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Grass to Garden

In today’s Eco friendly environment many homeowners are moving away from high maintenance lawns and installing artificial grass, paving, and/or plantings. In order to keep a lawn healthy all year round requires chemical fertilizers, weekly mowing and watering to name a few maintenance chores. Also the European chaefer beetle has become an issue in the lower mainland and eco friendly pesticides are proving ineffective, plus a possible watering ban on lawns, make it very difficult to keep a lush and healthy lawn.

We at Nicholson Landscaping are designing landscapes without lawns in the plan. We design a garden in the lawns place using low maintenance, drought tolerant plants with large boulders to blend nicely with BC nature. We also like to add, natural stone stepping stones and small patios with landscape lighting for the finishing touches. Plus artificial grass. Many of our clients are very happy with the results. The time savings is a bit hit with everyone. We would highly recommend installing a more eco friendly planting in your yard to help conserve water, use less chemical fertilizers and give the homeowner more free time. We are also the opinion that watching plants flower and grow is a simple pleasure in life. Call us now for a free consultation. ​

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North Surrey Project

This young family contacted Nicholson Landscape through our Facebook page. I have known the woman for many years and was more than happy she thought about us when redesigning their small back yard. The focus was a raised deck around a new hot tub. We installed a paving slab base for the hot tub and used the natural elevation differences in the yard to build the hot tub submerged inside a deck. The deck is built from high grade cedar. They wanted privacy around the hut tub so we installed raised planters made from high grade cedar with mature 10 foot tall bamboo to give them immediate privacy.

The second wish was a covered pergola. We built and stained the pergola at the shop and assembled it on site on concrete footings using Lee Valley hardware. We later sub contracted the installation of a glass cover using a glass glazing company. The client sent us a picture of the heavy snow on top of the pergola and was very pleased to see the structure handling the extra weight without issues.

After demoing the old concrete patio and stairs we installed paving slabs from Barkman and stairs from Abbotsford Concrete. Under this patio was installed a gas line for the barbecue and out door lighting wires. We lit up the pergola and installed some lights on the old fence to give the new out door space ambient lighting. Overall is was a pleasure working with this young family and we are fortunate enough to have many other landscape renovations jobs in this North Surrey neighborhood as they loving showing their neighbors our work.

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Anmore Landscape Renovation

A wonderful couple moved into a older home in Anmore that needed a landscape renovation. This project started with a design done by us Nicholson Landscaping. The wife is very knowledgeable with plants and gardening and immediately loved our design, which included many flowering plants in a rock area with a stepping stone pathway.

We started with installing a large boulder wall with basalt stepping stone stairs in the wall. Some boulders were already on site but we trucked in 3 more loads of boulders to complete the wall. At the top of the wall we installed a 5 stone Gurgler with rocks, plus lighting and more basalt stepping stones. Gurglers are always a lovely feature as they need no maintenance as its a pond less water feature. We always love to install any water feature first and let it run as the sound of splashing water is good for the soul. ​

During construction we noticed that the concrete pad has been washed out and was not sloping towards the house. To fix this problem we replaced the large concrete pad with paving stones, which we warranty from any puddling or sloping the wrong way. To build this patio with the proper slope we had to reinstall the Allan block wall along the edge of the patio. Making the wall and patio 100% flush with each other.

We also installed new grass next to the patio and built a earth wall in the back “wild area” to eventually plant wild plants on top to try and hide the neighbors property over time. These lovely people also had us back later to install more of the basalt stairs and another smaller boulder wall on the other side of the property.

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Pitt Meadows Project

A lovely semi retired couple hired us to completely renovate the back and side yards of their home in Pitt Meadows. They had an old rotten deck and landscape tie retaining walls. Together we came up with a design involving a paving stone patio that is much more durable than wood decking. We installed polymeric jointing sand between the paving stones in this job as well as most of our paving stone jobs. This sand does not wash away and prevents any weeds or ant hills forming from poor on going maintenance. We replaced the retaining walls and small planters with two different stones from Basalite and Abbotsford Concrete Products.

This job also included the construction of a large, high grade cedar, pergola over the patio with hardware from Lee Valley Tools. We pre-cut and stained the pergola at the shop and assembled it on site with Sonitube concrete footings. The wood work also included a privacy screen make from high grade cedar and some fencing and gate installation.

The finishing touches included the installation of outdoor lighting. We installed two mini spotlights in the pergola to illuminate the outdoor furniture and a few path lights in the flower beds around the patio. Giving this job a beautiful finishing touch to enjoy in the spring and summer evenings as well. Overall this project was very enjoyable to work on as the clients were very easy to work with and we took into account their great ideas to make their dream landscape come true.

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Crowberry Court

The homeowners contacted us to renovate their landscape, which included eliminating all high maintenance plantings and grass. They are bordered by a green belt next to a creek and wanted a mixture of outdoor living space and a natural look to compliment the green belt. We worked easily with them to come up with a tiered back area, a large patio and a dried out river bed look next to the ravine. This worked out well as when we dug the large slope down to incorporate the retaining walls and stairs we found large boulders easily moved by our equipment into the river bed area, saving them the cost of disposal.

We also paved the side of the house and installed a paving stone driveway with a rock garden in the smaller front yard.

This design also includes outdoor lighting and a small fountain in the patio. To also break up the large patio look, we chose a different color border and two areas for evergreen flowering shrubs in the patio itself. We are pleased to say these clients are very satisfied with the results as we were on time and in budget. This project was completed in 2011 and we still remain in regular contact with them as they have become a valued referral client that shows the work done by Nicholson Landscaping is built to last.

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charlie

Thanks to being a preferred contractor with Home Depot this lovely couple found us to renovate their entire landscape. We installed a new property line retaining wall, large back paving stone patio with a path way after removing and old tired deck. A brick landing was needed as well as new grass, some colorful plants, landscape lighting with a state of the art irrigation system. It was a pleasure working on this project in this high end, quite neighborhood in Maple Ridge

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spring ave

Our highest end form of paving… natural flagstone in mortar. We are very happy and proud of this patio and surrounding plantings designed by us. We were fortunate enough to have been able to cover this entire area from the elements and the results speak for themselves. Quality and craftsmanship is our fourte.

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Sheridan

Our largest project ever! Almost every component of landscaping was installed around this small one story home on the hillside in south Coquitlam. 13 retaining walls of brick and a rock/boulder wall in the front. Large back paving slab patio with a covered pergola with heating. Hot tub area with a privacy screen with built-in electrical hookups. Artificial grass putting green and landscape lighting. New grass and plants with an irrigation system and all the necessary drainage. One the homeowners was a professional landscaper in the past which made it fun to work with and bounce ideas off. Thanks again Anthony! It was a pleasure!

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Citadel 

We at Nicholson Landscaping are proud to have changed a sloped grass backyard into an outdoor living space complete with an outdoor kitchen. The kitchen has a Napoleon grill with side burner with hard line gas line, 2 small refrigerators and a garbage area with a custom built sink. Our custom built tight knot cedar pergola was carefully designed to code and built with expertise including hours of sanding and staining. The hardware for the pergola is of the highest quality from Lee Valley Tools. To level the backyard it required a main retaining wall with stairs built with drainage of course. The patio is natural stone flagstone with a well placed natural stone water feature for that relaxing water flow sound.

Nicholson Landscaping designed and planted the plants with the idea of a show of color all year round with very little plant maintenance. The front concrete driveway was replaced with beautiful paving stones surrounded by smaller plants. This project included an irrigation system and over 40 landscape lights to give that “high end” feeling in the evenings.

We are your one stop contractors for everything you would want or need in your landscape.