“We first hired Tomi to design our back yard and she did such a great job, we hired her again to do our front yard the next year! Tomi has a wonderful eye and is very sensitive to her clients' needs (entertaining, drought tolerance, deer resistance, etc.). Our back yard now integrates a lovely, well-lit deck and stone patio for cooking and eating while enjoying the flora and fauna. Tomi also did a fantastic job coordinating with the landscape contractor who installed her design and made sure we knew how to maintain our new plants. Every day my husband and I enjoy looking at the wildlife attracted by the plantings and fountains and monitoring the never-ending stream of pups from our succulents. I truly did not anticipate how much pleasure we would get out of our landscaping, and highly recommend Tomi and her team for all your landscaping needs.”
- Monica Chew (Oakland)

“I highly recommend Tomi Kobara, landscape architect, for your project. We just finished a large project with her for a backyard and deck redesign. She helped us work through the design issues for new rock walls (which had to match ones already there), a new garden path and new plants. She also helped us redo our deck with tile flooring and an iron railing. Tomi was great to work with. She had good ideas and helped us pick out materials and produce detailed specs that her contractor built. Tomi was calm and understanding when we were overwhelmed with all the choices. We are so pleased with the results.”
- Karin Bliman (Kensington)

“Tomi did a masterful job taking our vision for the backyard and making it a reality. She was very easy to work with and communicated throughout the process on budget, possible plant options and new ideas. Tomi and her team worked with difficult sloping in our San Francisco yard and were able to re- use concrete we were removing to build a retaining wall. The final product has beautiful terracing with lots of functional space, fabulous succulent walls, amazing vegetable garden beds and a great gas fire-pit. We are thrilled with our new back yard and could not more highly recommend her.”
- Aubrey Kendall (San Francisco)

“We have really enjoyed working with Tomi Kobara. We've worked with Tomi over several years and are very happy with the final product. Along the way, we ended up remodeling the back of our house to better connect the indoor with the outdoor space (at her recommendation), built a beautiful deck that she designed, entirely redesigned the hardscape of the front and the back yards, and just this past spring completed the planting. Tomi's work is excellent, she pays a lot of attention to detail and the client's interests. She helped identify appropriate contractors for different phases of work, and was mindful of our budget. We receive a lot of compliments on our yard, and I have referred several people to her.”
- Jody London (Oakland)

“I highly recommend Tomi Kobara as a landscape architect. She is extremely personable and easy to work with. She took thorough notes during our first meeting and explained carefully her process. It was very easy to pick what I wanted from the choices she presented. Her design ideas for my garden were wonderful as she had worked from the careful notes she had taken when I had initially explained what I was looking for. Tomi has extensive knowledge about plants and their needs, hard scape, soil and water which was invaluable to making good design decisions. It was a very enjoyable and collaborative process. For me one of the best aspects of working with Tomi was how she made sure all the work was installed correctly and in a timely manner. Tomi was easy to work with, thoughtful with her suggestions and I got exactly the beautiful garden I wanted. I truly love being in the space she created.”
- Leslie Piels (Oakland)