01
Lawn Care & Turf Health
Weekly mowing with reel-finish on cool-season grasses, edging, aeration, top-dressing, and a calibrated fertility program rooted in soil tests — not a generic schedule.
From
$65 / visit
Landscape Architecture · Menlo Park, CA
Gardens composed with intention.
RMGardening designs, builds, and tends climate-aware landscapes for the homes of Menlo Park — pairing the discipline of architecture with the patience of horticulture.
01
A garden is the one room of a house that is never finished. We design that room as architecture — and tend it as living craft, season after season, for as long as you own the home.
— The Studio
Fifteen years
Fifteen years
of patient ground.
RMGardening began in 2009 with a single client on Santa Cruz Avenue and a borrowed rototiller. Today we care for over two hundred properties across the Mid-Peninsula — every one of them still held to the same standard: a garden should look deliberate in every season, not just in May.
We are a small studio by design — one principal designer, four horticulturists, and a masonry crew that has worked together since 2013.
That structure lets us hold a project from the first sketch through the tenth pruning. The person who draws the planting plan is the person who walks the beds in February to check the structure of the dogwoods. Continuity is the thing most landscapes lose; we have built a practice around keeping it.
Our work is climate-aware for coastal California: Mediterranean palettes, drip irrigation engineered to real ET data, and soil programs built on compost, mineral amendments, and patience — not synthetic shortcuts. The result is gardens that age toward more, not less.
215+
Properties tended
15yr
In Menlo Park
94%
Client retention
7
On-staff horticulturists
Field Note · 03
Native palette · Cedar Street
2024
— Services & Indicative Pricing
What we do,
What we do,
and what it runs.
Honest ranges, drawn from two hundred active accounts. Final quotes are fixed after a site visit — never an estimate that drifts. Most Menlo Park properties fall within the bands below.
02
Garden Design & Planting Plans
Full-site design: site analysis, concept drawings, horticultural planting plan, and a phased install schedule. Mediterranean and native palettes tuned to coastal California.
From
$2,400
03
Seasonal Maintenance
Pruning to AISA standards, dormant cutbacks, mulching, irrigation tuning, and a written seasonal report so you always know what was done and why.
From
$180 / visit
04
Hardscaping & Stonework
Dry-laid flagstone paths, bluestone terraces, drystack seat walls, and custom steel-edged planters. Built by our in-house masonry crew — not subcontracted.
From
$95 / sq ft
05
Irrigation & Water Strategy
Smart-controller retrofit, drip conversion, hydrozone design, and ET-based scheduling. Average client sees a 30–45% reduction in landscape water use within one season.
From
$650
06
Tree & Arbor Care
Structural pruning for young ornamentals, canopy lifts, fruit-tree programs, and health assessments. We do not top trees — ever — and we will tell you why.
From
$220 / visit
07
Full Property Program
A single annual contract covering design evolution, weekly care, seasonal refreshes, irrigation, and arbor work — one point of contact, one calendar, fixed monthly billing.
From
$1,200 / mo
Indicative ranges only. Every property is walked before a quote is fixed — you will never receive a number we have not stood on the ground to verify.
Request a Fixed Quote
— How We Work
Four moves,
Four moves,
no surprises.
01 — Walk
Site Walk & Brief
We meet on the property, listen to how you live in the space, and read the soil, light, and existing canopy. No charge, no obligation, ninety minutes.
02 — Draw
Design & Quote
Within two weeks you receive a concept board, a planting plan, and a fixed-price quote with a phased install schedule. One round of revision is included.
03 — Build
Install & Hardscape
Our crew executes the build — grading, stonework, planting, irrigation — with a single foreman on site from first day to final walkthrough.
04 — Tend
Steward & Evolve
We stay on as caretakers — weekly, seasonal, annual — adjusting the plan as the garden matures. Most of our clients have been with us for over six years.
— Selected Work
Recent ground,
Recent ground,
Menlo Park & Atherton.
— Request a Quote
Let's walk
Let's walk
the property
together.
Tell us a little about your site and what you're hoping for. We respond to every inquiry within two business days, and site walks are typically scheduled within ten days.
- Studio Menlo Park, California — serving the Mid-Peninsula from San Carlos to Palo Alto
- Hours Monday–Friday · 7:30am to 4:30pm · Site walks by appointment
- Service Area Menlo Park, Atherton, Palo Alto, Woodside, Portola Valley, Los Altos
- Licensed California C-27 Landscape Contractor · Bonded & Insured