I’m thrilled to show you the renderings for my parents’ backyard and share our Yardzen review!! My Mom and Dad love to be outdoors and my Mom loves to garden. Planting is her love language and I’m pretty sure she loves her plants more than me lol! I wanted to transform her blank slate of a backyard into a place where our family could get together and create some great memories. I wanted a seating area, dining area and my Mom wanted a greenhouse or sunroom of sorts. While I have learned so much about home interiors, exterior design is really not my forte. I don’t know enough about materials, sizing and where to source things (other than furniture and pretty planters). That’s why we hired an online exterior design service to transform my parents’ backyard!

The company we went with is Yardzen and you may have seen their ads all over Instagram and the internet! They are an online exterior design service offering different packages to help you transform your yard! Their renderings are gorgeous and I can see why they are so popular. We opted for the full yard (front and back) packages for both my parents’ house and mine. Let’s dive into the process and our official Yardzen review.

How It Works

It all starts with videos and pictures of your yard in your current state. Don’t be embarrassed, they have seen it all. They ask for a video where they can see your yard, its size and what’s currently there. They’ll also ask for a “chatty video” where you can talk them through what you like, don’t like and what you ultimately want.

Be honest about your budget. If you can only afford a certain amount, put that in. They will try to tailor to your needs as best as possible. You also have to take into consideration the cost of materials and labors depends on where you live and Yardzen can only estimate so much. We budgeted an extra 10 percent buffer.

Review Process

After sending in images of your yard, you send in inspiration images. You can easily click and comment on exactly what you like and don’t like when it comes to those inspo photos. Yardzen will take a couple of weeks to do your design and you’ll be presented with renderings. One thing I do appreciate is their feedback studio. You can go in and say exactly what you like, don’t like and make changes.

Yardzen is a flat-fee service and online, so it’s very important to communicate your preferences. Don’t be afraid to be wordy so they can really nail down your taste. From there, Yardzen can put you in contact with a contractor they vet or you can go out and choose your own. The renderings and plans are yours to have so you can give those to whoever you work with.

Important note of this Yardzen review: When you meet with your actual landscape contractor, changes will be inevitable. Yardzen is a designer, not a builder. They work and create a design to fit your home as best they can, but a contractor will come in and tell you what can and can’t happen. For example, we actually have a concrete casing around our poured pavers instead of just the basalt rock as the border.

The finished product looks extremely close to our renderings with the exception of a few material changes. The first event we hosted in this backyard was our Vietnamese Engagement Party!