He worked on master plans for the development of neighborhoods in San Francisco and the East Bay, on the Monterey Peninsula, in Los Angeles, and elsewhere.

[1] He eventually opened an office in San Francisco, and in 1908 East Bay real estate developer John Hopkins Spring became his first important landscape design client.

[1] Daniels planned the entire subdivision, deliberately working around existing natural features, especially major rock outcroppings.

[1] In 1914, Daniels took up the post of landscape engineer for Yosemite National Park, where the existing buildings were in poor condition and there were issues with sanitation and water supply.

[10] It proved an impossible job, not solely because he was working at it part-time, but because, as he himself pointed out, "it is not humanly possible" for one man to combine the very different duties of general superintendent and landscape engineer for the national parks.

[8] These difficulties were exacerbated by struggles with other administrators over centralization of planning, with the result that Daniels was pushed to resign after only a year and a half.

None of these were carried out in their original form — though elements were incorporated into later plans — but as in all his other design work, Daniels stressed the importance of taking the local topography and environment into account so as to create visual congruity with the surrounding landscape.