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. Our broad spectrum of services include from one-time hourly consultations to full sets of plans, from small yard makeovers to large landscapes. Bluestar can help you through all the phases of your landscape. We start with the development of a vision and plan for your yard, then coordinate solicitation of bids from the skilled contractors who build for us. Finally, we oversee 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?

Homeowners, landscape contractors, home builders, staging companies, and the do-it-yourselfer are among the types of clients whom we serve.  City dwellings, suburban landscapes, and country landscapes and estates are within the gamut of our work. For some customers, we merely help them to make their container gardens or courtyards look good.

Making clients feel comfortable with the landscape design process is a primary goal. (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. We then design it and help to find an installer to make it come to life.

Other clients may have an idea of what they are looking for. Some may even have an informal design drawn on paper. With them, we serve as a catalyst, intermediary, or translator. Drawing their design to scale can help to connect the dots for bringing their dream landscape design to life.

What Kinds of Outdoor Living Spaces Do We Design?

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

Is having a yard that uses less water and is environmentally friendly important to you?

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.

Or do you love 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? Bluestar will 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?

A designer helps you with a vision and a plan.

Your chances for getting that beautiful landscape that you’ve always desired greatly increase when 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, helping us to tackle it in the right order.

Don’t Be Piecemeal About It

One of the biggest mistakes that homeowners make when putting in a landscape is to take a “piecemeal” 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.

Eliminate Pitfalls

Although there is nothing wrong with building a landscape gradually, having a design at the beginning helps to eliminate pitfalls. We have been called out to redesign yards that were not designed properly to begin with. For example, concrete patios are too small to be usable, or are too large and are unused. Furthermore, 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 results 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.

Common Mistakes

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!
• A neighbor puts up a shed and youou want some instant screening, 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.
• Thinking that if you put some plants in right away it will make you feel at home, 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 fine 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, 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 hardscape as well as 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 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 to be made. This amounts to more money in your pocket. This is true not only for expensive hardscaping, but for plants as well.

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.

Bluestar eliminates the headache, makes the process fun, and that lets 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.

Connecting with our clients is part of the experience for us. Getting to know our clients and discovering how we can match up the right landscape to them is rewarding.

Our toolbox includes strong organizational skills, the ability to communicate well orally and in writing, and the ability to be 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.

Site design is our forte.

We are experienced in optimizing space, functionality, and circulation. All in a beautiful way! Secluded, intimate garden rooms increase privacy. Blending the yard with natural expansive open spaces makes the land goes right off into nature.

Our designers have an eye for aesthetics.

What looks good together and where to put features so that they stand out the most is how we manufacture curb appeal. Choosing the perfect flagstone and pots bring us joy. We always keep in mind, though, your tastes and style.

Plants are our best friends.

An education in plant biology, environmental horticulture, and art and design gives us a leg up on other designers.

Our prices are reasonable.

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

Construction budgets are easy for us to develop.

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.