The Natural Garden -

Lucy Ivey

In 2018, Karl and his crew at The Natural Garden (TNG) designed and installed a native plant habitat/moon garden in our extra, all-grass lot in town. We had started with the vague idea of helping pollinators and ended up with this magnificent habitat, which is not only beautiful, but flourishing after one summer of growth! We couldn't have had a better experience working with TNG's garden designers, equipment operators, stone masons, planting and maintenance crew, and plant specialist. To a one, they are hard workers and knowledgeable, thoughtful, creative artists and craftspeople, each considerate and with a good sense of humor.

This is not a low-budget operation, and their experience and passion for their work shows in the quality of every aspect of this finely wrought project.

Katie Moran

Karl Shank and his fabulous team responded to my desire to create a trouble-free outdoor space that reflected the beauty of our environment - the Blue Ridge Mountains. We needed a plan for replacing our overgrown and weedy plots with native perennials that would require minimum care and provide beauty and interest Spring to Fall. They came out and spent time talking about our needs, surveying the property, and developing the plan on site and implementing it so that we could provide input all along the way. We also had them rebuild several stone walls and replace a gravel pathway that had become unusable. In its place they created a beautiful oasis that is now my favorite place in the yard. The quality of their workmanship is outstanding. These walls and paths will last. lifetime I am sure.

Adam McIlwain

Disappointing result. Paid a good chunk of money for a design and consult. It took more than a year and was very underwhelming. Eventual quote I got was extremely high. I may not be the easiest customer, but I felt misled and the result was mostly wasted time and $.

Nate Brustein

We worked with the Natural Garden in the fall of 2019 to totally redesign and reshape our backyard.  The experience was overwhelmingly positive.

We went through multiple design cycles with Karl and Elise.  There was a lot of back and forth.  We had plenty of ideas and made drawings of our own.  They did a great job using their expertise to really make our incomplete ideas come together into a fabulous design.  Besides resulting in an excellent design, the process was a lot of fun and a great learning experience.

They were honest with us and good at estimating what it would take to implement the things we wanted, which allowed us to decide which tradeoffs to make so that we could get the things that were really important to us in the yard without spending more than we expected to.

Karl is an artist with an excavator.  Our design required moving a lot of dirt (and rocks) in order to shape the space that we wanted for a patio, lawn and gardens.  There is no way that we could have gotten the result we did if we had worked with someone who was more focused on just landscaping or building decks.

Besides doing great work on the design, Elise also worked with us to choose the plants that would fit in with our design, preferences, and lifestyle.  She also showed us how to plant them all.  We're still waiting to see how it looks when it comes up, but we're confident that it will be beautiful once it does.

We have no reservations recommending the Natural Garden for an outside design project.

Jim Krauss

Natural Gardens brings a unique viewpoint to residential landscaping. They helped us figure out that many of our previous problems were due to trying to sustain plants that were not native to our geographical area. Natural gardens provided plans to install a variety of beautiful plants that love the soil and can resist insects and disease to a much better degree. They involved us as the owners and were willing to make revisions on the spot! Nice people too! I recommend Natural Gardens!

Jennifer Barrett

Our journey with The Natural Garden was super. The first great experience was just the simple pleasure of Karl’s enthusiasm for what he does. It’s a breath of fresh air to meet someone so excited and happy about what he does for a living. He spent a lot of time with us honing our plan and driving us around to see completed projects so we could see what these landscapes look like.

Once we decided to go with this company, it took awhile to nail down the plan because we did have budget constraints. Karl very patiently worked with us to come up with a plan that achieved our most important goals, like the stonework and excavation of the ground. The professionals in this company are masters at creating a space that feels closer to nature, a place we want to just be. They took our very boring “runway like” lawn and turned it into an outdoor room of sorts, by shaping the bank, adding boulders and beautiful bluestone steps and walk. These folks are master craftsmen at natural stone. I am beyond happy with all the stonework and my husband still talks about how much he loves the boulders. We did a partial planting that fit our budget and came back for more trees at a later time, which wasn’t the ideal situation but ended up working just fine.

Now, a couple years later, we are enjoying our outdoor space every day and watching the wildlife blossom. I purchased plants from their nursery and planted a lot of native perennials last fall, and I am really enjoying the process of watching what happens in my yard. We have found the most joy in watching how many pollinators come to our yard now, and the birds are much more plentiful, probably due to the cover and insect food they are finding. One of the best parts of this whole process is the education I have received from just talking to these folks. I have begun to realize how important native plants are to our ecosystem and have begun to read books by authors such as Doug Tallamy about the importance of replacing exotics with native plants to support our ecosystem.

I believe it is important to redesign as much space as possible to be more “wild” and native, but we as humans need to feel safe and comfortable in these designed spaces. I believe this work The Natural Garden did for us helped us accomplish the goal of having a safe, walkable space while still providing nature the resources it needs to thrive.

Catherine Madhavaiya

We were impressed by the utilizing of native plants in their landscape plans, unlike many other landscapers in the area. The stonework is very professional too ! Karl and Elise worked closely with us, and listened patiently to our ideas, with attention to our budget. Now, we are anxiously waiting for the plants to come alive with spring growth, and feel the peace that nature gives to us. Thank you, Natural Garden!

Lisa Ha

I highly recommend The Natural Garden. Karl and his team really spent time to carefully listen to what we wanted in a garden design in terms of aesthetics, level of maintenance, and supporting pollinators by choosing native plants. I really appreciate how they're more than landscapers; they're artists, botanists and ecologists -- with a teeny dash of mad scientist (in the best way possible!) They've made me feel like a true design partner, even with my brown thumb and zero knowledge of plants. I'm looking forward to seeing our yard grow and mature through the years.