Testimonials

"The Board of Directors would like  to express their satisfaction with your HOA landscape services over this  past year.  The Board of Directors looks forward to another successful  year in working together to maintain and improve the Association's  greenbelts."
At the Direction of the Board,
Tasha Parmelee,
De Camara Management Inc.

"I wish to highly recommend the services offered by Jeff Powers' Coastal LandscapingInc.   In ten months, our thirteen acres of common areas have noticeably  improved...and never looked better.  He has demonstrated a highly  artistic sense in the selection of plant materials for the re  landscaping we have undertaken.  CLI has  been successful in the detection and repairing irrigation leaks we have  had.  They have also demonstrated a strong commitment to perform tasks  in an environmentally friendly manner." "I strongly recommend their  services."
Al Piazza, 
HOA, President.
Aptos.

​"Roy  and I thank you for taking the time to stop by yesterday to discuss  landscape irrigation...  Your efforts to increase water efficiency and  promote conservation are appreciated."
Ron Duncan,
Soquel Creek Water District.

"Your  services went above and beyond our expectations.  Your knowledge of  plants and sense of design was extremely helpful.  You offer more than  just reading the landscaping plans... and we appreciated your ideas.  I  definitely recommend your company and will surely look to use your  services in future landscaping endeavors."
Zach and Amanda,
Corralitos.

​"Thank  you and your staff who are extremely creative and spectacular in color,  form and texture.  You are also extremely knowledgeable regarding plant  materials, installation and maintenance."  
Robert Gentry,
Mayor, City of Laguna Beach,Ca.

​"Thank  you for your constant oversight, long range planning and staffing  regarding our HOA homeowner complex.  After several months of your  guidance and management skills, my residents have already begun to  notice a difference.  Most importantly my occupancy rate is up!" 
Mark Davies, 
Property Manager.

​The following is an article written by Bruce Curtis that appeared in the June 2006 issueof Landscape Design Magazine.

In this interview, landscape contractor and designer, Jeff Powers A.S.L.A., C.L.C.A., talks about his work, his landscape artistry and his quality of life challenges directing a staff of 140 employees.  Powers sold  his company in 2007, stayed as RMO, but had completely exited by late  2008.  In 2009, Powers founded a new landscape maintenance and  construction company, COASTAL LANDSCAPING INC.

Powers now lives and works with his family, on the beautiful Monterey Bay.

​The following by Bruce Curtis,

Landscape contractor Jeff Powers is California casual when he talks about his work, but the layer of  cool professional competence is never far from view.  Like  a Hitchcock cameo, little touches of 'aw-shucks' whimsy show up even in  his most upscale landscape projects. Given a choice, he'd probablybe out there digging and planting somethingin the dirt outside his office.

"My  folks tell a story about when I was five years old.  They bought a  house in Newport Beach, I took them to a nursery and bought plants and  told them where they ought to go."  Eventually fed up with  young Jeff tearing up their landscaping and putting in his own, he was  given a plot of ground behind the garage so he could dig up and replant  undisturbed.

​" My  Dad wanted me to be an attorney, so I signed up for pre-law, but then,   I moved to Aspen for a couple of years."  His Dad cut him off.  Later,  Jeff returned to Laguna Beach, just  embarking on an upscale boom.  He began designing landscapes for  customers who came to him on the strength of positive referrals."I was  doing pretty good stuff, and it sort of occurred to me that I would  rather be doing this than dealing with a lot of problems in the legal  system, so I decided to study Landscape Architecture under Fred Lang,  ASLA at UCI." 

Powers' decision turned out to be the right one, and a decade later he'd turned his passionate hobby into a business that grew into a multi million dollar, 140 employee landscape design and construction company with clients like the California Speedway and the Los Angeles' Staples Center sports arena. After  35 years, however, Powers was looking to make some quality- of- life  changes and the first step was to right-size his firm. ​

Today he builds and maintains turnkey landscape projects for large HOA's, upscale residences, corporate headquarters, an apartment complex, but doing things the way Jeff Powers has always done it; word of mouth.

​"We  don't take on probably two thirds of the requests we receive, we don't  advertise, except to the professional community, and that makes a  difference," says Jeff. The best advertising though has to be all the  awards, dozens of them. 

A  homeowner commissioned Powers, whose final creation, a mysterious and  private hedge cove paved and curbed in blue slate, received an industry  association award.  Other awards include a Lesco-sponsored hillside  stabilization and landscape project, a regal gated  residential drive and entryway, and a restaurant that overflows outside  in a riot of colorful hedges and Asian canopy themed dining tables.   All seem to say the same thing: we can be serious but still have fun.   His peers often recognize that fact, and the award plaques stack up  inside his south coast office.

​"I  am always delighted, I love to share my work," says Powers'.  "Our  carpenters, our masons, our plantsmen, it's a huge effort and to pull it  off is gratifying, and it's a release."  Even after 35 years, Powers finds great satisfaction in the logistical dance of a myriad of details and the coordination of various crews.  But when a project is done, and itlooks so simple... "It looks like, 'wow, how could that have been such an arduous process, it's so naturally beautiful'."

​Powers is pleased that his work, which has already drawn the attention of the Los Angeles Times and their architectural writers, and is soon to be featured inseveral Luxury Living and lifestyle books.  His work has been the subject of the cover of several hard cover books highlighting house building, architects, interior design and furniture.  Eventhe Wall Street Journal hasn't overlooked Jeff's work, and he's gained attentionfor upscale coastal residences he's helped transform, in a book entitled, Secret Gardens of Laguna Beach.

Travel south of the Los Angeles area's coastal plain, past surfer-chic Newportand  you enter the hillsides of Laguna Beach, a former bohemian  counter-culture mecca that has since moved upscale. At it's southern  edge of town, and site of a former artist colony, sits Laguna's exclusive and top rated Montage Resort & Spa.  Here Powers'  team found a way to visually funnel the panorama of a jade-colored  Pacific coast cove into the five-star resort's grounds.  Horseshoe  shaped formal gardens frame a classic rectangular swimming pool, while  wall of stacked stone hide spa fountains designed to help guests escape  as they unwind.  Imagine luxuriating at deserted Baja beach front hot  springs where cell call and cares fade.

​Never  far from it's roots, the resort features colorful ceramic wall dioramas  and other touches of art that reveal themselves unexpectedly as guests  stroll the extensive pathways.  An easy traverse descends to a  surreal-sculpted art deco balcony overlooking the cove's iridescent  waters.  In 35 years, Powers hasn't tired of creating such spaces.  He won't let himself be confined to any single style signature either.

​"The strength of our company is that we don't have just one style," says Jeff, "lots of architectural companies  have an identity that when you drive by you say,'oh, that's so-and-so',  but the thing about us is that we really listen to the client and are  sensitive to the site. Powers says the end result of that sort of  collaboration is always a unique experience.  "Whether they're  California Natives, tropicals, ornamental gardens, or we mix a  combination, the patterns, textures and colors reflect the client and  architect's respond to the site.

​The design process for Jeff takes in both the client and the project architect.  The earlier the contractor is on board and develops a close working relationship with the architect, site and client the more successful the project will be.

​"We're  very sensitive to the architect and their plans and strive to draw out  and develop in a way what can't be worked out on paper", says Powers,  noting that ultimately the intangible quality of artistry shapes and  defines the project.

Things  are changing along the California's Coast; population growth and  prosperity have caused coastal home prices to soar and that means a lot  of remodeling.  Jeff says about half his work now consists of remodels,  some are nearly clean sites, where older homes have given way to waves  of wealth and gentrification.  Powers is enjoying working on a huge  makeover of actor John Wayne's  former Newport Beach digs, and he's giving a lot of thought to how  outdoor living is changing the way we use the garden space.

"Clients are asking me to create these outdoor rooms, pizza kitchen," he explains.  "People are moving outside more  than I saw in previous decades".  At the same time, landscape customers  are becoming more discriminating.  "Clients expect even a higher degree  of quality, not only in construction but in materials.  Before, a  client might ask for a simple retaining wall, but today it's going to be  faced with stone; themes are much more enhanced and developed".

​Which  leads Powers to the subject of high tech environments; how electronic  features and computers are finding their way into landscape  design."Powers' best  example is a project he installed that involves an irrigation  controller which takes no human interaction, and was installed for the County of Orange Parks Dept. at their Yorba Linda Regional Park.   The system works like a computer.  Program in the type of landscape,  lawn or shrub, site conditions, slope or flat, clay or sandy soils,  shade or sun exposures. Program in the address and the system daily  updates, adjusts and measures the controller by tracking weather data  from a NationalOceanic and Atmospheric satellite.  Downloading it to the site controller, the weather data changes the watering schedules daily.  Powers is excitedbysuch technology because it virtually eliminates runoff, saving precious resources in the arid west.

And, though landscape creatorJeff Powers has  downsized his business, the boy who was always planting and digging at  home is still inside and he isn't even close to retiring, at least not  as long as clients come forward with requests for innovative landscape  projects.
"The thing about me is that I love the garden," and that, says Powers,  "sums it up perfectly."
by Bruce Curtis, Landscape Design Magazine.