Bluestar Landscape Designers

Bluestar Landscape Designers is a custom landscape design company dedicated to creating beautiful outdoor living spaces that suit your style. We work with you to create an aesthetic, functional, and affordable landscape. We have worked on hundreds of projects covering a broad spectrum of services, from one-time hourly consultations to full sets of plans, from small yard makeovers to large landscapes. We can help you through all the phases of your landscape, starting with the development of a vision and plan for your yard, then coordinating solicitation of bids from the skilled contractors who build for us, and finally overseeing the project to make sure it is built according to our creative vision. Please see our Services page for more information on what all we can offer you.

Our service area includes Roseville, Rocklin, Granite Bay, Sacramento, Auburn, Meadow Vista, Lincoln, Grass Valley, Nevada City, Folsom, El Dorado Hills, Elk Grove, and Davis.

Who Uses Bluestar Landscape Designers?

We design for homeowners, landscape contractors, home builders, staging companies, and the do-it-yourselfer.  We feel equally comfortable with designing for city dwellings and suburban landscapes, as well as country landscapes and estates. For some customers, we merely help them to make their container gardens or courtyards look good.

We strive to make our clients feel comfortable with the landscape design process (please see our Design Process page: https://bluestarlandscapedesigners.com/sacramento-landscape-design-process/ which tells you how the process works). Our down to earth staff starts with where you are. For some, this means you may not be sure of where to even start or have no clear vision of what you want. We enjoy helping our customers figure out what it is they are looking for in their outdoor living space, then we design it, and help them to find an installer to make it come to life.

Other clients may have a pretty firm idea of what they are looking for; some even have a basic design drawn on paper. With them, we serve as a catalyst, intermediary, or translator, for drawing their design to scale and helping them to connect all the dots for making their dream landscape design become a reality.

What Kinds of Outdoor Living Spaces Do We Design?

At Bluestar Landscape Designers, we design a beautiful landscape to fit your style, not ours.

Would you like to have a yard that uses less water and is environmentally friendly?

Would you like to have a pleasant yard to look at while you’re working from home, or when you come home at night?

Are you seeking a space that’s soothing and relaxing? Maybe you would like a lush woodland garden.

Would you like a sophisticated formal garden that reminds you of England or Tuscany? We can design that for you.

Maybe you would like an outdoor living space that makes you feel like you’re in the tropics—sensual and hot? …All within the experience of our landscape designers.

Not sure what your style is? We’ll help you discover it.

No matter what you’re looking for, we can create front yards that are traffic-stoppers, backyards that are tranquil oases.

Or sometimes our customers just say, “We don’t care. Just make it beautiful.” And that’s what happens.

Why Do You Need a Designer?

You need a vision and a plan. Don’t be piece-meal about it.

Your chances for getting that beautiful landscape that you’ve always desired are greatly improved if you start with a vision from which you develop a plan. The installation process is relatively easy, and can happen as slowly or quickly as you desire.

Professional landscape designers are able to:

• Help you figure out what your vision is (what you want in a landscape),
• Translate the vision of a usable and beautiful yard into a plan,
• Draw the plan to scale so that all elements fit together in the most functional and beautiful way possible.
• Explain the broad picture of the landscape process so that it is tackled in the right order.

One of the biggest mistakes that homeowners make when putting in a landscape is to take a “piece-meal” approach to it. This can happen for various reasons: perhaps you are excited about a new landscape and just want to get started, or maybe you don’t have the finances to put in everything you’d like all at once, so you start putting in one element at a time.

There is nothing wrong with building a landscape gradually, but having a design at the beginning helps to eliminate the pitfalls of this approach. We have been called out to redesign many jobs that were not designed or built properly to begin with. Concrete patios are too small to be usable, or are too large and are unused (they can also add to the heat load, becoming unbearably hot). Unsuitable plants die from too much sun, grow to be too large, or are too small for the space they need to fill. Yards do not provide the functions that the homeowners want and need from their yard. Elements are commonly out of scale with each other, and the space just really doesn’t look as aesthetic as it could.

This can result in elements being out of scale to each other, unusable spaces, unsuitable plants being used, and a general lack of aesthetics. In the long run, it costs you money and frustration.

Here are real life examples of what we’ve seen happen when a landscape designer is not used:

• You decide you need a patio right away, so you have a contractor come out and pour one. Later you discover that a portion of your patio is unusable because it is too small to be functional. You also realize you forgot to put a planter in right next to your house, and now it’s summer and so much concrete feels really hot!
• You want some instant screening from your neighbor, so you put redwoods in two feet from your back fence. Once they start taking over your yard and your neighbors’, you figure out that you should have used a different tree.
• You want some plants in right away to make you feel at home, so you go to the store and buy ones that look pretty that day. Six months later some of the plants are being scorched by the sun for lack of proper placement, and others are overtaking your walkway because you put in plants that get 5 feet wide in a 2 foot space.

A good landscape designer has knowledge that you don’t have.

There are some homeowners who are quite good naturally at designing their own yards, but usually, even the best could use some professional advice in one area or another. Landscape designers are trained in the fields of art and design, and usually spend years developing a true understanding of how to use plants in the landscape. In addition, as previously mentioned, designers understand the landscape process. Why reinvent the wheel?

The plan is the springboard for building the landscape of your dreams.

Plans tell builders just what you and the designer had in mind, for both hardscape and softscape elements. This enables you to get bids for how much a project will cost, as well as compare apples to apples when looking at those bids. For example, a plan might call out flagstone stepping stones on individual mortar pads (the mortar pads help to reduce rocking). Having this in writing on the plan sets a standard for building and for quoting.

Landscape designers save you money.

Obviously, the fewer poor choices a homeowner makes on a project results in the fewer fixes you’ll have to make, all amounting to more money in your pocket. This is true not only for expensive hardscaping, but for plants as well.
For the do-it-yourself customer, we can get you plants at discounted prices.

And finally, because we work with several different contractors throughout Sacramento, Roseville, Rocklin and adjoining areas, we are able to find you the most competitive price and best contractor for your landscaping project.

Landscape designers can eliminate the headache, make the process fun and let you relax.

Many customers say they feel lost and overwhelmed by the idea of getting the landscape that they desire. Although the design part of the process often is fun, for many customers, soliciting, understanding, and negotiating bids can be a de-energizing experience. If you desire, we can handle this stage of the process ourselves. This allows you to relax and have fun with the entire process. The headache is gone.

What Sets Bluestar Landscape Designers Apart from Other Landscape Design Companies?

We have clarity in vision and communicating.

Our clarity in vision, ability to interpret the clients’ wishes, and creative talents make us outstanding in designing beautiful landscapes. We are passionate about our work, engaging fully in each project.

We enjoy the people aspect of our work and discovering how we can match up the right landscape to each client.

We are organized, communicate well, and are flexible.

We have experience in designing all landscaping styles.

Please look at our photo gallery and before and after page to get an idea of the wide array of projects on which we have worked. All landscaping styles are fun for us to design, so we are happy to accommodate the style you like.

We are experts at construction project management.

We have served as project managers for the construction of almost all of our designs. This ensures the artistic integrity of the design, that designs are built correctly, and that stress levels are lowered for you!

We are great at site design.

We are experienced in optimizing not only space, functionality, and circulation, but can do it in a beautiful way, to boot. We can create secluded, intimate garden rooms, or expansive open spaces that make you feel like your land goes right off into nature.

We really have an eye for aesthetics.

We know what looks good together, where to put features so that they stand out the most, how to give you curb appeal. We can help you choose the perfect flagstone and pots. We always keep in mind, though, your tastes and style.

We know plants well.

We enjoy the contact with the living aspect of our work—the plants! We have scads of experience in plant design and the many challenges that come with the territory. And we know the plants that will work in this territory. Our designs don’t include plants that won’t make it here, are the wrong plant for the space, or are unavailable. We know the nurseries in the Sacramento area well. Also, we try to be as earth-friendly as we can.

We’re reasonably priced.

It’s not all about making money to us. We’re doing this because we’re passionate for landscape design.

We know how to work with construction budgets.

Working in the accounting field years ago, we have a head for numbers, too, and can work with you on phasing in the design to match your existing budget.