Tilden Landscaping

Dave is the best! Seriously, lots of big adjectives and exclamation points in other reviews and I can say they are well deserved. Dave and crew did our SF back garden a little over a year ago, and it went from a sad, sorry little spot to a wonderful, welcoming space. I had some basic ideas of what I wanted, and Dave took those, fleshed them out, built upon them, and came up with something terrific. His guys worked like heck and got it done in a little less than 4 days. I was skeptical when he told me they could do that, but do it they did! He was able to work with our budget, and carefully talked through trade-​offs with me to stay within budget. (That is in stark contrast to another landscaper who had no interest in hearing our ideas or how we wanted to use the space, and then presented a bid 2 ½ times higher than the budget.) Dave also listened to my ideas regarding some of the plants I wanted, gave me what he though pros and cons were, and introduced me to some new plants (and the least expensive places to buy them!). We came up with the planting list together. I’m happy to say that all the plants are alive and well a year later. My fellow residents in the HOA were amazed with the transformation. When one of the owners who rents out her place saw it, she said it made her want to move back in! Thanks Tilden and thanks Dave Cummings.

Transformation!
Just had the best experience working with Dave & Tilden Landscaping. I have a typical SF backyard — lots of cement and overgrown grass/​weeds. I was looking for someone to help me maintain the jungle, as my previous gardener went MIA. Boy was I lucky to find Dave.
He came and we did a walkthrough of the space. We talked through some options and budget — he then delivered a hand-​drawn design of a gorgeous sanctuary. After only 4 days last week — the sanctuary is a REALITY! I have a huge new redwood deck, with a custom made wooden bench (love it!), and a perfect designed river bed with new plants and redwood chips. Everytime I look out the window, it’s just like a picture postcard. So happy. Already received positive feedback from the neighbors — maybe they’ll spruce up their spaces next! ;-)
Dave is a great communicator, and obviously loves what he does. He has great vision. His work crew is organized, hard-​working and professional. They all work well as a team. Always came to work on-​time. Also enjoyed working with Maggie, Dave’s daughter on scheduling.
Contact them now — they always have a bunch of jobs going, so it can take a few weeks to get scheduled. Worth the wait. I’m asking him to come up with ideas now for my front yard.

Was referred to Dave by a friend with an amazing yard — he beautifully terraced her yard and put in the most amazing custom swing set for the kids (in a small city space)! He redesigned my yard (was a very reasonable bid, yet I felt like I was in the designer showcase challenge on HGTV — because he thoughtfully re-​architected the yard, giving me a colored pencil rendering of my future dream yard!). I already knew he could deliver because of my friend, plus, I saw a second property he did — one of my neighbors — which he was redesigning before I hired him — and it was also spectacular!). I couldn’t be happier with the result for my property. Dave does landscaping, irrigation, dyed cement, and amazing carpentry (he’ll build you a cute little permanent wood bench, or swing set, or whatever you want! I have both by the way — and 4 years later I love them!).

We had our front yard landscaped by Dave and are extremely pleased with his design, crew and final result. We have had numerous compliments on our front yard and have just as many inquires as to whom performed the work. Dave is great to work with, was on time everyday and kept us informed of the progress until completion. I would highly recommend Tilden Landscaping to anyone needing landscaping.

Dave left voice message trying to schedule an estimate for a retaining wall. I called back with my info, apparently does not like to work in Pacifica or non SF city for small jobs, please say so, ignoring potential customers is just plain rude and unprofessional.
Unfortunately he and other landscapers this is a common theme since they are booked up until the Fall/​Winter they won’t care about you or even schedule an estimate until they need jobs on their slow seasons is totally F’ed up.

WOW!
Dave is AMAZING!
After waiting over a year to have our deck redone and fix some other stuff, as well as clean up our intensely overgrown backyard, Dave brought his crew out and in 2.5 days, CHANGED OUR WORLD!
Not only did they do a fantastic job with everything, they cleaned up after themselves, very well too.
Dave also found dry rot on the side of my house when they tore the deck out and he fixed it at NO ADDED COST. You simply don’t get that kind of service from just anyone.
We have more plans for our yard and plan to have him out as often as we can afford it!

It’s been a year since Dave and his crew got our back yard done and I forgot to do a Unilocal review so here it is. I pretty much share the same exact experience everyone else has had working with Dave. He was very kind, professional, and just a great pleasure to work with. He was going through some tough family problems — but was still so committed to his business. He delivered on time and under budget — but I gave him a good tip anyways just for being such a great guy. One of the few honest, family-​owned businesses. Highly recommended!

Dave was GREAT! I had him come over and give me a price for redone the backyard and he told me the price and we agree and he said he will get it done in a day and guess what? He and his crew get it done in half of day and price came out to be less then what he quoted me. He gave me all the invoice for the materials he bought plus labor! He is the best that I ever work with, highly recommended! Thanks Dave~

No complaints here — Dave and his crew were great to work with. I wanted a small deck built that would take less than two days (part of a much larger project). Dave was very upfront about his daily labor charges and was happy to suggest other ways he and his crew could help with the project to fill out the two days — not the least of which was moving 3 ½ tons of rock to my backyard. I just wish I’d have worked with Dave earlier in my project … I would not hesitate to recommend or hire this crew again.

Great guys! We had a great experience redoing our front and back yards. Their stone work is awesome. All our neighbors are jealous. We got a few bids and Dave’s was the middle price but we like his stone work better than the others. We made the right choice.

We hired Dave and his crew to take out all the concrete in our front yard. It is a typical small San Francisco front yard that was covered with a hideous painted green concrete driveway, sidewalk, and unpainted concrete areas between. They came in about four days after we agreed to the terms and removed all the concrete and did a new drive and walk using Calstone pavers. Dave kept me informed on all aspects of the removal and installation in his own inimitable way and he was a delight to work with. Dave was full of excellent advice and I appreciated hearing about his landscaping ideas. He knew where the water and gas lines came across the yard and they were extra careful when working around them. It was obvious he treats his crew with affection and respect and they have developed into an efficient and hard-​working team. I am very pleased with the results and would not hesitate to use their services again.

We just had Dave completely revamp our tiny backyard and he was amazing. He did the entire job on time, within a week, and under budget. He was referred to us by as someone who could replace our back fence which was in disrepair. In fact our entire yard was in a sad state of disrepair and completely unusable, overgrown with 5-​foot tall weeds and huge bald patches of dirt in the grass. But we didn’t think we could afford to redo it. Dave was so great, he had some ideas, then really listened as we talked out our own ideas. The best part, the yard looks exactly like the drawing we came up – just beautiful. He replaced our grass with beautiful paving stones, placed lava rocks around the flower beds, new plants and trees, irrigation system, and cleaned up our existing motley plantings of trees and shrubbery. He wasn’t about stripping everything out either — he really worked with the existing trees and reshaped and pruned to bring them back to health. He even built a bench so we can sit outside and enjoy our yard. The quality of the work was terrific and the price was so reasonable. Plus, he was able to fix it so quickly. He started on a Monday and by the weekend we could host a garden party. He and his crew were great too, So nice to work with. I can’t believe I have a yard I can use again. I am so thrilled.

My husband and I hired Dave to finish a landscaping project gone very very bad. The first landscaper we hired did not seem to know what they were doing (even though they said they had experience with our kind of project) and what started as a seemingly simple job of replacing a concrete patio with stone/​pavers turned out to be a tragic comedy of errors leading to total disaster.
After we terminated the job with the 1^st landscaper, Dave and his crew came in and had the entire back patio laid out nicely within less than a day and were very nice to work with. It was obvious that they were much more skilled and knowledgeable than other landscapers we had talked to. Our patio came out looking great and Dave even helped us pot our trees and set up our fountain at the end for no extra cost. I am sorry I didn’t call Dave to begin with because it would have saved us an enormous amount of time and stress that the first landscaper caused us.