Landscape design & installation
- Full-yard plans and bed layouts
- Plant selection matched to your light and soil
- Deer-resistant and low-maintenance options
Quoted per job · Free estimate
Livingston County · Established 2024
Creating your own outdoor oasis.
Bed design, planting, paver work and placed stone for Howell-area homes — built by the same crew that shows up to quote it.
Island bed, front lawn — Howell
What we do
Everything from the first shovel to the last stone.
One crew handles the design, the material run and the install — so nothing gets lost between contractors.
Planting beds & mulch
- New beds cut, edged and defined
- Shrubs, perennials and ornamental trees
- Hardwood mulch, stone or river rock
By the yard · Ask for spring rate
Sod, seed & grading
- New lawn from bare dirt — sod or seed
- Repair and regrade after construction
- Downspout extensions to move water off the foundation
By the area · Free estimate
Hardscape
- Paver walkways, patios and steps
- Low block walls and raised beds
- Boulders and placed stone
Quoted per job · Material list included
Seasonal maintenance
- Spring and fall cleanups
- Bed refresh, pruning and edging
- Mulch top-off and weed control
Per visit or seasonal · Ask about plans
Material delivery & hauling
- Mulch, topsoil, stone and gravel delivered
- Brush, sod and debris hauled out
- Dump trailer on every job
By the load · Call for rate
Before & after
The same yard, twice.
Three Howell jobs from this season. Nothing staged — the before shots were taken the day we quoted them.
Boulder-edged foundation bed
The lilacs were kept and limbed up rather than torn out. The bed was reshaped around them, edged in placed fieldstone, planted with hosta and finished in dark brown mulch.
Slate scape side bed
Bare construction soil down the side of the garage, turned into a clean run of black stone — the maple kept, low evergreens and grasses set through it, and a placed boulder holding the corner.
Flagpole island bed
The spruce and the boulder were already on site, sitting in rough ground at the road edge. The bed was cut and shaped around them, planted out and dressed, and the boulder was set as the sign stone.
More finished work
Beds built new, and beds brought back.
How a job works
No surprises, start to finish.
Most people have never hired a landscaper before and have no idea what they’re agreeing to. Here’s exactly how it goes.
- 1
Call, text or send the form
Tell us the address and roughly what you are after. We answer quickly. If the yard needs some research first — the soil, the drainage, a plant we have not used in that spot — we would rather take the extra day and quote it right than guess at it.
- 2
A free walk-through
We come out and measure, look at the light, the soil and the way water moves across the yard, and talk through what will actually hold up in that spot.
- 3
A written quote
Plants listed by name, materials by the yard, and a price. Nothing gets added to it later without asking you first.
- 4
Install day
One crew from the first shovel to the last stone. The site is raked out and the debris is hauled away in our own trailer before we leave.
- 5
Care sheet and guarantee
You get written watering instructions in hand, and a 90-day replacement guarantee on every tree and shrub we plant.
Bed designs
Twelve ready-made front beds.
Front foundation beds, worked out in advance so there is nothing to decide on the spot. Find the one that matches the side of your house, then tap it for the full plant list. Every one can be adjusted — and they are a starting point, not the whole menu. Bigger work is below.
Showing all 12
No designs match that combination. Try another filter.
Don’t see the plant you had in mind?
Ask about a plant
These twelve are put together from a much longer list — over 250 trees, shrubs and perennials that do well here. Any of these beds can be built around something else instead. Ask, and we’ll bring the full catalog to the walk-through.
What every bed includes
- Bed prep — existing sod stripped out and the ground worked over
- Weed barrier — fabric laid across the whole bed before anything goes in
- Topsoil — fresh planting soil worked in around every plant
- A live spade edge — cut by hand, holding a clean line against the lawn
- The plants — everything pictured on the style you pick
- Bed dressing — mulch or stone — your color
90-day replacement guarantee on trees and shrubs.
If a tree or shrub fails within 90 days of planting, we replace it once at no charge, provided it has been watered and cared for as directed. Written care instructions come with every bed.
Your bed dressing
Mulch
Refreshed each spring. Keeps moisture in and feeds the soil as it breaks down.
Stone
Stone is a one-time cost and never has to be replaced. Mulch costs less up front and is refreshed each spring — it also feeds the soil as it breaks down.
How every bed is put together
- One anchorA single taller shrub or small tree set at one end, where the bed is at its widest.
- Matched groups, never one of eachPlants go in threes and fives. That repetition is most of the difference between a bed that looks designed and one that looks collected.
- One low edge, all the way acrossThe same plant repeated along the front ties the whole run together and holds a clean line against the lawn.
Every style uses four or five kinds of plant, mostly shrubs, and about a dozen plants in all.
Also ask about
Edging
A cut spade edge is included. Plastic or paver edging holds that line permanently and keeps the grass from creeping back into the bed.
A pair of pots at the door
Planted once or twice a year — annuals for summer, then mums or cut evergreen and birch to carry it through fall and winter. It is the first thing anyone sees walking up to the door.
Landscape lighting
Two or three uplights on the tree and the front of the house. Nothing changes how a home looks at an evening showing more than this.
A placed boulder
A single boulder set at one end anchors the bed and makes it look established from day one. We pick it with you and set it with the machine.
Soaker line and hose timer
A soaker line laid through the bed and run off a timer at the outside spigot. It is what carries new shrubs through their first summer while the owner is still unpacking.
Downspout and drainage
Extensions run under the bed so water leaves the foundation instead of washing the mulch out onto the driveway.
Spring and fall cleanup
Spring is a cutback and fresh mulch. Fall is leaves out and perennials cut down. Either one keeps the bed looking the way it did the day it went in.
Trees, sod and beds elsewhere
Side and back yards, shade trees, privacy screening — ask for a walk-around while we are there.
Bigger than one bed
Most yards need more than a front bed.
The twelve above are front foundation beds because that is what most people start with. It is rarely where a yard actually ends.
Island beds
A bed cut into open lawn instead of against the house, built around a tree, a flagpole or a placed boulder. It gives a flat front yard something to look at.
The whole front of the house
Foundation bed, walkway border and a corner bed done in one go, so the front reads as one planting instead of three that happened at different times.
Side-yard runs
The long narrow strip down the side of the garage. Usually the worst-looking part of a new build and one of the cheaper things to fix.
Privacy screening
A staggered row of evergreens along a property line or facing a road, planted at a size that already screens something instead of in ten years.
Beds that are already there
Overgrown plantings cut back, re-edged and replanted where what is in there is worth keeping. Often costs less than starting over, and it looks established immediately.
A plan from scratch
If none of the twelve fit the house, we design it from the ground up. Send photos and we will come walk it.
About us
Small crew. We do the digging.
Exotics Landscaping is a small, owner-operated crew based in Howell. We started in 2024, and we do the work ourselves — the person who walks your yard and writes the quote is the person who shows up with the shovel.
We do our own homework rather than repeating whatever the last crew did. Which shrubs actually come through a Michigan winter and get left alone by the deer. How the grade moves water once the mulch is down. What the township says about easements and stop-sign sightlines before a bed goes in near a corner.
We’d rather tell you a plant is wrong for a spot than sell it to you twice. That’s also why every bed leaves with written watering instructions and a 90-day replacement guarantee on the trees and shrubs.
HowellBrightonHartland
FowlervillePinckneyHamburg
Genoa Twp.Whitmore Lake
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