The process

Our strength lies in the development and long-term maintenance of relationships with our clients, our staff, and our landscapes. We have structured our company around this strength. We provide full-scale, industry leading service from the conception of your landscape through decades of maintenance, repairs, and development. We don’t just stand behind our work – we’re fully present. Our gardening staff keeps our construction crew apprised of ongoing site conditions, so that maintenance and minor repairs to the landscape are addressed automatically. Our landscape designs often include amendments and additions that may be included as the garden matures, and these can be incorporated affordably and seamlessly at the appropriate moment.

Although all our services are available independently, our process begins with a personalized landscape design based on hours of preparatory work and consultation. Once drawings have been prepared, we handle each and every detail of your landscape installation including hardscape, softscape, carpentry, horticulture, electrical, irrigation, landscape lighting, concrete work, and finishing. We have an extensive network of industry partners we can call on to provide many more services to realize a design of any scope.

Near the conclusion of your landscape installation we will schedule a free consultation with our lead gardener, who will arm you with the knowledge you need to maintain your garden into the future.

Should you wish to utilize our gardening services we will maintain your garden to the highest standard as long as you wish. Our team of gardeners will handle the weeding, pruning, spring and fall cleanups, and long-term development of your landscape, backed up by our construction crew.

Additionally, we offer basic lawn-maintenance services to our gardening clients. We’ve set up this part of the company to focus on smaller scale lawns than a dedicated lawn-maintenance company, meaning we can offer regular, efficient lawn services at a lower cost than our competitors in this particular field.

Read on below for more details on each step of our process.

 

Design

Sometimes a landscape design is as simple as a hand-drawn sketch laying out a new planting scheme for a particular flowerbed, and sometimes it is a full-scale redesign and rebalancing of every element in a landscape.

We provide comprehensive landscape designs and documentation that include scaled top-down drawings, colour perspective renderings, elevation drawings for structures, detailed construction specifications for each element, graphical plant lists, and staging instructions for landscapes that may be installed over more than one season. We’ll provide framing drawings, elevations, and specifications for decks, fences, outdoor kitchens, sheds and other outbuildings.

We are comfortable working in many different styles, and can flex and adjust these styles to match your specific tastes and needs. We’ll tailor the design to suit how you’d like to use and experience your landscape.

Our design process is professional and collaborative. After our first consultation, we’ll fully communicate our understanding of your goals and needs before the process begins. During the design process we’ll meet to show you our ideas, and make adjustments and additions as they come up. The installation of a landscape is a labour-heavy and involved process, so we always take the time to plan and communicate carefully during the design phase to ensure that we are investing effectively.

The process of landscape design is also how we build communication, trust, and understanding in our working relationship with you before we find ourselves locked in an expensive construction project together. Building a solid foundational relationship with our clients at this stage is the bedrock for creating something exceptional.

 

 

Construction

Our work-sites are kept tidy, our employees professional and approachable, and our regular communication comprehensive. We are good neighbours for the duration of the construction process, and we will still be pleased to see one another at the conclusion of the project.

We are skilled carpenters, stone-workers, low-voltage electrical technicians, landscapers, plumbers, concrete installers, gardeners, and general contractors. Every aspect of your yard will be built with an accomplished and patient set of hands. Structural and organic foundations will be crafted with a depth of quality that will keep hardscaping true and plants lush for a lifetime and beyond.

We will continue to add detail and tweak the design as we work, considering carefully each element as it is built. Our communication continues and evolves through this process, which allows us to weave even more personality into the landscape. The end result will be something unique and personal, and that fills the soul to interact with. It will be complete, and will have all the space, tools, and guidance it needs to grow and mature. It will be a new garden every year, and will sooth and inspire in new ways as it develops.

We will not evaporate when your project is complete. We offer ongoing care and development, and nothing pleases us more than being invited back year after year to watch your garden grow.

 

Gardening

It is by offering gardening services that we can truly develop a landscape. As years go by, gardens establish themselves and fill in. Pockets of shade develop under the canopies of larger trees and shrubs, changes to the soil microbe community create new opportunities, and human interaction informs adjustments. It is our ultimate pleasure to design a landscape, install it, and continue to care for it throughout its lifetime.

As a garden grows we can help it take shape through pruning and shaping trees and shrubs, amending soil with natural fertilizers and humics, diagnosing and treating pests and disease, pulling weeds, cleaning up leaves, designing and installing annuals and container gardens, and much more. We service gardens on a biweekly basis, and we offer weekly lawn-mowing services to our gardening clients.

By personalizing our relationship with you, we hope to help you personalize your relationship to your garden. Gardens are, for many of us, our central connection with nature. They inform us of the natural world, and share both its beauty and its bounty. A gardener’s job is to nurture this connection as much as it is to nurture the garden itself.

We love sharing what we’ve learned. We can help show you the beauty that exists in your own backyard, help inform your own participation in it, while taking care of as much of the heavy lifting as you would like us to.

 

Lawn Care

We do offer basic lawn care services for our gardening clients. We mow and trim lawns on a weekly basis, and can apply organic fertilizer in the Spring and Fall. We also take care of basic tasks such as power-raking, aerating, and edging.

 

Woodworking

Carpentry work has always been done in-house at Harmonic, and due to the wide range of carpentry disciplines we work in we’ve become a popular place for apprentices to practice their trade.

As landscapers we have an extensive portfolio of custom decks, fences, arbors, pergolas, gazebos, outdoor kitchens, lap-jointed timber planters, railings, privacy screens, cabinets, custom sheds, playhouses, benches, chairs, tables, and purely aesthetic pieces. Each piece is designed for its unique style, shape, dimension, and use-case. Drawings are prepared beforehand, so our clients can provide input and understand what the finished product will look like before construction begins.

Our wood species and hardware selection is informed by decades of experience with materials that will stand the test of time outdoors, in our cold climate.

We spend the Winter months building furniture and cabinetry in our woodshop in preparation for the Spring, so these pieces are ready to be enjoyed as soon as the snow melts.

We have also renovated kitchens and bathrooms for years. We will act as architects, and present detailed blueprints with renderings before construction begins, so that each and every detail is decided, and even colours are chosen in advance. You’ll see what the room looks like from every angle.

We then perform the critical parts of the renovation ourselves, with our in-house carpentry staff directly involved in framing, waterproofing, tile-work, cabinetry (custom or install-only), doors and windows, flooring, and finishing. We work closely with electricians, plumbers, drywallers, engineers, painters, and more to ensure each element is performed with the highest level of skill possible. One of our carpenters will be assigned to your project and will coordinate, oversee, and communicate with you from inception to completion, ensuring that you have one consistent, responsive point of contact throughout the process.

This carpenter will oversee quality, correct deficiencies themselves, and maintain a spotless worksite from start to finish.