Landscape design
Designed on your property, not on a screen.
Craig designs the way he estimates: on site, walking the yard with you. He listens to what you want, reads what the property is telling him, and puts the plan on paper before the crew ever shows up.
- Sarasota & Manatee County
- Free on-site estimate
- You deal with the owner
Bring ideas. Or don’t.
Some clients arrive with a Pinterest board and a plant list. Others just know they don’t like what’s there. Both work. As one client — a plantsman himself — put it: “You can come up with your own idea or leave it to Craig, the result will be amazing.”
Either way, the design comes from standing in your yard, not from a template.
Structure first, then layers.
A good Florida yard is built like a room. Palms and trees are the walls and ceiling — they go in first and set the scale against the house. Then come the mid-layer shrubs and tropicals, then groundcover, then the hard edges: pavers, rock, boulders.
Get the structure right and everything else is decoration. Get it wrong and no amount of annual color will fix it.
Tropical, coastal, low-water — or all three.
Most of what we design leans tropical: palms, crotons, ti plants, bromeliads, big leaves and color. Closer to the Gulf, salt and wind push the plant list toward tougher, coastal species. And a lot of homeowners now want less lawn and less watering — a xeriscape-style or Florida-friendly yard that still looks lush.
Those aren’t competing styles. The best yards here usually borrow from all three.
Worth knowing before the visit
- 01
Sun
West-facing front yards bake in the afternoon. Plant choice changes completely between the sunny side and the shady side of the same house.
- 02
Salt & wind
On the keys and along the bays, salt spray and wind decide what survives. Coastal designs start from salt-tolerant species.
- 03
Water
Where water sits after a summer storm matters more than almost anything. Beds, paths and drains get laid out around it.
- 04
HOA
Many communities here review landscape changes. Plan the approval time into your schedule.
What Ann and David Vozzolo wrote
As a result of his experience and vision he designed a beautiful front yard that truly compliments our home, incorporating trees and plantings we had not initially considered.
From Craig's projects
Photos of Craig's finished work, from the original Sarasota Landscaping Inc. showcase and his newer jobs. Tap any photo to see it larger.
01After: palms, layered tropical beds and boulder accents on either side of the paver walk to the front door 02Finished tropical front yard: tall palms over curved beds edged in pavers, mulch, a boulder accent and blue and yellow ground-cover 03After: the same home with a row of foxtail palms, crotons and fresh mulch beds sweeping around the lawn 04After: a gravel path edged in white stone beside the pool cage, lined with areca palms and red and gold tropicals 05Pool-cage view after: a dense band of palms and tropical shrubs screening the yard beyond 06After: new sod, palms, bougainvillea and a boulder in a curved bed under the same oak 07Patio corner with new stone-edged planting beds, palms and dracaena 08Side lawn with a curbed bed edge, a palm and tropical shrubs
Landscape Design: common questions
01Is the design separate from the installation?
02Can I bring my own ideas or plant list?
03Do you design for commercial or condo properties?
04Do you include water features?
Related services
- 01
Landscape Installation
Full front- and back-yard redos: tear-out, beds, palms, plants, rock, sod — installed by one crew.
Read more - 02
Palm Trees
Specimen palms sourced through strong nursery relationships, set at the right depth and braced.
Read more - 03
Landscape Lighting
Up-lit palms, lit paths and a yard that looks as good at 9 p.m. as it does at noon.
Read more
Free on-site estimate.
Say what the job is and the city. Craig will set a time to walk the property.