About Harmonic Horticulture and Construction
We incorporated in 2012, but were involved in Edmonton’s landscaping industry for many years before that. Harmonic was born from a desire to treat success as a symptom of excellent work.
We focus on fostering long-term relationships with our clients and their gardens built on trust and communication. We prefer to work with our clients than for them, utilizing our knowledge and expertise to translate desires and ideas into spaces that are realized beyond expectations, and far more than the sum of their parts. We create personalized, timeless landscapes that follow uncompromising standards of excellence in design, soil-science, horticulture, woodwork, and stonework.
We understand that, for most of us, our garden is our primary connection with nature. A landscape’s function is to advance and strengthen that connection in a setting that accounts for our own use and comfort. Our landscapes are the intersection between our artificial environs and the natural world, and as such are the medium through which we interact with, learn from, and benefit directly from nature.
Cultivating this relationship between man-made and natural environments is our great joy. Harmonic is filled with creative, indomitable, and passionate people that share focus on making the world better through landscaping. We strive to facilitate the human connection to the natural world, to push the field of landscaping ever forward, and to literally plant more trees.
We understand that, for most of us, our garden is our primary connection with nature. A landscape’s function is to advance and strengthen that connection in a setting that accounts for our own use and comfort. Our landscapes are the intersection between our artificial environs and the natural world, and as such are the medium through which we interact with, learn from, and benefit directly from nature.
Cultivating this relationship between man-made and natural environments is our great joy. Harmonic is filled with creative, indomitable, and passionate people that share focus on making the world better through landscaping. We strive to facilitate the human connection to the natural world, to push the field of landscaping ever forward, and to literally plant more trees.
On Harmony
We changed our name to Harmonic Horticulture and Construction in 2020. This new brand reflects the wider breadth of services we now offer, and makes space for the larger team now contributing to our common goals.
Literally, Harmonic Horticulture and Construction refers to the harmony between the elements of horticulture and construction. As landscape design and architecture is the attempt to reconcile human habits, structures, and habitation with the natural world, our name is our attempt to situate ourselves at the junction between the artificial and the natural. When we choose to differentiate between the two we describe them as existing in harmony.
It also refers to the harmony between the different disciplines we practice within the company itself. We are designers, gardeners, carpenters, land-use managers, landscape-ambassadors, surveyors, stone-workers, etcetera. We don’t define our skill sets by these terms, but rather by the interactions between the disciplines themselves.
In music, the harmonic overtone series forms the mathematical basis for pitch. In landscaping, the harmonic overtone series informs much of what we do. We incorporate ratios from the series into our designs. These ratios help us avoid symmetries, as symmetries tend to lead to a very forced, artificial feel when applied to natural elements. Nature does not build symmetrically. Nor does it build randomly. It builds ‘naturally.’ The harmonic overtone series is a product of the interaction between the natural and our perception of reality. It cannot exist without our attempts to make sense of the natural world, and is therefore an intrinsic part of our observations of, and interactions with nature. This makes it especially useful to those of us that wish to mimic nature, to converse with it, and to share our experiences of it with others through landscape design.
Tyler Collins: Founder, Landscape Designer and Installer
Tyler started his first lawn maintenance company in the mid 90’s when he was twelve or thirteen years old. He has been building unique, custom landscapes in Edmonton for over two decades, and has been designing and installing residential landscapes since 2016. In addition to landscapes, Tyler has been designing and installing custom kitchens and bathrooms since 2009.
His experience includes residential, commercial, and city landscaping projects working with a wide range of styles and materials. His horticultural, carpentry, stonework, and softscape knowledge is extensive, and he has worked closely with well-renowned Landscapers, Landscape Designers, and Landscape Architects throughout his career.
As a Landscape Designer, Tyler’s professional style is assertive but collaborative. He takes care to understand the vision of his clients, the challenges and opportunities inherent in the site, and the realities of budgetary concerns at the outset of the design process. He is open to receiving feedback and adjustments throughout the process, as he is fundamentally an improvisor.
Tyler’s education in Jazz and Classical composition informs much of his design philosophy. He uses his practiced feel for the balance of science and art in music to inform the interface between human-occupied and natural spaces in his designs. He continues to develop his own design language based on this artistic direction, but is perfectly comfortable designing within established design languages such as Permaculture, Pollinator, and Native Gardening, English, Japanese, and Mughal gardens, Aquascaping, Urban Gardening, and all things Sustainable.
He has a passion for soil science and vegetable gardening at home, and constantly experiments with new ideas in his own urban garden space at his home in Edmonton.