Gardens designed, built, and kept alive.
Landscape design and construction from our base in Strand — full garden builds, hardscaping, planting and irrigation, Somerset West to Hermanus, Blouberg to Camps Bay, anywhere within an hour of home.
Landscaping first. Everything a garden needs, one crew.
Landscape design & planning
Every build starts on paper — levels, drainage, beds, hardscape and planting worked out before a spade goes in. You approve the plan and the fixed price first. No surprises halfway through your garden.
Full garden builds
The whole property, from bare or broken to finished. Ground shaped, hardscape in, irrigation buried, soil fed, planting established — one crew, one plan, one handover, and a garden with a future instead of just an installation.
Hardscaping & construction
Paving and pathways, retaining, steps, edging, stone and gravel work. The bones of the garden — built level, built once, and built to still be there when the planting has grown over the edges.
Planting & lawns
Beds designed for the wind and water your ground actually gets — waterwise structure planting, seasonal colour where it earns its place, instant or seeded lawn. Planted to establish, not just to look good on handover day.
Irrigation
Installation and repair — drippers, sprays, timers, zoned properly. Set up to work with water restrictions, not against them, so the garden survives February without you standing there holding a hose.
Garden rejuvenation
Tired beds, compacted soil, overgrown everything. We strip back, feed the soil, keep what earns its place and rebuild around it — a new garden that keeps the old one's best years.
Scented gardens
Our signatureA garden you notice before you see it. Jasmine over the gate, wild rosemary and buchu along the path, lavender where you sit in the evening — planted for fragrance through the seasons.
Small jobs
Somerset West & StrandClose to home, no job is too small. An afternoon of pruning, one flowerbed rebuilt, a leaking dripper line fixed. If you're in Somerset West or Strand, we come out.
Each of these runs deeper than a paragraph — read the full pages on garden builds & hardscaping, the scented garden, irrigation and care plans.
The trade runs in the family
I didn't find this trade — I was raised in it. My dad has spent his working life in gardens, and he's still at it today, running his own business the way he always has. I grew up around ground being shaped, beds being planted and gardens being looked after, and I learned the work the way you can't learn it from a course: by doing it, next to someone who'd been doing it forever.
In 2021 I started Earth Craft to do the work under my own name. Five years on, it's still me you get — I do the walkarounds, I'm on site with the crew, and I answer my own phone. WhatsApp the number on this page and it rings in my pocket, not in an office.
The rule I took from home hasn't changed: leave the ground better than you found it, and leave the site tidy every evening.
— Nathan
- The name on the gate
- Nathan Gilson
- The trade
- Runs in the family — Dad's still at it
- His own crew since
- 2021
- Based
- Strand, Western Cape
- On a job
- On site, on the tools
From first message to handover
- WhatsApp usA few photos of the space and your suburb is enough. Usually answered the same day.
- Free walkaroundWe come and look — measure, listen, check the soil, the water and the wind. Within the week, often sooner close to home. No charge, no obligation.
- Design and a fixed priceThe plan on paper and the quote in writing — what's included, what isn't, and a price that doesn't move. Small jobs are quoted within 48 hours.
- Groundwork & hardscapeLevels, drainage, walls and paving go in first — the part you never see again and the part that decides whether the garden lasts.
- Planting & irrigationSoil fed, beds planted, the system zoned and set for restrictions before we switch it on.
- Handover & aftercareA walkthrough, a watering schedule for the establishment weeks, and a care plan if you want us to keep coming back. Most people do.
Straight answers about money
Most landscaping sites hide the money conversation until you're on the phone. We'd rather you arrive knowing how it works.
Every project gets a fixed, written quote — what's included, what isn't, and a price that doesn't move once you've accepted it. Larger builds are broken into stages, agreed up front, so you're never paying for work that hasn't happened. And we don't quote per square metre, because square metres don't dig themselves: two gardens the same size can be a day apart or a month apart in work. What actually moves the price is below.
Access
Materials carried forty metres through a house cost more than a driveway drop-off. Tight access means small machines or hand work — honest quotes say so upfront.
Levels & retaining
A flat site is a gift. Slopes need cutting, filling and holding back — retaining is the quiet budget-maker on most Helderberg properties.
Drainage & soil
What's under the garden decides what it costs. Clay, rubble fill or a winter waterlogging problem gets fixed once, properly, before anything pretty happens.
Materials & plant grade
Cladding versus cobbles, established trees versus seedlings. We quote options where they exist, and tell you where cheaper genuinely won't last.
What it's actually like having us there
A garden build is people in your space for days or weeks. Here's how we behave in it — the stuff every homeowner wonders and nobody puts on a website.
The site every evening
Tidy, safe and walkable before we leave — tools packed, trenches marked, rubble contained and taken away as stages finish. The family rule: leave it better than you found it applies mid-build too.
Keys, gates and dogs
Tell us the arrangement once — gate codes, which doors stay locked, where the dog can and can't be — and it's kept, every visit, whoever's on the crew that day.
You don't need to be home
Once access is agreed, the work carries on whether you're there or not. You'll get progress photos on WhatsApp at each stage — most clients follow their whole build from the office.
Hours and noise
Early starts, especially in summer — the crew works with the weather, not against it. Anything loud happens at neighbourly hours, and Saturdays are workable by arrangement.
Who's actually there
Nathan, and a crew sized to the job. Not a subcontractor you've never met — the person who quoted your garden is the person building it.
When to do what in a Western Cape garden
This is a winter-rainfall corner of the world, and gardens here run on its calendar — not the northern-hemisphere one the internet keeps giving you.
Autumn · Mar–May
Feed, mulch, prune and plan. The smart time to design, so your build is in the ground before the rains.
Winter · Jun–Aug
Build and plant season. Winter rain establishes new planting for free — gardens planted now walk into summer with real roots. The best-kept secret in Cape gardening.
Spring · Sep–Nov
Irrigation checked and zoned before the heat, lawns repaired, growth managed weekly as everything wakes up at once.
Summer · Dec–Feb
Hold the line: mow, edge, deadhead, water smart under restrictions, and let the southeaster prove whether the garden was planted for it. Ours are.
The scented garden
A garden you notice before you see it — and months after the photos stop doing it justice.
Most gardens are designed for the eyes only. Ours are planted for the nose as well: star jasmine climbing the gate so arriving home smells like arriving home, lavender and rosemary along the paths where your legs brush them, buchu and wild rosemary for that after-rain fynbos smell that belongs to this coast, lemon verbena by the kitchen door, freesias for late-winter surprise.
The craft is in the placement — scent goes where you actually live: the braai, the washing line, the stoep, the bedroom window that stands open on summer nights. And it's planned through the seasons, so something is always carrying the garden. Nobody else around here designs this way. Ask Nathan to walk your garden and point at where the scent should go — it's his favourite part of the job.
We look after what we build
And gardens we didn't build, too. Mowing and edges, beds weeded and fed, pruning in season, irrigation checked on every visit. Choose a rhythm; we hold it.
For gardens that are the pride of the street. Same crew, same day each week — nothing ever gets away from you.
The sensible middle. Enough rhythm to stay ahead of summer growth without paying for visits winter doesn't need.
A proper half-day reset once a month. Suits hardy, established gardens and holiday homes.
Every plan starts with a free garden assessment — planting density and complexity decide the time a garden takes, so the final price is set on sight, in writing, before we start. Green waste removal quoted separately.
Based in Strand. An hour in any direction.
Home turf
Somerset West · Strand · Gordon's Bay. Small jobs welcome, fastest response — we know the soil and the southeaster.
Overberg
Hermanus and the coast road — Kleinmond, Betty's Bay, Onrus.
Southern suburbs & deep south
Fish Hoek, Constantia, Tokai, down the peninsula.
Atlantic & north
Camps Bay and the seaboard, out to Blouberg.
Before you message — the short answers
Do you charge for quotes?
No. The walkaround is free, the written quote is free, and neither obliges you to anything.
How long does a build take?
A bed rebuild or small hardscape job: days. A full garden: weeks, not months. Your quote comes with a timeline, and stages mean you can see progress against it.
When's the best time to start?
For planting, autumn and winter — the rains do your establishment watering for you. For building, any month works. For getting a spot in the diary: before spring, when everyone else wakes up.
What about water restrictions?
Designed in from the start — waterwise structure planting, mulching, zoned irrigation with timers set to the rules. A Cape garden that can't handle February isn't designed, it's decorated.
Can you take over a garden you didn't build?
Yes — the care plans work for any garden. It starts with a free assessment so the price fits the garden, not the average.
Do you only do big projects?
In Somerset West and Strand, no job is too small — that's a standing promise, not a slogan. Further afield, we travel for builds, rejuvenations and care plans.
How do I get an exact price?
WhatsApp 083 269 1552 with a few photos and your suburb. Same-day reply, walkaround within the week, quote in writing after that.
Tell us what the garden needs
Prefer to talk? Call Nathan on 083 269 1552 — flexible hours, Monday to Saturday.