Landscape Design Studio
Designs of Eden is a landscape design studio serving Southlake, Colleyville, Westlake and Keller. We design around mature post oaks and cedar elms, model every plan in photoreal 3D, and prepare ARC-ready documents for Timarron, Carillon and Shady Oaks. Southlake lots are designed in 3D — from $2,500 — with a $200 on-site consultation credited in full.
Local expertise
Most Southlake residential zoning starts at 20,000 square feet (SF-20) and runs to one-acre SF-1A lots — larger than Collin County suburbs, and usually with mature post oaks, cedar elms and live oaks already in place. We design around root zones and grade changes rather than over them, and place new plantings where existing shade will let them establish.
Southlake's Tree Preservation Ordinance (Ord. 585-E) protects trees on existing home lots once they reach 10 inches in diameter at breast height; smaller trees on an existing single-family residence are exempt. Every plan we deliver marks protected trees and their critical root zones so nothing stalls at the permit desk.
Southlake sits on the Cross Timbers edge: a mix of clay and sandy loam that drains better than the Blackland clay east of the Tollway. That widens the plant palette (Zone 8a) but also means irrigation has to be zoned by soil, not by convenience — we specify drip for beds and separate zones for turf.
The City of Southlake enforces a year-round twice-per-week schedule (even addresses Wednesday and Saturday, odd addresses Thursday and Sunday; automatic irrigation only between 6 p.m. and 10 a.m.). We design drought-tolerant structure plantings and drip-first irrigation so the landscape looks finished on two waterings, not five.
What You Get
Three deliverables — not one sketch.
Stand in your future landscape on your phone. See exactly how every plant, paver, and stone wall will look — at sunrise, at dusk, in full bloom — before we plant a single thing. Share it with your spouse, your in-laws, your designer friends.
The same modeling tools high-end residential architects use, applied to every inch of your property. Accurate to the foot. Buildable. Yours forever — even if you take the design to another contractor down the road.
Every species, every quantity, every supplier. No guessing what's in the design. No “wait, that's not what I expected” at install.
Most DFW landscape designers hand you a sketch and ask you to imagine it. A flat board with cut-out plants. A Pinterest mood board with vibes. You sign a contract, write a check, and hope.
We hand you a movie. You walk through your finished yard on your phone before we break ground — and approve every plant, every paver, every angle. No “I thought it would look different.” No surprises. No regrets.
What we build here
Full-property photoreal 3D design: layout, planting plan, hardscape, lighting and phasing, delivered as a walkthrough video plus architect-grade plans. Southlake lots are designed in 3D only.
Designer-led installs with vetted, insured crews — one point of contact from groundbreak to walkthrough. Fall (October–November) is the prime planting window on Southlake's larger lots.
Flagstone, pavers and stone edging engineered for freeze–thaw and Cross Timbers drainage; retaining walls where the grade drops toward the creek lots.
Native and drought-tolerant palettes that stay full on the city's two-day watering schedule — decomposed granite, river rock and drip irrigation done to estate standards, not gravel-lot standards.
Pool surrounds, fire features, pergolas and landscape lighting integrated into one plan so the yard reads as a single composition from the house.
Our work
Completed Designs of Eden projects, labeled by the city they were built in.
HOA & ARC
Southlake layers city landscape and tree ordinances on top of HOA rules, and the larger communities run architectural review. We deliver the plan set, plant list and materials sheet in the format your ARC expects, so approval happens on the first submission.
Communities we prepare submissions for include Timarron, Carillon, Shady Oaks, Estes Park, Southlake Woods, Stone Lakes.
Southlake lots are designed in photoreal 3D — 2D plans are reserved for lots under 20,000 sq ft.
$200 on-site consultation, credited in full. Full pricing →
Common questions
Southlake lots are designed in photoreal 3D. Complete Vision starts at $2,500 for a full-property design you can walk through before building; acre-plus estates and phased master plans run $4,500–$7,500+. The $200 on-site consultation is credited in full, and the design fee is credited toward installation ($1,000–$1,500 depending on tier).
Yes — that is most of the job in Southlake. We survey the canopy, mark protected trees (10 inches DBH and larger on existing home lots under Ordinance 585-E) and their root zones, and design grading, hardscape and planting to keep them healthy. Removing a protected tree requires a city permit; we flag that early so it never surprises you.
We prepare the submission package — scaled plan, plant list with sizes, materials and lighting sheets — formatted for your community's architectural review (Timarron, Carillon, Shady Oaks, Estes Park and others). You submit; we answer any questions the committee has.
Southlake allows automatic irrigation twice a week, year-round, between 6 p.m. and 10 a.m. We design for it: drought-tolerant structure plants, drip irrigation in beds, turf limited to where it earns its place, and smart controllers set to your address's days.
Design takes two to four weeks, and October–November is the best planting window in North Texas. Book the consultation by October 1 and the design is ready to install in the prime window.
Colleyville, Westlake, Trophy Club, Keller, Grapevine, Flower Mound and Coppell — all within about fifteen minutes of Southlake — plus the rest of our North Texas service area.
Updated 2026-08-29.
