Born from the efforts of Santa Cruz native Ken Foster nearly 30 years ago, Terra Nova Ecological Landscaping was established with the mission of taking the practices of organic gardening, and the ethics of permaculture, into landscaping. Since then, we have been inspiring and helping the Santa Cruz community to care for its unique and beautiful environment through sustainable landscaping.

We design, install, and maintain ecological landscapes in harmony with nature. We work with the people of Santa Cruz to create beautiful landscapes which don't harm our city with noise, air, soil, or water pollution.

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Compost & Mulch

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Healthy landscapes and gardens have a good and direct relationship with compost. We design and build on site sheet mulching, composting and worm bin systems and always top things off with mulch.

Water Conservation

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At the heart of a good ecological landscape is smart water management. Includes drought tolerant plantings, drip irrigation, graywater and rainwater catchment systems, compost systems, soil care, swales and earth works and last but not least plenty of mulch.

Maintenance

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Everything from our trademark 'Tread Lightly' service and fine gardening to careful landscape maintenance. We use organic fertilizers, non-toxic pest and weed control, hand tools and a low noise approach- because we don't believe you should know that the gardeners have showed up by how much noise they make. Offering weekly, bi-monthly and monthly service.

Design

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From design consultation and rough sketch to full color rendition, we're here to help you design your dream landscape. Starting with protracted and thoughtful observation rather than prolonged and thoughtless action, Terra Nova offers permaculture design, edible landscaping, native and drought tolerant softscapes and watershed friendly hardscapes.

Installation

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Time for us to get our hands dirty! The second stage, this is the implementation of your ideas, as we put together ecological landscapes and gardens from nuts to bolts (hardscape) and roots to shoots (softscape). We have 30 years of experience planting the green side up.

David Foster

Apr 23, 2020

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Terra Nova completely reworked our back yard as part of our home remodel. They installed an urbanite (recycled concrete pavers on gravel) patio, a grey water system for our washing machine and a 500 gallon water recatchment system so that we could reduce our water consumption in the garden. They are flexible, easy to work with and full of cool sustainable ideas.

We now use their tread lightly landscape service to help avoid the noise and pollution of big trucks and blowers. We are happy and great full for Terra Nova Ecological Landscaping.

Jennifer Johnson

Dec 03, 2018

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This wonderful team of professionals sets a high standard for the Santa Cruz and beyond. We appreciate the punctuality and precise knowledge of everything that involves our garden. We have learned new ways to incorporate rain water catchment, food forests and so much more.