About Cal-Native Landscaping
The Cal-Native Look
About the Name "Cal-Native"
Cal-Native Landscaping has been designing beautiful landscaping on the Peninsula for over 26 years. Cal-Native specializes in using unique plants like variegated leaves and blooms to produce landscapes that have beautiful texture and color throughout the year. Our refusal to use the same old boring shrubs and trees has helped to make the Cal-Native "look" distinctive and often copied…
Why do we believe our designs are often copied? Because for years we've had clients call and tell us that their neighbor is outside in their front yard with their landscaper, photographing and sketching the garden that we installed.
It's easy to understand why. With our unique plant selection, graceful curves mixed with artistic stone work, and gently mounded gardens…it's a look that's hard to beat. Heck, half the calls we receive are from people who don’t even need landscaping, but are just calling to compliment our gardens and thank us for beautifying their neighborhood. Seriously!
Things to Expect from Cal-Native Landscaping Installations:
- Artistically designed landscapes with focal points.
- Unique plant selection with year-round interest.
- Curved paths and gently mounded plantings.
- Creative use of materials such as moss-covered stones
- Graceful flagstone walkways
- Low-maintenance gardens with low water needs
- Waterfalls and fountains
The Cal-Native Look
What makes the Cal-Native so distinctive? In brief, it's plant selection and the design of the garden. We refuse to use the same plants that you see everywhere else, such as agapanthus, day lilies, ivy, and the other common plants that you see in just about every garden. Look at just about any garden on the Peninsula and you will see plants, plants, and more plants, usually accompanied by a large, square, flat lawn. While there's nothing wrong with this look, there's also nothing about it that's very distinctive, or even attractive. It fills the space.
Cal-Native approaches landscaping from a different perspective: Why settle for ordinary, when you can have a garden that is colorful, beautiful, and distinctive? Our lawns are beautifully curved and gently mounded – not flat and dull like most lawns. Our gardens feature large moss covered boulders, and other features such as benches and sitting areas, that invite you to linger and enjoy the beauty and tranquility of your garden.
There is more to a beautiful garden than plants, plants, plants! We divide up the space with different features, avoiding the common shrubs that gardeners trim into rectangles, cubes, or loaves of bread. Our gardens are diverse: We create sitting areas or secret gardens; we carve into hills and install beautiful, natural stone retaining walls, covered with plants cascading down; we install waterfalls and fountains. We create beauty, and add value to your home.
Click here to contact Cal-Native Landscaping, the Bay Area Landscaping specialists, today.
About the Name Cal-Native
When Dave Raphael of Foster City started in this business as a gardener, he noticed that a lot of people would get very frustrated because they could not communicate with the gardener they had, as many gardeners speak little or no English. Since he was born and raised in the Bay Area, he thought he should use a name that made it clear that he spoke English, and that he had grown up here. "Jewish Boy Gardener," though accurate, probably wouldn't work.
So the name Cal-Native was born. This turned out to be a great name for the business, but unfortunately, it gives the impression that we only use plants that are native to California. While we use native plants where possible our primary goal is to create a garden with year-round interest.
Click here to contact Cal-Native Landscaping, the Bay Area Landscaping specialists, today.
If you can find better, hire them!