Walk & survey
How water moves across the property, where sun actually falls, what stays and what has to go.
Service · 06
A landscape is a water and grade decision before it is a plant list.
Stone, planting and lawn are the part of a property everyone actually looks at. They are also the first part to fail when the ground and the water underneath them are wrong. Sunday designs landscapes from the grade up, with the drainage and the irrigation drawn at the same time as the beds.
01
Failure modes
Why new landscapes look tired in two years.
Almost every landscape we are asked to rescue was installed correctly at the surface and incorrectly underneath it. Six causes account for most of it, and they compound.
01
The grade was never corrected
Beds and lawn were shaped by a builder to move dirt, not water. Everything planted on top of that inherits it — wet corners, dry ridges and a bed that drains toward the house.
02
One irrigation zone for everything
Turf and planting beds want different water, delivered differently. On a shared zone one of them is always wrong, and it is usually the beds that pay for it.
03
Soil left exactly as the builder left it
Compacted clay does not become a planting bed because a hole was dug in it. Roots stall at the edge of the amended hole and the plant spends years never getting established.
04
Plants selected by appearance, not exposure
A west-facing bed in August is a different climate from the shaded side of the same house. Plant lists that ignore that produce a two-season landscape.
05
Hardscape set on an unprepared base
Flagstone and pavers move because of what is under them. Base depth, compaction and fall are invisible in a photograph and decisive in year three.
06
Nothing planned for establishment
The first two summers decide whether new planting survives. A landscape handed over without a watering schedule is being handed over half finished.
Walk, beds and rock course set after the grade was corrected
02
Scope
Three layers, specified together.
We do not sell hardscape, planting and irrigation as separate visits. They are one system, and the seams between them are where landscapes usually fail.
Stone, planting and the surface that carries water, drawn as one detail
Hardscape
The permanent geometry of a property: where you walk, where you sit, where the ground changes level. All of it built off a prepared, compacted base set to a deliberate fall.
Flagstone & cut stone walks
Paver terraces & motor courts
Turf-jointed paving
Seat & retaining walls
Steps & landings
Decomposed granite paths
Boulder & stone edging
Dry riverbeds
Planting
Structure first, color second. Trees and evergreen mass do the architectural work; perennials and grasses are what change through the year without being replaced every year.
Specimen & shade trees
Evergreen structure
Clipped hedging
Perennial borders
Ornamental grasses
Low-water & native massing
Turf installation & renovation
Seasonal color beds
Ground & water
The layer nobody photographs and everybody feels. Grade, soil and irrigation are what decide whether the two layers above them are still worth looking at in five years.
Grade shaping
Bed & area drainage
Soil decompaction
Amendment & top-dress
Drip conversion
Zone separation
Steel & stone edging
Mulch & rock cover
Scoped together, or one at a time
A landscape project is often the cheapest moment to fix everything else, because the ground is already open and the crew is already there. It is also perfectly reasonable to do it in stages, and we will tell you which stage genuinely has to come first.
- Full propertyGrade, drainage, irrigation, landscape
- Front elevationArrival sequence and street presence
- RenovationKeep what works, correct what does not
- Turf reductionBeds and stone where lawn struggles
- Post-constructionBuilder grade corrected, then planted
03
Build sequence
Doing things in the right order is what makes it work.
Eight steps, in this order. Anything set before the grade and the water are right has to be lifted later to fix them.
Grade plan
Where the ground itself has to change. Nothing is set or planted on a grade we would not sign off on.
Drainage
Collection points and carry lines placed before beds and hardscape sit on top of them.
Irrigation
Zones drawn to planting type. Drip on beds, spray or rotors on turf, controller programmed to match.
Hardscape
Base excavated, compacted and set to fall. Stone, pavers and walls built off that base.
Soil
Beds decompacted and amended as beds, not as a series of individual holes.
Planting
Trees first, evergreen structure next, perennial and detail planting last. Mulch and edging to finish.
Establishment
A written watering schedule for the first season, the controller set to it, and adjustments as roots take.
Planting and water
Every plant you add is more water it will need.
A planting plan is a watering plan whether or not anyone writes it down. Beds and turf on the same zone means one schedule serving two completely different demands, and in a North Texas August that difference is the whole outcome. Spray heads throwing water over shrub beds lose most of it to evaporation and wet the foliage rather than the roots.
So we group planting by how much water it actually wants, put beds on drip, keep turf on its own zones, and set the controller to the plan rather than leaving it on the default it shipped with. It is the difference between a landscape that establishes and one that is quietly replanted every spring.
- Beds on drip, turf on its own zones, controller programmed to both
- Grade and bed drainage corrected before stone or planting is set
- Soil decompacted and amended across the bed, not hole by hole
- Plant selection matched to exposure, mature size and water demand
- Establishment schedule written down and handed over with the job
04
Surfaces
Surfaces, honestly compared.
There is no single best surface. There is a right one for the traffic it carries, the architecture it sits against and the water it has to let through or shed.
| Consideration | Flagstone | Concrete pavers | Decomposed granite |
|---|---|---|---|
| Character | Irregular, natural | Uniform, modular | Soft, informal |
| Walking surface | Varied, hand-set | Most even underfoot | Loose, not for heels |
| Lets water through | At the joints | Depends on joint | Yes, when built right |
| Vehicle traffic | Not typically | Yes, with a drive base | No |
| Repairability | Reset by the piece | Lift and replace units | Top up and recompact |
| Maintenance | Joints and weeds | Joint sand, edging | Periodic replenishment |
| Relative cost | Higher | Mid to higher | Lowest |
| Typical Sunday use | Walks, terraces, steppers | Terraces, motor courts | Garden paths, side yards |
What sits under the surface
The parts that never appear in a photograph are the parts that decide whether the surface is still flat and still draining in year five.
- SubgradeExcavated and compacted, not skimmed
- Base depthSet by traffic, not by habit
- FallDeliberate, and away from structures
- Edge restraintSteel, stone or concrete
- JointsSand, gravel, turf or planting
- TransitionsDetailed where materials meet
Walls and level changes
Any wall holding soil is holding water as well. That is a drainage detail with stone on the front of it, which is why walls are engineered here rather than stacked.
- Seat wallsLow, structural, usable
- Retaining wallsDrained behind, not just faced
- Planter wallsBeds lifted out of wet ground
- DrainageGravel envelope and weeps
- StepsConsistent rise, lit where needed
- FacingStone matched to the architecture
Arrival built from paving, trees and one repeated interval
Front elevation
The front of a property is read in about four seconds.
Arrival is mostly geometry: the interval of the paving, the line of the walk, the height of what sits either side of the door. Get those right and the planting can be simple. Get them wrong and no amount of color rescues it.
We work the front elevation as a sequence rather than a bed list — drive, walk, entry, and what each one frames. Lighting is planned into the same drawing, because the front of a house is looked at just as often after dark.
After the install
A landscape is finished on the day it establishes, not the day it is planted.
New planting spends its first season deciding whether it is going to live. Root systems have to move out of the nursery ball and into the bed, and the amount of water that requires changes month by month. Most new landscape loss happens in that window, and almost all of it is water — too little, too often, or in the wrong place.
So the handover includes a written schedule for the first season, the controller already programmed to it, and a check back once the weather turns. If you would rather not think about it at all, the same work can sit inside a Sunday maintenance plan.
Structure planting carries a garden between seasons
05
Questions
Landscaping, answered directly.
Both. Most Sunday landscape projects start with a walk and a plan: where water goes, where sun falls, what stays and what has to change at the grade. We can work from a designer or architect's drawings as well, and we will tell you honestly where a drawing conflicts with how the site actually drains.
That is the order we prefer. Beds, walks and walls sit on top of the grade, the drainage and the irrigation, so the cheapest moment to correct any of those is before the stone and the plants are set. Doing it in one mobilization also means one crew, one schedule and one point of contact.
Usually because it was planted into compacted builder clay, watered by a turf zone, and chosen for how it looked at the nursery rather than for the exposure it ended up in. Amended and decompacted beds, drip on the beds instead of spray, and plants matched to sun and water are what change the outcome.
Yes. Turf and planting beds want different amounts of water delivered in different ways and at different frequencies. Putting them on one zone guarantees one of them is wrong, and normally it is the beds. Where we are already touching the system, we separate them and put the beds on drip.
Flagstone, cut and quarried stone, concrete pavers, decomposed granite, boulders and poured concrete, plus stone-faced and board-formed walls. The choice is driven by the architecture, the traffic the surface has to carry and the base it can be built on, not by a preferred product.
Both. We install and renovate turf, and we also reduce it. Pulling turf back to where it earns its water and replacing the rest with beds, stone or low-water massing usually improves both the look and the water bill, particularly on hot western exposures.
New planting has an establishment period, and it is the phase most often skipped. We hand over a watering schedule for the first season, set the controller to match it, and adjust as the plants root in. Ongoing care can be folded into a Sunday maintenance plan.
We locate public utilities before any machine breaks ground, and we flag the requirements that apply to your address. Many neighborhoods have review rules on walls, structures, tree removal and front-yard planting; we build to the approved detail rather than asking forgiveness later.
Next step
Walk us the property.
Tell us which areas you want to change, what you already dislike about how the ground behaves after rain, and whether this is a full property or a single elevation. If there is a drawing, send it. If there is not, that is fine — most projects start with a walk.
- AssessmentOn-site, no obligation
- IncludesGrade, drainage and irrigation review
- You receiveScope with materials and planting approach
- Also handledDemolition, haul-off and utility locates
If the irrigation or the drainage needs correcting first, we will say so before we quote the planting rather than after.
Request a landscape assessment
Areas, ambitions and what the ground does after rain. We’ll scope the rest.
Request received.
A Sunday specialist will reach out to schedule your assessment and walk the property with you. If it’s urgent, call (817) 320-0028.
Landscaping
Build it on ground that has already been corrected.
Grade, drainage, soil and water. Get those four right and the stone and the planting on top of them get to look good for a very long time.
- Beds on drip, turf on its own zones, controller programmed to both
- Grade and bed drainage corrected before stone or planting is set
- Soil decompacted and amended across the bed, not hole by hole
- Plant selection matched to exposure, mature size and water demand
- Establishment schedule written down and handed over with the job
