Artscapes-Landscape Design

Julie Kim

6 years ago

We initially hired Scott for landscape design then we hired him and his crew for the install. We redid both our front and both – decent size yards. We love how our yard turned out! We installed an outdoor kitchen (love!), jacuzzi with stone bench surround, turf, huge fire pit and horseshoe pit. His crew made our vision a reality. Scott has a great gift with plants and chose some very cool unique plants for our yard. We worked closely with him to ensure the features were what we wanted. It came out fantastic! Every time we entertain, we are complimented on how beautiful our yard looks and that it feels like a resort. For years we avoided our backyard and now we spent tons of time there as a family. We love it!

David Scott

6 years ago

Scott and the Artscapes team did a great job for us with a fairly substantial backyard remodel. We had been stuck at the concept stage with other contractors/landscapers for years trying to figure out how to the get the most from our hillside lot. When we got introduced to Artscapes, Scott challenged some of our pre-existing thinking and led us to an design that made much more sense. His team then did a great job executing against that design (kitchen, decking, fire pit, multi-level seating, planting & irrigation) and hit our timing and cost objectives. We love the space that they built and would highly recommend the team.

CALI COUG

10 years ago

We initially hired Scott because we were impressed with the work he had done on two of our neighbor’s yards, but we became even more impressed with his willingness to listen to our wishes and incorporate them into his overall design. I don’t know what I’m more pleased with — the beautiful hardscape or the lush, colorful sofstcape that keeps our yard bathed in color year-round. Scott truly is an artist with an incredible vision, and his team was both hard-working and very courteous. I couldn’t recommend anyone more highly.

Barbara Adachi

10 years ago

Scott Soden and his Artscapes team designed and installed our new dream patio! We wanted a “zen garden” and interviewed a number of landscape contractors. From day one, Scott had a vision and it was fantastic to see it become reality…our patio has been totally transformed. Scott is one of the most creative and enthusiastic professional contractors we have ever worked with and was very responsive and proactive. He is extremely knowledgable about plants and what will work or not work. We love our new patio and would strongly recommend Scott and the Artscapes team!

cheryl scharf

10 years ago

After interviewing several landscapers my husband and I decided to go with Scott at Artscape-Landscape Design. He created several designs for us and was able to work within our budget. Scott was knowledgeable about all of the plants. He was available when he said he would be, and his workers were on time too. The project was completed on schedule to our satisfaction. Our yard looks better today than it ever has and we’ve lived here 25 years. Many neighbors have stopped by to compliment it. We are so pleased with the job that we plan to call him back shortly to design the hardscape for our front yard.

Wayne Jones

10 years ago

We contracted ArtScapes to remodel and re-landscape our back yard two years ago. We had talked to other contractors; but after speaking with Scott we were sold. He had design ideas that hadn’t even occurred to us. Scott and his crew did an amazing job transforming our backyard, including significant hardscaping: two new patios – one elevated – and a gas fire pit. Two years later and we have not had any problems at all except that some of our plants are so attractive that the squirrels decided to eat them. We love our yard. It has become like an outdoor room of our house and we spend significantly more time outside at all times of year. We were so happy with the back yard that we hired ArtScapes to do our front yard as well. We had the driveway redone, a new walkway, and the front yard totally re-landscaped. The project just finished and again we have been extremely happy with the results. We think we have the best house in the neighborhood.

Heather Seibert

10 years ago

I had a particularly bad experience working with Artscapes with my husband this past spring (see his point of view under Owen O.). After spending 6 months, 6 figures and countless hours of arguing and the disappointment which followed I feel compelled to warn others about Scott Soden and his deceptive business practices and sub par construction services. Scott built little of our job to code resulting in a loss of most of our extremely costly and labor intensive hardscape and his irrigation system as well as many of his plants are beginning to fail after a mere two months of installation. After spending many hours pointing out problems during the constuction which he missed we are now back to square one having to replace most of his work. If I could go back I would have dug a little deeper, had someone supervise his work, and really questioned him when my husband and I got the bad feeling that everything was starting to go horribly wrong. I’ve contacted many people on his own reference list on his business website who were surprised to be on it and told similar tales of disappointment after hiring artscapes. My advice to homeowners who may be thinking of hiring Scott is first and foremost to get permits for EVERYTHING as well as hire independent inspectors as well as get the town to inspect along the way. Despite getting permits for the project costing many thousands of dollars (which he REALLY didn’t want us to get), he didn’t even end up following the plans which he received permits for and doing significant portions of the project without permits and lying to us and the city. Dealing with the aftermath of working with artscapes and correcting the problems Scott caused to our home (some of which are extremely serious and compromise the structure of our house) has become a nightmare full time job. I have photos, evidence in writing from town building inspectors as well as civil engineers and contractors which state the scope and costly size of the disaster which our project is. I only wish someone had warned us and saved us the thousands of dollars, time, and misery which was our experience with Scott Soden and his company.

Owen O'Keeffe

10 years ago

We had a very bad experience working with Artscapes. Experience very consistent with the two bad reviews below. Much of the hardscaping had major problems with the building requiring a lot of re-work. Additionally, Scott would not provide support for pricing when we knew we were getting over charged on plants (and caught him buying plants at Home Depot and charging a crazy markup despite representing plants only coming from nice nurseries). Multiple landscapers have since said it was the worst job they had ever seen…Crew was not as skilled as represented. Scott was very difficult to work with in our experience. Had an indoor remodel done, and a pool remodel and we had no major issues w/them…We have spoken to a number of happy and unhappy clients as we prepared our complaint for the state contractor’s board, appears he does some work that people are happy with, though also has a bunch of very unhappy clients. Note that 8 of his 12 reviews on Google all came within a 1 month period earlier this year prior to that 2 of 4 reviews were bad (odd for a business around for 15 years to have 75% of reviews in a 1 month period, no?). One of those reviewers upon contact said they asked for the review by Artscapes who provided suggested text for the review, so take them with a grain of salt, while they may be happy clients they aren’t spontaneous reviews (you’ll see none of them have ever reviewed another business using Google+ accounts). He also has a number of lies in different reviews and his portfolio to improve his online presence for example the “Palo Alto Swimming Pond” on his website is really in his backyard, look at the zillow pictures for 340 Arlington Redwood City you’ll see the same pond. He does things like that to get more google hits…Though the lack of honesty extends well beyond that in our experience and it actually matters where work has been done in this business as it shows experience w/local ordinances, etc. The building problems on our project were bad, as was complete lack of focus on drainage. Feel free to message me if you have any questions.

Roxann Loose

11 years ago

I hired Artscapes to design and install a complete redesign our landscaping both front and back yards . We were doing a complete remodel of our home at the time as well as having the pool updated so there were a lot of contractors involved in the process. Artscapes was the one company that I did not have to worry about. They did what they said they would do and were very responsive to our needs. Scott worked well with my general contractor and pool contractor and was on time and on budget. We were very pleased with Scotts design and Gabe and the crew were wonderful to work with. We were very pleased with the workmanship as well as the final product. Roxann, Burlingame

Eric Morgenthaler

11 years ago

We hired Scott with Artscapes to redesign our back yard several years ago and were very pleased with both the design and implementation. Scott’s design skills are extraordinary and his vision for our backyard helped us think “beyond the box” of our yard. He made our small backyard look visually spacious by the use of an open fence to visually incorporate the neighboring trees and open space. The use of natural stone, a water feature and plants gave us a backyard that we would never have imagined on our own. Scott’s implementation of the design was very professional and the crew was always reliable, on time and very professional. We were so pleased that we hired Artscapes again to do our front yard as well. Our front yard now stops traffic! The driveway, bordered in brick with tumbled pavers in the middle is beautiful and compliments the style of the house perfectly. The plants are varied and colorful and the dry creek bed looks completely natural. Luis and the guys were wonderful to work with and took the small changes we made with good nature and excellent workmanship. We believe that Scott and Artscapes increased the value of our home, literally and figuratively. We are happy to recommend Artscapes to anyone! Lorita and Eric, San Mateo