselves to be.
Mike consistently gets back within a few days and lets us know his schedule ahead of time. He is available for consultations year-round, whereas many other landscaping firms are only available in the growing season.

Design-Centric:
Not only that, as Dogwood Designs focuses on design, they don’t have the conflict of interest to get a large bid and installation work done.

But don’t think that being a design focused company leaves you without resources after your design is complete. He has many contacts to help with complex projects. As part of the package, you also get a beautiful and professional design drawing.

Mike can handle both large and small spaces. His designs are very site specific and takes into consideration elements like lot size and proximity to neighbors. He doesn’t sell a one size fits all solution.

Our Story:
We approached Dogwood Designs with a rain-garden sizing issue. Conventional wisdom argued that all rain gardens had to be a certain size regardless of whether one’s land had loamy sand or not. The end result of our last landscaping experience was a rain garden that took up half of our backyard and true to our suspicions, didn’t even hold onto water deeper than an inch during a heavy rain event.

Mike recognized the problem right away and went further by saying that with the type of soil we had, the rain garden should be planted with drought tolerant plants. Had we continued with the previous landscape installer, the rain garden would have required quite a bit of supplemental watering, which would have moved away from our communicated vision of having a native landscape that reduced land management and inputs.

Personality:
Mike meets you where you’re at with your level of planning and knowledge. We appreciated his direct and respectful style of communication. He tells it how it is. Personable and approachable, he was sympathetic to our past experiences of landscaping work and focused on what he could do to make our project better moving forward.

In Conclusion:
We highly recommend paying for a design process and drawing separate from installation work. Once you get a drawing exactly how you want it, it is yours.

Please consider Mike of Dogwood Designs for your landscaping projects. We promise you will be in good hands.

Amazing experience with Dogwood Designs! Mike was easy to talk to and did a great job at reflecting our ideas and goals within the design he prepared for us. The price was better than the competitors too. We will definitely work with Dogwood Designs again in the future!

We worked with Mike at Dogwood Designs to come up with a plan to re-do our overgrown landscaping. We had recently rebuilt our house and wanted the yard to look as beautiful as the house. Mike came up with an amazing design for us that incorporated all the colors we wanted, adding some trees and colorful plants. Mike was very prompt in his responses and provided us with the specs shortly after he visited our property. He worked closely with our landscapers to ensure our plan was implemented as designed. We are extremely happy with the design and highly recommend Dogwood Designs.

Absolutely messed up my garden. This man was not on time, was on his phone almost all day, and he was not even paying attention when I was trying to pay him. After calling him out, he started arguing and was absolutely disrespectful. Choose this business if you want to leave disappointed.

I don’t normally write reviews, but my experience with Dogwood Designs compels me to warn others. I reached out expecting professionalism and a knowledgeable approach to landscaping instead, I was met with poor communication, lackluster follow-through, and a surprising level of disorganization for a company that advertises over 20 years of experience.

From the beginning, timelines shifted without explanation, and when the work finally did begin, it felt rushed and poorly thought out. Questions about design choices were met with vague answers, and any attempt to ask for clarification was treated like an inconvenience. At one point, I genuinely wondered if they had even read the original brief.

Perhaps they do decent work for others, but if you're looking for a team that listens, communicates clearly, and takes pride in their craft, I suggest you look elsewhere. I expected a collaborative process and got condescension and corner-cutting instead.

Dogwood Designs left me with more regret than results.