River Birch Design

River Birch Design is an owner-operated landscape firm in Beverly, run by Tim Hallinan, who the company's site says designed for Boston-area landscape companies before starting it. The credentials it lists for him are design-school ones: a bachelor's in landscape architecture from UMass and a master's from the Rhode Island School of Design. The work is garden-scale and residential — perennial and flower gardens, tree and shrub work, walkways and patios, planters — designed, installed and then maintained, for clients in Beverly, Cambridge and across the North Shore. One thing to square up front is how long the firm has been at it. Its home page says 25 years on the North Shore, its About page says 23, and its Houzz profile says 14; ask him directly, and ask which of those years cover gardens like the one you want. For a homeowner who wants a garden actually designed — planting plans, a patio that sits right, the beds and the hardscape drawn together — this is a design-first shop with one person's eye behind it. Ask to walk a couple of finished gardens nearby, and get the maintenance arrangement in writing: what is included after the install, how often, and for how long.