Blackstone Urban Landscapes

Dan designed and planted my small urban garden? In front of my house. I was pleased and the plantings looked good all season. I then made a subsequent call to Dan to assist with prepping the garden for winter and he even suggested planting bulbs for next spring. That was last year. I never heard back from him again. Perhaps my job is too small for him going forward? Again it’s too bad as now I basically have to start from scratch with a new designer/​installer! Again I guess I’ll give Dan the benefit of the doubt and say my job was too
small for him but he never said that and in hind sight it would have been better if he had instead of leaving me to find another landscaper !

As the saying goes, «I would give less than 1 star if that was an option.»
Similar experience to another Unilocaler; quick initial contact, seemed knowledgeable. I was promised a preliminary plan within a week. That week elapsed with no updates or contact, no returned emails either. A few more weeks went by with multiple missed promises and still no preliminary plan. In that entire time period, the only updates were via 2 phone calls, 1 of which I made, the other call was full of excuses and a tone that was certainly not apologetic or customer service oriented. If this is how the planning stage is handled, I can only imagine how poorly the execution stage could end up.

I called Blackstone Urban Landscapes to help with my small rooftop garden in May. I I was drawn to them by the previous Unilocal comments and their website that appeared to specialize in small urban spaces. Initially, things went very well. They came out to look at my space in early June and told me that they could do something nice within my budget. I waited for many weeks to receive the sketches and itemized written estimate that they promised. When a month had passed, I called to find when I would receive the estimate. They apologized for the delay and gave me another verbal estimate that was DOUBLE the original verbal estimate! I explained that this was well over my budget and not what we had previously discussed. They said they would work on it and email a written revised estimate ASAP. I still haven heard from them and it has been close to two months since my original meeting. In the meantime, I have met with another landscaper who has installed my beautiful rooftop garden for less than the original quote that this company gave me! I would not recommend this landscaper. Extremely disorganized and I was very disappointed with their customer service.

Dan from Botanica Bostonia just re-​did our South End patio. He’s got a great eye for design, and is extremely knlowedgable about plants and horticulture. He’s reasonably expensive, but you can’t argue with the work. He even added a few «extras» for us at no charge.
All in all, BB delivered on what they promised. Definitely recommended.

«Urban Garden Design» their ad in Boston Homes proclaimed this spring, and is exactly what they do. They are landscape architects but are foremost gardeners who know plants and horticulture. They can turn your roof deck into a garden, or your urban yard into a garden room. Botanica bostonia is the rare confluence of a garden designer and a horticulturist who knows what will grow in your soil, your light conditions, and what it will look like in a year and 5 years from now.
This South End based business first helped me with winter planting for my condo association’s street side containers, and then next my own garden. Not offended by small jobs, they can also handle building a pergola, and complete redesign and planting of a yard. They’ve built flagstone walks and granite topped brick planters.
Owner-​designer Dan LaBarre knows his plants, and delivers gardens that look great the day he finishes up, and even better months later.