Christie Dustman and Company helped with the design of a friends garden and did an incredible job…read more I was so impressed that I hired her to consult with me for my established garden that has been written up in 8 magazines. I gave her my thoughts and right away she came back with some suggestions that made total sense to me. I got right to work implementing her suggestions and I'm completely happy with the new design features. Christie is super easy to work with, listened to what I wanted to achieve, and delivered wonderful suggestions. I'm very lucky to have had her help and now my gardening friends all use her.

I would highly recommend Christie Dustman & Company. The initial one-hour consultation was fabulous…read more- we brainstormed various ideas and then I was provided with a sketch showing proposed planting areas with specific plants/tree types. The idea of building a 2-section funky fence near my patio served two purposes, one to screen my patio area from my neighbor's backyard, and the other to save me money from having a higher, longer fence along the property line separating me from my neighbor. I also loved the concept of adding some bluestone stepping stones into the existing patio (made of pavers) and extending the stepping stones into the yard to lead someone from the patio into the backyard. The trees, shrubs, and plants continue to thrive years later. The variety of textures and shapes is lovely.

Ideal Landscape did an amazing job on our sidewalk and flower beds. We have worked with Chris King…read morefor a number of years. He always returns my calls promptly and always has a creative, beautiful design to enhance our property. He and his crew do outstanding work and take care of all of the details. Don't hesitate to pick up the phone to call Ideal Landscaping for all of your landscaping and stonescaping needs.

Our walk and stairs was all field stone. It completely fell apart from the Winter. Chris and his…read moreteam not only rebuilt the stars but changed the direction of the walkway for us. We couldn't be happier with the quality and speed of the project. We would highly recommend Chris and his company!

Karen has worked for us over the past 3 years from designing and executing a full scale makeover of…read morebackyard (which was a mud pit when we moved in) to 3x/year cleanup and maintenance. Her designs are beautiful and the prep-work has allowed our garden to flourish even in the absence of green thumbs. She has worked within our budget. Communication can be slow at times but given the results we have recommended KC to several friends and will continue to work work with her.

We use KC as a mentor, as we learn how to care for a garden we inherited when our downstairs…read moreneighbor moved. KC has been super helpful in teaching us how to care for our flowers and how to properly treat common plant health issues like infections and pests. Just today KC spent over an hour teaching me to how to properly prune rhododendrons and yews in part of our garden. My partner and I really like working with her as a mentor and always learn how to do more of the garden maintenance ourselves every time KC visits. I highly recommend working with KC (even if you don't want mentoring but just need garden care, but especially if you want to learn more about gardening!)

"Urban Garden Design" their ad in Boston Homes proclaimed this spring, and is exactly what they do…read more 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.

Dan from Botanica Bostonia just re-did our South End patio. He's got a great eye for design, and…read moreis 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.

Love working with Maria. We are in year four of a multi year plan for my home. She takes into…read moreaccount what you can do when. I appreciate her ability to listen and collaborate on the project. For example, I have plenty of peonies and no rhododendrons. The curb appeal on my home has improved 1000% and I use my renovated patio to host friends and family now.

Maria is amazingly inept, incompetent and negligent. She misrepresents her knowledge, experience…read moreand technical skill. She fabricated stories about her experience and understanding of the task at hand. She also fabricated expenses. Not only did she mislead us, the homeowners, on a job that exceeded $100,000, she misled every contractor that was involved. Every contractor on the job said they would never work with her again. We certainly will not. I am in real estate and project management and I have never worked with anyone who was as terrible as Maria. I would be happy to discuss this with anyone in an effort to save them losing a lot of money working with MVB. Feel free to contact me.

THEY DO OUR CONDO COMPLEX. BY ALL MEANS HIRE THEM.. if you…read morewant your place to look worse after they leave than before. Little instructions to workers on how to make the property look better. they ruin the lawns by their heavy machinery make hard quick stops and turns digging up the turf. they blow the driveways onto the freshly painted front decks railing sidings andnew windows. blow your front mats into the bushes or against the side of the house and do not bother to fix them until you end up tripping over them. A pathetically poorly trained group of workers. hope we get rid of them soon. In winter they load up buckets of salt and sand in one place and not spread it evenly.and its awful. you leave a sign on the front deck to not salt it but of course they do not read and your front entrance is left with tons of salt an sand to track into the house. Other than they i guess they are great.

If you enjoy having rocks chip your cars paint, use this company. I live in an apartment complex…read moreand every time these clowns come to the property, my car is covered in grass, wood chips and the paint is chipped. They weed whack directly next to my vehicle flinging rocks every where & don't seem to care. They park their vehicle across 5-6 parking spots and do maintenance on their truck while 1 or 2 other cut grass.

OK, I see one review for Mandarina Studio here, and it's pretty stellar. Let me second that, and…read moreadd a few more things. I retained their service when my partner and I bought a house in Brookline about a year ago. We decided that we basically get rid of all the stuff we had at that point and do the whole house based on a new concept, which we weren't sure about at that point. Plus, we are super busy people, professionally, so we couldn't spare lots of time on this project and so needed someone who was cool and dependable. And here (after we interviewed a few potential candidates) comes Amanda Reid, the principal of this design firm. She was something! First of all, she has such cool, sophisticated taste on everything we need advice on: furniture, wall color, redoing the whole kitchen and bathroom etc. We were originally into the super modern, kind of cold look, but she persuaded us to introduce some eclectic elements like antique pieces into the whole mix, and the resulting space is just unique, tasteful, and functional. Whenever we throw a home party, people who visit our house for the first time usually gasp entering the door. And we tell them we did everything by ourselves (just joking: we give the studio full credit gracefully and gratefully always). There are so many other things I can say, but this is already getting too long. Just a few more things. Amanda is super organized and a crystal clear communicator. Over the course of three-four months, she probably made hundreds, possibly thousands of decisions, small and big. She always presented in her inimitable perfectly clear way what our options were and executed everything in her effortless manner (her presentation skills are something to behold). At work, I interact with some of the smartest people in the world, but rarely have I witnessed such efficiency and transparency in communication. We wanted no headache, no pain, no drama because we are so busy, and Amanda definitely made our life easy. Anyway, to sum up, if you live in this area and have some big complex project, go with her. You wont' regret.

Principal designer and owner of Mandarina Studio, Amanda Reid has designed my personal residence, a…read morenewly acquired loft in Midtown West area of Manhattan in New York City. She was also responsible for interior renovations of common areas for several of my residential income producing properties in Boston and Manhattan. Through the entire process, Amanda demonstrated ultimate taste and passion for interior design. Her vision transformed outdated properties into contemporary stylish spaces. She was very considerate to my requirements and budget constraints. She didn't replace my vision with hers, like many designers do; instead, she adapted her vision to accommodate my needs as a client, while transforming it into a design masterpiece. Amanda is the best designer I have ever worked with through my career of thirteen years as an architect and real estate developer. I highly recommend her to everyone in my professional network for a variety of projects. Max Drivin

Newton, MA Jerry and…read morehis team replaced a retaining wall that had begun to lean into our driveway. From start to finish, Jerry displayed respect, enthusiasm, integrity, expert know-how & flexibility. It was importantly to me that this wall last beyond my lifetime and be beautiful. I wanted my adjacent neighbors to feel respected, heard and included in the planning and execution. During the planning process, Jerry sent me tons of pictures to help me decide which look and construction I wanted. He brought different stones that I could see and touch. He explained the deconstruction and reconstruction process in meticulous detail. The proposal and contract was clear and detailed. The price was fair and within our budget. The project was completed within the time frame. Jerry and his team delivered on all fronts! My family and my wonderful neighbors are happy with the new wall. It is truly beautiful. I love seeing the real stone. I will be happy every time I pull into the driveway.

If you live anywhere near Newton MA, and are planning to have landscaping work done, you should…read moregive the folks at StoneWall Landscapes a call. We hired them this summer to do some long-deferred landscaping improvements, and we couldn't be happier. We'll definitely use them again. At our property we wanted to: * Replace the existing driveway and its adjacent stone wall * Replace the brick steps and concrete walkway that lead to our front door * Re-build a 6-foot-high stone retaining wall in the back yard * Re-grade the front and back yards and upgrade our plantings StoneWall Landscapes did it all. They listened carefully to what we wanted and worked with us to design a solution that met our needs and our budget. They were honest, flexible and straightforward, with excellent communication habits. As work progressed, the folks at StoneWall also: * Saved us money by moving our existing "mature" shrubs to the back yard * Installed a full irrigation system in front and back * Replaced the decking and railings on our 25-year-old deck (using their carpentry sub-contractor) * Added drainage pipes to our existing downspouts The StoneWall crew are punctual, hard-working, professional, considerate, and consistently helpful. They work together well, demonstrating a depth of experience in this family-owned business. The crew left the work site clean each night, and even helped clean up after some less-careful work by a different contractor that we'd hired. At the end of the project we were thrilled with the results. We got compliments from all of the neighbors, but the real credit goes to StoneWall Landscapes. We strongly recommend that you consider them for your next landscaping project!