Landscape design & build — Surrey, South Delta, White Rock & the Fraser Valley
Evergreen draws the whole yard before anyone digs, prices it as one fixed build, and sends one crew from excavation to final clean-up — with grading, drainage and plants chosen for Fraser Valley clay, wet winters and summer watering restrictions.
Why the last two quotes went nowhere
In the Fraser Valley, the things that ruin a backyard are underneath it: clay that holds water from October to April, a patio set on four inches of loose sand, a lawn sitting in shade and moss. Anything pretty built on top of that is money you get to spend twice.
Flat grade, heavy clay, and three days of November rain. The side yard turns to swamp, paver joints stay green, and lawn roots are drowning by February — none of which a new plant list fixes.
A patio that heaves and dips almost always traces back to the base: loose sand instead of compacted 3/4″ minus, no drainage rock, no edge restraint. It moves in the first freeze-thaw and it never goes back.
Two “landscapers”, two deposits, no drawing, no schedule, and a phone that stopped being answered in July. If you’re slow to trust the next quote, that’s not paranoia — that’s pattern recognition.
Sun-loving nursery stock dropped into a shaded, saturated bed with no soil amendment and no irrigation zone. It photographs beautifully in May and is half gone by the following spring.
What we do
It starts on paper. A measured site plan with grades, drainage runs, hardscape layout and a real planting list, so you can see the finished yard before a machine touches the lawn. Then we build exactly that — excavation, base prep, hardscape, soil amendment and planting — as one fixed-price contract you can take in a single season or phase over three.
Book a free walkthroughPermeable and standard pavers, natural stone, and segmental retaining walls built the way the spec sheet says: compacted 3/4″ minus base, drainage rock and geogrid behind the wall, proper edge restraint, joints swept and locked. Built to sit still through fifteen coastal winters.
See recent hardscape workDeer-resistant, drought-tolerant and native species chosen for the light and soil you actually have, planted into amended beds under three inches of mulch. Zoned irrigation on a smart controller that stays inside summer watering restrictions — plus spring and fall clean-ups, aeration and overseeding to push moss out of the shaded lawn instead of just raking it.
How it works
We walk the property with you — grade, drainage, sun and shade, soil, access for machines, and what you actually want to use the yard for.
A concept sketch of the finished yard with a phased budget range, so you can see the whole thing and still build it in stages.
Measured plan, grading and drainage details, planting list, and one line-item build price. That number is the number.
One crew from excavation to final clean-up, then a watering schedule and a 3-year establishment guarantee on everything we plant.
“We won’t price a patio without seeing where the water goes. Anyone who will is quoting you a rebuild in four years.”— Evergreen’s design-first rule
Properties designed and built across the Fraser Valley
Establishment guarantee on everything we plant
In-house crews — hardscape is never subcontracted
Average homeowner rating
Sample figures shown for demonstration — replaced with your real numbers.
Recent work
Concept imagery — replaced with your project photographyA sloped, soggy yard nobody used. We cut the grade back, built a 34 m² permeable paver terrace on compacted base with a 1.1 m block wall behind it, ran a French drain to a catch basin, and re-established the lawn in sod over 100 mm of amended topsoil. Two seasons in, the patio hasn’t moved and the lawn is dry in February.
Concept imagery — replaced with your project photographyClay soil, a flat side yard and downspouts dumping against the foundation. We regraded to a 2% fall away from the house, installed 60 m of perforated pipe in drainage rock and filter fabric tied into three catch basins, then rebuilt the walkway in permeable pavers so the surface water has somewhere to go instead of pooling.
Concept imagery — replaced with your project photographyThe deer had eaten three years of planting budget. We rebuilt the beds with compost-amended soil and a drought-tolerant, deer-resistant palette — barberry, lavender, ornamental grasses, sword fern in the shade — then zoned drip irrigation on a smart controller so the garden survives an August watering restriction without anyone standing there with a hose.
An hour on your property with the person who will draw the plan: we read the grade, find where the water goes, map sun and shade, and check the soil. You get a concept sketch of the finished yard and a phased budget range — before you spend a dollar.
Straight answers
Hardscape drives the number: square metres of paving, wall height, how much soil has to be trucked out, and whether a machine can get to the back yard or it all goes by wheelbarrow. Drainage and planting are usually the smaller lines. After the walkthrough you get a phased budget range, and after the plan you get one fixed, line-item price — so you can decide what happens this year and what waits.
Not a full set of drawings, no. But you still need the grade and drainage read, because that is what decides base depth, edge restraint and where the runoff goes. For a single-element job we do a sketch and a levels note rather than a full plan — the design fee scales to the scope, and it comes off the build price if you go ahead with us.
Three things, in order. Regrade so the ground falls roughly 2% away from the foundation for the first two metres. Then move the water: perforated pipe in clean drainage rock wrapped in filter fabric, tied into catch basins and a legal discharge point. Then fix the soil — compost and sand amendment in the beds, 100 mm of screened topsoil under new lawn, and species that tolerate wet feet where the yard stays damp.
Sod gives you a finished lawn the same day and roots in two to three weeks — worth it for smaller, visible areas. Hydroseed costs less over large areas but needs six weeks and honest watering before it takes traffic. Moss is a shade and drainage problem, not a spray problem: we aerate, overseed with a shade-tolerant blend, lime and top-dress, and where it is truly dark we tell you to plant it instead of fighting for grass that will never fill in.
Everything we plant carries a 3-year establishment guarantee: if it fails and the watering schedule was followed, we replace it and replant it, no charge. We hand you that schedule at hand-over, and if you are on irrigation we program the controller ourselves so it stays legal through summer restrictions. The honest exclusions are the ones you would expect — no water, deer damage where you declined the resistant list, and physical damage.
Talk to the designer, not a call centre