Landscaping reviews in Portland, Oregon

Nicole is amazing and has been such a big help with my garden! She has extensive knowledge of plants and an impeccable eye for design. Her passion for her work is apparent in all she does. Highly recommended 👌

Nicole visited my property for a garden consultation and gave great feedback on plant identification and recommended care, as well as noxious/invasive plants that needed to be removed. She provided ideas for plants to grow and where to put them, and some overall landscape design ideas. Will be reaching out again in the future if I need further garden help!

tl;dr
We loved our experience with Nicole and the team. Four months ago, they replaced most of our backyard grass with native plants. We're pleased to say that the baby plants are all still alive, many have grown more than we imagined, and spending time in our yard is deeply satisfying.

Long version
My husband reached out to Nicole because we wanted help figuring out how to convert our front and back yards into something pollinator, food, and habitat friendly. The house had traditional suburban yards: grass, arbor vitae, roses, and a few areas of completely non-native shrubs.

We figured these would be challenges:
1) We knew absolutely nothing about taking care of indoor or outdoor plants.
2) Our Arbor Vitae are massively overgrown and near the end of their lives, but we want to keep them--and the privacy they provide--until something grows taller than our fence.
3) We refuse to install an underground sprinkler system.
4) We're only willing to spend maybe an hour a week doing hands-on work in the yard, to hire a helper for another 2-3 hours a week, and want to keep our current mow and blow yard guy.

Nicole spent an hour looking at the yard and interviewing us. Then went back to her team with the challenges above and her notes. We emailed back and forth a few times, then she sent us a quote to create a plan for the yard changes.

The quote was reasonable, so Nicole and Rachel made us a gorgeous plan for our front and back yards. We had a bunch of our project budget remaining, so Nicole suggested that we focus on the backyard to get the most immediate results.

Again, the quote was reasonable. We scheduled the work for October. Nicole called to say that they had a sudden opening and could do the work in June. She emphasized that we should not move the project forward if we weren't willing to do a LOT of watering over the summer. We decided to go for it.

Nicole, Rachel, Carly and the amazing gardener team started exactly on schedule in early June. They were pleasant to have around, and finished the work multiple days early and during a heatwave.

We asked for, and got very clear instructions on how often, how much, and how long to water the new plantings. I appreciated that immensely--and am happy to report that almost exactly four months later, all of the plants are still alive, and it is so much more satisfying to be in our backyard than it was when it was just grass!

WARNING/LESSONS LEARNED
The following is in no way a critique of Noble Root. Nicole told us that grass was easier than maintaining mulch and a bunch of different plants. We just didn't understand this:

Weeds grow wherever there's water and dirt!*

Here's what we what we learned from watering the new plantings.

1) Sprinklers were easy and fast. But the sprinklers watered mulch and plants alike. Weeds sprang up within the first week.

2) We decided weeding was dirty and boring, so we switched to hand-watering each plant.

3) The time spent watering was okay, but we night owls have timing issues.
At lunchtime or after work, hauling gallons and gallons of water every few days to 70+ plants was too hot and sweaty.
After dinner, it was difficult to make sure the water didn't splash on the plant leaves and cause mildew. Plus I disliked bugs crawling on me.

4) Installing soaker hoses and hiring a kid to pull the weeds in between the plants is great until September. Then school starts and it rains.
Now we can't keep up with the weeds in the time we want to spend working in the yard. We plan to fix this by hiring someone not in school to pull weeds, but I'm sure winter will teach us something else.

All told, changing our backyard has been an interesting and rewarding experience. I'm so glad we reached out to Noble Root to start the process.

* Weeds grow in the grass, too, but we never cared whether our yard was clover, grass, moss, dandelions, or anything else. We just wanted plants that survived being mowed down.

When I entered the landscape design terrain, I wasn't sure what to expect. Could I afford it? Was it possible for my unkempt eyesore of a backyard to become a restful, enjoyable, beautiful space? Noble Root made magic happen, encouraging me to articulate what I wanted the space to be and then making it real.

Nicole is passionate about helping people grow their own food in harmony with nature, she designs beautiful and functional gardens. I highly recommend working with her and Noble Root, if you would like to transform your yard into a productive, pollinator friendly oasis.

Noble Root has been so helpful in designing and planning our kitchen garden. Nicole’s background and experience in botany, growing edible plants and designing growing spaces is top notch. She is knowledgeable on many levels from raised bed design, to varieties of plants and vegetables to grow in the PNW, to beautiful and bountiful planting plans. Nicole is also a positive and motivating garden coach and it’s truly a pleasure to work with her. I’d highly recommend her to all aspiring gardeners!

Nicole and her crew are thoroughly profesdional in all of their work. Nicole’s advice is sound. She is knowledgeable and hard working. We had a prior landscape job that was poorly done and she has been great

Noble Root’s commitment to helping homeowners create vibrant backyard habitats is truly impressive. Their focus on personalized support for growing food, flowers, and herbs is a unique and valuable service. For anyone aspiring to enhance their home gardening, Noble Root is an excellent resource with evident expertise and passion.

Nicole and Rachel were great to work with. With limited direction they were able to bring a vision of our future yard to life, which was no easy task. They were professional, knowledgeable, and easy to work with. We can't wait to roll out the next phase of plans.

Nicole and Rachel were very insightful, creative and skilled. They worked with us to create a yard that is in line with a BackYard Habitat. We are happy with the design and the implementation that they provided and with how responsive they were to questions and requests throughout the process. We are very pleased with our new grass -free yard that will soon be blooming and buzzing with life.

Highly recommend Nicole and team to transform your property to a native oasis. She is so easy to work with, perceptive to needs you didn't know you have, and checks in on your plants periodically after the fact to ensure longevity. I'm thrilled with my yard and look forward to a long term relationship with Noble Root :) Thanks Nicole!

It was a pleasure working with Nicole and Rachel. I had a dream and they brought it to life on paper! Providing a mix and match of native and perennial plants. We're also flexible in using plants and materials that I already had in my yard. Multiple walk through and triple checks since I was always changing my mind.😁

We had Nicole come over for an hour consulatation and were so happy that she did. We are new to the area (and new to having a garden) and in just an hour she helped us understand the garden we currently have, what is and isn't working well and why, and also helped us think about what we wanted and how to get that from the space we have. We will definitely use Noble Root for a full garden design when we are ready. Thanks!

Nicole and her team at Noble Root created a garden plan for me. They did a creative, fun design for me that took into account all my requests. I would use them again!

We chose Noble Root to replace a long-suffering lengthy stretch of lawn on our corner lot in Grant Park, and we are *so* happy we did. Nicole and Rachel and their team did an outstanding job in the design and installation of a combined hardscape/garden/leisure space, focusing on basalt rock and native and drought-resistant plants. Both sides of the collective brain were hard at work with this company. Visionary and hyper-efficient. Such a great experience!

My partner and I chose Noble Root to renovate our lawn because it was so clear that they care about the environment and embrace sustainability and habitat-friendly values. It has been a pleasure working with Nicole and Rachel. They have designed a beautiful hardscape and planting plan for us that we could not have even imagined. They are extremely knowledgeable, professional, friendly and fun. We are so excited to work with them and bring our dream landscape to fruition.

I moved to a house with front and back yards severely neglected and overgrown with all things invasive. Not knowing where to go after removing the majority of the invasive plants, I looked to Noble Root for a design and vision. Nicole and Rachel were so great and a total pleasure to work with! They both asked so many thoughtful questions and made me really think about my goals and expectations for my garden. Rachel came up with an amazing design for the entire property, the front, side and back yard. I still can’t believe how much opportunity I have now to grow so much food, and also relax and host friends. I also look forward to welcoming pollinators and providing habitat in my space. I’m super excited to move from the design to the installation phase!

Noble Root has been fantastic to work with in landscaping my backyard. Rachel, Nicole, and team created and installed a great design to give my backyard a better flow while incorporating a number of natives, pollinators, and herbs. They will also be adding two raised beds and coaching me on kitchen gardening in the spring. I look forward to growing my own food and watching the landscape flourish and bloom. I also appreciate how thoughtful they were in using some of the extra materials they had to make some other improvements around my property, transplanting grass and plants in different places, and their commitment to sustainability. I would highly recommend Noble Root.

I am a beginning gardener (3rd summer gardening) and hired Nicole to consult on my small patio growing space and garden. Nicole and Chris created an amazing raised bed for a large corner space. Nicole also coached me on what would grow and when. I had a list of specific questions which all got answered and we had so much fun, too! If you want a personable coach or genius garden specialist, pick Nicole (garden humor!) Gemma Y.

This company is amazing!! Everyone I worked with, from design to landscaping, was extremely knowledgeable about plants, as well as how, where, and when to plant them. They listened to my requests for native and pollinator plants and assisted me in choosing the right plants for this area and my garden. Nicole pays close attention to detail and guides you through the entire process. She runs a tight ship - where everyone worked together to bring my dream to reality quickly and efficiently. Everything was cleaned up nicely and the end result is better than I had even imagined!!

Danielle from Noble Root came over today to add over 100 ground cover plants to our new landscaping project - which we absolutely love. Like every one we have met at Noble Root, she was on time, very friendly, knowledgeable and professional.
We like them all so much that we want them to come over and sit on our new side patio and share a beverage with us!
She was efficient and totally cleaned up afterwards.