What is hardscape design?

Hardscape design is planning the built parts of a yard, meaning patios, walkways, walls, fire features and cooking areas, around its drainage, slope and plantings. At Green Scene, Jose Garcia draws the design himself or works from a blueprint you bring, and the plan turns into an itemized written estimate.

How much does a paver patio cost in Franklin, TN?

It depends on the square footage, how much base work your ground needs, the paver you choose, and what sits on the patio, like seat walls, a fire pit or a fireplace. Green Scene gives a free written estimate after an on-site visit, itemized line by line when you bring plans.

Do I need my own landscape designer before calling a hardscape contractor?

No. Green Scene’s design team will draw a plan for your space and budget, and if a designer has already given you a blueprint, they’ll price that instead. Either way Jose Garcia walks the yard first, since the drainage and grade shape a patio as much as taste does.

Why do paver patios sink on Williamson County clay?

Usually because the pavers went down without a proper base. Builder-graded lots here are often packed clay and fill on a slope, and they settle unevenly. Green Scene stabilizes and levels the area with base material before laying anything, and treats that step as required on every job.

Does a retaining wall or paver patio need a permit in Middle Tennessee?

Often it does, depending on the town and the size of the work, and Green Scene takes care of it. The crew also works inside your HOA’s guidelines, and in Belle Meade or Forest Hills a tree standing in the way needs its own removal permit before construction starts.

Can a backyard hardscape be built in phases?

Yes. Green Scene will draw the whole backyard and build part of it now, say the patio this year and the fire pit, kitchen or walls later on the same plan. Designing it as one long-term layout keeps the later pieces matched and avoids tearing up finished stone.

Paver Patio & Hardscape Design in Franklin, TN

Free written estimate

Tell us what the yard needs. The office calls back to set up a visit.

Hardscape is the part of a yard that’s built rather than grown: paver patios, walkways, retaining walls, outdoor grills and cooking areas, fire pits and fireplaces. Green Scene designs and builds it for homeowners in Franklin and the rest of Williamson County, and most of it is interlocking concrete pavers set over a compacted, leveled base.

It’s for the yard where you want to sit, cook or walk without tracking through mud. Getting there takes an on-site visit, a plan (yours, or one Green Scene draws), a written price, and a crew willing to spend its first days on ground you’ll never see again.

Why does the base under a paver patio matter so much?

Pavers stay flat only as long as the ground under them does. A lot of Franklin lots sit on clay that the home builder graded and packed down, often on a slope, and a patio laid straight onto that can sink, heave or hold puddles within a few seasons.

Green Scene’s own rule is blunt about it: “step one is always stabilizing and leveling the construction area with the proper base material. It’s not an option.” So the crew builds up and compacts that base and checks its level and pitch before the first paver goes down. Once the job’s finished you’ll never look at that layer again. It’s still the reason the patio holds its shape.

How do drainage and existing trees shape the design?

They come first. Before anything is drawn, Green Scene walks the property to see how water crosses it and what’s growing near the work, because a new patio changes where runoff goes. Set one at the foot of a slope with no plan for that water and it turns into a shallow pond after every hard rain.

Trees can need paperwork. Belle Meade requires a permit to remove any tree over 4 inches in diameter (Ordinance 2019-11), and Forest Hills requires one for most tree removals, so a patio that needs a tree gone gets that settled before the plan is final. When the beds around the new stone need work too, a landscape design can put the hardscape, the plantings and the lighting on one drawing.

A Green Scene crewman watering newly planted shrubs in a fresh mulch bed on the slope beside a brick home. — New plantings on a sloped bed. The grade and the runoff get looked at before any stone is drawn in.

What can a hardscape project include?

Most start with one piece and grow. What Green Scene builds:

Paver patios, from a small sitting area to an entertaining space, with or without the covered structures on patios and pergolas
Paver walkways, short or long; for Dr. James Hardie the crew laid one from his house to his daughter’s home next door
Retaining walls where a slope needs holding back
Outdoor grills and cooking areas
Fire pits and masonry fireplaces, covered in detail on fire pits and outdoor fireplaces

Settle on a feel early, whether formal, relaxed or intimate, and the materials follow from it. Cristian Garcia, who works in sales, also hauls materials to job sites and helps on the installs.

A crewman rinsing a newly laid curved paver walkway that runs between fresh mulch beds and young shrubs. — A curved paver walk, hosed down at the end of the install.

What does a Green Scene hardscape look like going in?

The video is one of the company’s own hardscape projects. Watch for how much of it happens before the finished surface appears.

Who draws the plan, and what happens at the estimate?

Jose Garcia comes out, walks the yard and listens to what you want; he still quotes and designs every project himself. Hand him a blueprint and you’ll get back an itemized plan with each part priced. Have nothing on paper? Green Scene’s design team draws one for the space and the budget you give them.

Bring a number to that meeting. Jose and Teresa Garcia like to say a budget is a real number, and the design gets worked to fit it. Sometimes that means building the patio now and drawing the kitchen or fireplace in as a second phase, with a long-term plan so the later pieces match. Permits and your HOA’s guidelines are Green Scene’s to handle before anyone digs.

Paver patios and walls, built from the base up