Harrow & Hill
Plan your property

We design for year ten.

Landscape architecture for Hill Country acreage: native, drought-proof, and planned for the garden it becomes.

Plan your propertySee gardens at year ten

Licensed landscape architects · 10-year stewardship plans · 140 properties since 2014

Most landscapes look best on install day.

Then August comes.

Caliche, deer, and a burn ban will edit the plan for you. We write that edit in before the first plant goes in the ground.

Year0
  1. Install day. It looks thin. It's supposed to.
  2. Establishment watering twice a week. Deer fencing comes down in spring.
  3. The meadow closes. Watering drops to monthly.
  4. Live oaks shade the west wall.
  5. Summer cooling bills down a third. No lawn to mow.
Dry grass and a stone court in front of a timber ranch house at dusk.
10

Driftwood11 acres

The cedar cut

Ashe juniper came off the west slope. Little bluestem and sideoats went back on the caliche, and the live oaks stayed where they already held the hill.

Year 0 was a thin seed. By year ten the draw stays covered through August, and there is no lawn to water.

Oak canopy over a gravel path, limestone flags, and grasses at golden hour.
5

Wimberley6 acres

Tank house

A dry creek and a stock tank that had silted in. We rebuilt the tank as the water, kept the cedar elms, and stopped the grade before it reached the porch.

At year five the elms shade the west wall. The tank holds, and the drip is only on the new trees.

Gravel court edged with native grasses and a low stone seat.
3

Spicewood14 acres

Ridge court

Deer pressure on a ridge above a caliche road. Limestone terraces take the slope, the court is gravel, and the plant list is what the deer already refuse.

Year three is when the meadow closes between the walls. Watering has dropped to once a month.

Twelve plants that get through August.

Plant index

A short list we actually specify on caliche. Common name, Latin name, and what it drinks after the fence comes down.

What we draw, and what we build.

The work

  1. Master plansThe drawing the next ten years are built from.$14k–$40k
  2. Native meadows & prairieGrasses that hold caliche after the fence comes down.Plant in fall
  3. Limestone terraces & pool surroundsLocal stone, gravel courts, tanks that read as water.Built in the dry months
  4. Water: rain capture & dripCisterns sized to the roof. Drip only while roots establish.Before the first planting
  5. Stewardship plansWatering, fencing, and what comes out, written through year ten.Years 1–10

Year two was the test. August hit 104 and the meadow stayed put where the old lawn had fried. We water once a month now.

MaraDripping Springs

They said the tank would look empty the first fall. It did. By year three the cedar elm had closed over it.

ColeWimberley

Nobody pushed a lawn. The drawing showed the ridge at year ten, and the terraces are actually getting there.

HelenSpicewood

West of Austin, two to twenty acres.

Dripping Springs, Wimberley, Spicewood, Driftwood, Johnson City, Fredericksburg.

Built work usually lands between $90,000 and $650,000, phased over one to three seasons. We plant in fall, when the heat has broken and the roots have a chance before August.

Phased budgets, and partner lenders for larger builds. A master plan is the first piece, from $14,000 to $40,000, and it is what the phasing is drawn against.