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Refuge Design & Landscape
Refuge Design & Landscape: Sustainable landscapes that adapt to rain, dogs, and daily life.
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Home Services
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Refuge Design & Landscape: Sustainable landscapes that adapt to rain, dogs, and daily life.
Refuge Design & Landscape in Minneapolis creates outdoor spaces from concept to build, focusing on sustainable, rain-friendly landscapes. Clients highlight clear communication, strong design sense, and a top-notch team. Projects include regrading yards, rain gardens, French drains, native and dog-friendly plantings, patios, decks, and custom raised beds—often aligning with stormwater grants for funding.
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Design and installation of sustainable rain gardens for effective stormwater management and native plant integration.
Comprehensive outdoor transformations including patios, decks, grading, and custom features tailored to your style.
Expert regrading, French drains, and other systems to resolve flooding and water pooling issues in yards.
Planting of dog-friendly, low-maintenance native species that thrive in local conditions and support sustainability.
Ongoing care and management services to keep your garden healthy, including mulching and plant upkeep.
Overall rating
Chris Gonzalez
Matt and company was a pleasure to work with. Matt handled all complex situations with poise and determination. Thank you Refuge!
Jodi Johnson
They are used to larger projects, but helped us out replacing edging in our yard. Talented, polite, crew ! Would hire them again !
Mary Ho
We had Refuge Design and Landscape install a new sauna pad and firepit in our backyard, and the results are incredible. The work was done quickly and to a very high standard. Matt’s communication was excellent throughout the entire process—he was clear, responsive, and always kept us updated. He truly went above and beyond on the project. We are thrilled with the finished space and would hire Refuge Landscape and Design again in a heartbeat!
Tracy McKinney
I recently bought a home with a very steep backyard. It was just grass (barely) and pretty much unmowable due to the extreme slope. I had always wanted a water feature and nice landscaping so I found Refuge based on a lot of research and their high ratings and reviews. The reviews were not wrong. Matt came out and met with me and we talked for quite some time. As he got to know me, what I wanted (and didn’t want) in a backyard, Matt and his designer came back with a plan that I could have never conceived of in my wildest dreams. What blew my mind was how they made the rendering come to life in the final product. They created a very large berm with evergreens to address my concern about privacy as well as a huge stream which makes use of the steep hill. They surrounded it with tons of rocks and boulders and native evergreens, trees and plants. One of my friends that came by said that it totally reminded him of a recent trip he and his girlfriend had taken to Duluth to look at the waterfalls. Everyone is in awe of the beautiful oasis that Matt and his team created. Matt and his crew have to be some of the most passionate people I have met. Every single one of the people on his team takes great pride in their work. When I came out for the final reveal, I’m not going to lie, it brought tears to my eyes. And one of the best parts was seeing the looks of pride on the faces of the crew as I oooed and ahhhhed at their work. They are true craftsmen, I was so impressed with how hard they worked and how much they cared about every little detail. As with every large project, of course there are going to be some hiccups along the way. To me, that is a given and it’s not that the hiccups occur, but more importantly, how they are handled. Matt listened to all of my concerns and addressed any issues to my satisfaction. I couldn’t be more pleased that I selected Refuge and would hire them again in a minute. A+++++++ Thank you Matt and crew for making my sanctuary dreams come true!!!
K-town
Our nightmare of a backyard needed serious help and expertise to remedy. The yard would flood after any rain that wasn’t a light drizzle and we’d quite literally have ducks swimming in our backyard. The yard was a disaster every spring after the snow melted until it was hot enough to clear it up. We have dogs and it was a muddy mess. We hated the yard and it was an eye sore. We reached out to SO MANY landscapers over the last 2 years who gave us quotes and solutions that didn’t sound confident their work would solve it and they all had different plans. We didn’t know who to trust and this was going to cost a lot of money so we needed this project to work. I reached out to Ramsey county to inquire about their grant program for native landscaping for storm water management and applied for their grant. I was approved the entire amount! Then I found Matt who has a lot of experience in rain gardens and sustainable landscape practices - we finally felt we met someone who was confident in managing this. It took a long time to get here. Matt and his crew just finished this huge project in the backyard. They regraded most of the yard, installed a rain garden to specs, installed French drains, and planted native species that are dog friendly and easy for us to maintain. The county is reimbursing a large portion of this project otherwise it would not have been possible. Matt communicated and coordinated with me and the county to ensure this was all done to scope and Matt pivoted when the county required changes or had specific requests for the funding of this project. The yard isn’t pretty yet, and it probably won’t be for awhile, but we know it will be!! We are so excited to see the yard when the snow melts next year and we are so excited to see the rain garden in action after a heavy rain. Matt has been a great resource and has answered so many of our questions and requests. We’ve felt confident in his expertise which has been so refreshing after all the time and research we’ve spent on this. We will have him out for the next several years to help us maintain and manage the rain garden to ensure it remains healthy and happy and grows appropriately. I’ve got some before and after for reference - we’ve had some ongoing, light rain after the completion and it’s already working. Mind you the rain started a couple days after the project completed, so there’s still a little pooling, but the ground hasn’t had a chance to settle and there isn’t any grass yet to mitigate the rain we’ve had. But it’s a massive improvement and we can’t wait to see it handle the rain next year. Big relief. Thank you Matt!!!
lorina quartarone
matt and his team at refuge have done work for me twice, installing a new retaining wall (after my old one collapsed) back in 2017 and again, some less demanding work, this past summer. on both the large project and the smaller one (mainly yard beautification), they were efficient, professional, and pleasant to work with. i remain very pleased with the results of their work in both the long and the short term. the earlier project was long and involved, and they built one heck of a retaining wall and drainage system! i was happy to have them back to keep my property looking great and to take care of what it needed. thank you, matt!
