We stay for ten years.
Ines Calloway draws the plan. Wade Kessler writes the plant list the deer will actually leave alone. The studio has been at it since 2014.
Landscape architect
Ines Calloway
Licensed in Texas. She has drawn Edwards Plateau plans since 2009, and this studio since 2014. She phases the work so the expensive stone happens when the plants can follow in the fall, not the other way around.
She is also the one who says a lawn does not belong on caliche, and then draws what goes there instead.
Ecologist
Wade Kessler
Soil tests, deer pressure, and the watering calendar the warranty is judged against. He will not specify a plant that needs a weekly drink after year two.
He walks the property before the plan is drawn, including the ugly parts: the caliche cut, the cedar thicket, the place the water already wants to go.
The crew
Three leads, and four planters in the fall.
- Lena OrtizProject leadStakes the plan and stays through the fall install. The person on the phone when a cistern lid does not sit flat.
- Cal BrennanStoneWalls, steps, and tank edges. Limestone from the Hill Country, set without a mortar line pretending to be old.
- Ruthie HalePlantingRuns a crew of four in October and November. If it is July, she will tell you to wait.
Standards
No invasives. Lists a deer can read.
Nandina, privet, Chinese tallow, and vitex stay off the plans. If a species is on the state invasive list, it is not a Harrow & Hill plant, even when a nursery still sells it in a pretty pot.
Eighty percent of every planting list, by count, is native to the Edwards Plateau. The rest are drought-adapted and non-invasive, and they are named as the exception. A rosemary by the kitchen door is allowed. A lawn is not.
Deer-honest means the list says what happens when the fence comes down. If a plant only survives inside the wire, the drawing shows the wire, and it shows the year the wire leaves.
Warranty
Replaced through year two.
Plants we install are replaced through the end of the second growing season if they die while you follow the watering schedule we write. Not covered: deer browse after the fence is down, a freeze outside the species’ known range, or anything you added yourself. Irrigation we designed is warranted one year, parts and workmanship.
Nursery partners
Contract growers, not a showroom.
| Switchgrass Wholesale | Johnson City. Grasses and sedge, grown to order for fall. |
|---|---|
| Blanco Creek Natives | Blanco County. Plugs and one-gallon stock. No big-box trees. |
Service area
West of Austin, two to twenty acres.
- Dripping Springs
- Wimberley
- Spicewood
- Driftwood
- Johnson City
- Fredericksburg
The studio meets by appointment in Dripping Springs. Site walks run on weekdays. Call (512) 555-0127 or write studio@harrowhill.example. Monday to Friday, 8am to 5pm CT.