Landscape Carpentry and Garden Structures
Beyond Gardens designs and builds garden structures across Santa Clara County: pergolas, arbors, decks, fences, gates, chicken coops, sheds, raised beds, and trellises. Structures are designed to stack functions, meaning a single build provides shade, grows a vine, screens a view, or houses animals rather than serving one narrow purpose.
It is a permaculture idea with immediate practical value:
every element should earn its place several times over.
A pergola is not just shade. Planted with grape or wisteria, it becomes summer shade that disappears in winter exactly when you want the sun, plus a harvest, plus a vertical growing surface, plus a defined outdoor room.
A fence is not just a boundary. It can support espaliered fruit, trellis beans, screen a neighbor’s window, and reflect light into a dark bed.
A chicken coop is not just housing. It is a compost engine, a pest control system, and an egg supply, sited where the birds do work for you.
Designing this way costs no more than building the single-purpose version, and it is the difference between a yard that has objects in it and a yard that functions.
What we build
Pergolas + arbors
Shade, vine support, outdoor rooms, entry framing
Decks
Level living space over slope or poor soil
Fences + gates
Privacy, security, growing surface, wind break
Chicken coops + runs
Eggs, compost, pest control
Raised beds + planters
Vegetables, herbs, accessible-height gardening
Trellises + espalier frames
Vertical growing, screening, fruit in narrow spaces
Sheds + storage
Tools, bikes, garden equipment
Benches + seating
Rest points sited where the garden is best seen
Compost bays
Household and yard waste processing
What materials
do you use?
Durable, and where possible reclaimed or reused. We prioritize untreated wood in contact with soil and edible plantings, salvaged and found materials where they suit the design, and locally sourced material over imported.
Reuse is not only an environmental position. Reclaimed old-growth lumber is frequently better material than what is available new, and a structure incorporating found objects has character that a kit does not.
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It varies by jurisdiction and depends mainly on size, height, and whether the structure is attached to the house. Small detached structures often fall under permit thresholds. We will tell you which category yours falls into before we build.
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Usually. We can match timber species, profile and finish closely enough that new work reads as part of the original, or deliberately differentiate it if you would rather the new work be legible as new.
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Small structures, raised beds, a gate or a short run of fence, are usually a matter of days. Pergolas, decks and anything needing footings or a permit take longer. We give you a schedule with the proposal.
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Yes. We build tank stands, screens and plinths sized for the system, and because we install the systems too, the structure and the plumbing are designed together rather than retrofitted to each other.
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Yes. Coops and runs are a regular request, and we build them predator-resistant, easy to clean and integrated with the garden so the birds do useful work rather than wrecking the planting.