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Folsom · El Dorado Hills · Orangevale · Granite-country foothills

Landscaping in Folsom

Tell us what you want the yard to do. One vetted local landscaping company will get in touch and price it for free, with nothing owed either way.

What to expect

One Local Landscaper

Your project goes to a single Folsom-area landscaping company, not to a queue of them.

Free Quotes, in Writing

A priced scope on paper before anything starts, and the figure on it is the figure the job costs.

Folsom Numbers

Costs, plant lists, and timelines published for this climate and this ground, not a national average.

Take Your Time

The quote is free and there is no obligation. Sit with it, compare it, say no if it is not right.

How It Works

From first call to finished yard

Four steps, each one with a clear end point, so you always know what happens next.

  1. 01

    Describe the yard

    Call or fill in the quote form with the part of the property you want changed, a rough budget if you have one, and your neighborhood. Five minutes, no charge.

  2. 02

    One landscaper gets in touch

    The project goes to a vetted Folsom-area landscaping company, who calls to talk through the scope and arrange a walk of the site.

  3. 03

    Site walk and free quote

    They walk the yard with you, take measurements, look at the grade and the existing irrigation, and follow up with a written price broken out by hardscape, planting, and system work.

  4. 04

    Compare it against real numbers

    Our guides publish what each scope costs in Folsom and how long it takes, so you can read the quote against something other than a hunch.

Why Folsom Is Its Own Problem

Two numbers decide most of what works in a Folsom yard

About 26 inches of rain fall here in a normal year, and almost all of it lands between October and April. Then July and August arrive with daily highs averaging 94 degrees and effectively nothing from the sky for four months. A planting plan copied from a national catalogue meets that summer once and does not come back.

Every page on this site is written against those conditions: what survives a rainless September, how to program a controller under a two-day watering schedule, why the ground drains fast in one part of town and not at all in another, and what each of it costs to build here rather than somewhere flat and rainy.

Garden corner with a herringbone brick paver terrace, stepping stones set into a gravel bed, boulder edging and a clipped screening hedge along the fence
Three moves that carry a low-water yard: a hard surface on the line feet already take, gravel with stepping stones instead of lawn in the gaps, and a screening hedge doing the work a fence panel cannot.

Around the City

The right plan changes neighborhood by neighborhood

Folsom was not built all at once, and the ground under it is not uniform. A yard in Old Town sits on different material, at a different age, under different trees, from a lot in Folsom Ranch. Here is the short version, block by block.

Old Town Folsom

The oldest yards in the city, on irregular lots around Sutter Street. Established trees, cobble in the ground from the dredging era, and planting plans that work around what is already there.

Natoma Station

Built out through the late 1980s and 1990s. Original irrigation is now at the end of its life and the shrub layer has outgrown its beds, which makes a combined planting and system renovation the efficient move.

Prairie Oaks

Mid-size lots with mature street canopy. Shade changes the plant list here: the sun-loving palette used two streets over will stretch and thin under an established tree line.

Willow Springs

Suburban lots where the front lawn is the single largest line on the summer water bill. Conversion to low-water planting with a drip retrofit is the most common project in this part of town.

Briggs Ranch

Larger lots with more grade change. Where a yard steps down more than a couple of feet, a retaining wall usually has to be resolved before any of the fun parts of the plan can be drawn.

Empire Ranch

Newer construction on generous lots, often with long sightlines out the back. Screening planting and shade structures do more here for how the yard feels than any amount of finish detail.

Lexington Hills

Slope is the defining feature. Irrigation has to be pressure-compensating so the top of a run gets the same volume as the bottom, and drainage has to be designed rather than assumed.

The Parkway

Established neighborhood with mature planting and yards now due their second landscape. Deciding what to keep is a real part of the design, and it is worth doing with a tape measure rather than from memory.

Folsom Ranch

New lots south of Highway 50, handed over as compacted pads with no topsoil. Decompaction and amendment come before anything visible, plus HOA review and, past 500 square feet with a permit trigger, the state water ordinance.

Outside the city, coverage runs east to El Dorado Hills and Cameron Park, west through Orangevale and Fair Oaks, and north into Roseville, Rocklin, and Loomis. See every area covered.

Reading a Landscape Quote

The line items that decide whether a yard lasts

Landscape quotes vary enormously in how much they say. Two prices for the same yard can differ by twenty thousand dollars and both be honest, because one includes base preparation, drainage, and soil work and the other assumes you will not ask.

The buried parts are the ones that determine whether the yard still works in ten years, and they are the parts a finished-project photograph can never show. A quote that names them is a quote you can compare against another one.

What a full quote names

  • Base rock depth under every paved surface, and whether it is compacted in lifts
  • Soil preparation: decompaction depth, amendment type, and quantity per area
  • Drainage: where surface water is being sent and what pipe carries it there
  • Retaining wall height, block system, and the drain rock assembly behind it
  • Irrigation zone count, emitter type, and who programs the controller at handover
  • Plant sizes in container terms, not just names, since a 5 gallon and a 15 gallon differ in price several times over
  • Who pulls any permit the design needs, and which inspections are in the schedule

Questions we get asked most

What does landscaping cost in Folsom?

Most Folsom projects fall between $10,000 and $80,000 depending on how much of the yard changes and how much of it is concrete. Replacing a front lawn with low-water planting and drip runs $8 to $18 per square foot, so a typical 1,000 square foot front lawn lands around $8,000 to $18,000. A back yard with a patio, planting, and lighting runs $20,000 to $40,000. Whole-lot design and build with walls and a shade structure runs $50,000 and up. Hardscape drives the number; plants rarely do.

How long does a landscape project take?

Eight to sixteen weeks from first call to finished yard is a realistic plan. Design and revisions take two to four weeks, material selection and scheduling another one to three, and installation itself three to eight. Work that needs a building permit, which usually means a retaining wall over four feet or an attached patio cover, adds whatever the plan check queue is running.

What days can I water in Folsom?

Folsom assigns irrigation days by street address, and the assignment depends on which water conservation stage the city is in. Under the Stage 2 rules the city has published, odd-numbered addresses irrigate Tuesday and Saturday and even-numbered addresses irrigate Wednesday and Sunday, with no landscape irrigation Monday, Thursday, or Friday. Drip irrigation is treated separately from sprinklers. Since the stage moves with conditions, the city water conservation page is where to confirm what applies now.

When is the best time of year to plant here?

Fall, by a wide margin. Planting in October or November puts roots into ground that is about to get several months of rain, which means the plant establishes before it ever meets a Folsom July. Spring planting works but costs more in establishment water and more attention. Hardscape is season-independent, and midsummer is often when concrete crews have the most availability.

Do landscapers in California need a licence?

The Contractors State License Board issues the C-27 Landscaping Contractor licence, and it covers landscape work above the minor-work threshold. That threshold rose from $500 to $1,000 on January 1, 2025 under AB 2622, and it does not apply at all if the job needs a permit or if the person doing it hires anyone to help. Any California licence can be looked up by name or number on the CSLB website.

How do I get a quote?

Ring (916) 282-5150, or send the quote form with a few notes on the property. A local landscaping company walks the yard with you and follows up with a free written price.

Thinking about the yard this year?

Ring (916) 282-5150, or send the form, and a local landscaping company prices the work for nothing anywhere around Folsom.