A Business Built
From the Ground Up.

15+ Years of Craft. Every Garden Personal.

Aaron Hammer is a Michigan State University Landscape Architecture graduate who began building his lawn business at age 9. Since 2008, he has designed and installed custom gardens across Ann Arbor and surrounding areas, collaborating personally with every client to bring their vision to life.

What started with a push mower and a list of neighbors grew into a full landscape design and build practice rooted in the same values: show up, do good work, and genuinely care about the outcome. For Aaron, the move from lawn care to custom garden design wasn't a pivot; it was a deepening. The same attention he brought to every edge and every cut as a teenager became the same attention he now brings to every planting plan and every on-site consultation.

Aaron and his team are a part of every design, not just the install. Every project starts the same way: Aaron or one of his designers walks the property with the client, listens to what they're picturing, and studies the site's light, drainage, and existing plantings before a single line gets drawn. Smaller projects often move forward with a simple conceptual design and proposal; larger ones get a detailed, hand-drawn, scaled plan built around the client's vision. Aaron then stays personally involved from that first walkthrough to the final shovelful, working alongside a small crew of skilled tradespeople he's trained and trusted for years. Clients still get direct access to Aaron from the first conversation to the last day on-site - that hasn't changed. What's changed is the ability to take on bigger stonework, retaining walls, and drainage projects that need more than one set of hands, without ever losing the personal attention the business was built on.

That collaboration is what makes the craftsmanship possible. Over the years, Gardens by Aaron Hammer has grown from one guy with a mower into a team that designs and builds together, drawing on a shared, in-depth knowledge of concept gardens like Japanese, Zen, Meditation, English, Butterfly, Cottage, and Rain Gardens. Aaron sets the vision and stays hands-on through every stage, but the gardens reflect more than one set of eyes: his design sense, and a crew that knows how to build it right.

Read About His Approach