Desert Living, Inc.

We used Desert Living to develop our site plan, transforming our backyard from boring, heat absorbing brick patio to a Sonoran desert oasis. They designed a passive rainwater harvest as well as grey water system, that is functional, but also took into account our aesthetic requests and design needs for our family. They also installed our active rainwater cistern- quickly (in only a few hours!) and it looks and functions great. They took into account the city rebate system in the planning and helped us navigate that to maximize return, were very reasonably priced, and continued to be resources all the way through our project, (even after the fact being available to help with any questions we had). It seems Iylea and Nate have a genuine passion for helping folks achieve their desert landscape goals and we would highly recommend them to anyone looking.

I have known and worked with Ilyea for over 10 years, she is a true professional and there is no one else in town I would allow to help me with water harvesting and helping design with cisterns for my clients projects. This company is honest and reliable and truly cares about their customers and doing an amazing job on the design and install of their projects.

I've debated writing this review for a while, but I can't get my interaction with Desert Living out of my head. The good: Desert living does great work planning and executing their plan.They gave us great ideas on what and where to plant. We've received countless compliments on how well our yard looks with their work that we finalized by planting our own plants and spreading the mulch they delivered. The not so good: Communication with the owners was lacking to non-existent. We had no idea when they were coming or when they had ended on a particular day unless we specifically asked. There were no real updates on their progress either. One of the owners asked, "what do you guys do for work again?" ( in a "are you sure you can pay us?" tone) when I went out to try and get updates on their progress. Once they were done, we paid almost immediately via several different methods(2 zelle and 2 venmo because it's either that or check and both zelle and venmo have a daily limit). It took nearly three weeks to have them deliver the seeds they charged us for (something else they didn't communicate well about). Finally, after three weeks, they asked if we were going to send the remaining balance (which we had already paid). If this was the problem to begin with, they should have told us immediately because we immediately sent all the screenshots showing we paid the full amount. Only then did they start communicating with us about the seed delivery. When one of the owners delivered the seeds, they said, "you can understand where we were coming from because we didn't see the payments come through" or something to that effect and also blamed their busy schedule. Essentially blaming me and "being too busy" for their lack or proper record keeping. Their questions about our employment status and then asking when we were going to finish paying made us feel discriminated against as if they assumed we didn't have the means to or weren't going to pay. It was a very unpleasant experience. Conclusion: great execution of plan. Very poor communication from owners.

Salt of the earth folks. I have no hesitation recommending them.

So much more than landscape: water harvesting, xeriscape, hydroponics, design, light harvesting (skylights) and crop maximizing, custom greenhouses built from 3d printed parts, ...wow