Land Escapes LLC

Land Escapes worked two projects for me, landscaping and grass seeding in the front yard to increase our curb appeal and then poured a textured and stained patio to the side of the house. Both turned out to be fantastic thanks to great crews and largely, the vision of the designer, Laeken Frazier. Laeken was absolutely fantastic and you should ask for her services. My family will be requesting her again in the near future to upgrade our backyard.

Our project setting was a lackluster 1950's home with a a couple of obligatory native trees in the back yard. Laeken suggested planting 3 groups of mixed evergreens with mulch and space for future boulders. I absolutely loved the idea! Now, the work has been completed and even with non-mature evergreens, my home is suddenly a place of retreat and comfort, that privacy from the plantings offer. The value of our home has improved immeasurably with beautiful evergreens that will be extremely easy to care for and will only get better over the years. I would be remiss not to mention the project was installed very quickly by two of the hardest working humans ever. Laeken and her staff are very driven. They paid attention to detail, making sure everything from design to staking, was completed correctly and quickly. We are very pleased we went with Land Escapes. They are truly a quality company that cares about their customer!!

This company did a great job on an extensive, multistage project. Thanks!

Excellent project planning by showing us illustrations of the final layout and changing the plan to meet our needs. Installation was well supervised and work was done in a professional manner.

Back yard landscape

These guys did the great job! I couldn't be more pleased without about how the project turned out. Lots of good design advice and they were conscientious about cleaning up. A good choice for your yard.

The work done is amazing. I am very pleased with how things progressed. They were efficient and did a fantastic job. I would definitely work with them again.

Exceeded expectations. Very professional, timely, and the end product was worth the investment.

I was very satisfied with the work that they did On the replacement of the retaining wall.

Brett was great to work with from the designing my front yard to completion. He and his staff were professional, reliable, and I wouldn't hesitate to hire him for future work.

Nice job. The company is very responsive and the work crew was excellent.

Perfectly! Brett, the owner, is extremely easy to work with. I ordered the job one day, and the bushes were planted the next day. Of course, he had some big jobs planned and there was a 1-day window that he could do my smaller job. I am very pleased! I have just purchased a different house, which has absolutely no landscaping yet, and I plan to use Land Escapes to landscape that yard, including putting in a sprinkler system.

Great job except for cutting the soaker hose while removing & replacing a boxwood.

This is our second time working with Brett and we love the results!

Brett is always easy to work with and knows what to plant within your area you wish to landscape. My yard is challenging since it is shaded during the summer months. He has helped me fill in areas over the years.

All work and cleanup was quick and thorough as usual.

We are always amazed how good our landscaping looks after Land Escapes has worked on it. We use them for big and small projects and have been extremely impressed every time!

I had originally hired another landscape contractor to do the work because they were cheaper...well guess what: I decided to change contractors at about the half way point because the first contractor's work was questionable and terribly behind schedule. I ended up hiring Land Escapes to finish the work, and they did an amazing job. It was a very long, two tiered retaining wall with a gravel/flagstone walkway and several steps. Brett and his team were on top of their game and the finished product looks great. Completed the work on schedule and without needing me to manage the process, and were great to work with. Brett also replaced the sod that had been put down by the first contractor, which had completely died despite my watering/fertilizing. I would recommend Brett and Land Escapes and plan on hiring him again in the future.

Initially we had many questions and a little difficulty visualizing what the complete project would look like. It was important to us to have the finished product fit into the country setting in which we live--not to look "fancy" or too polished. As we went along, there were some bumps, but Brett and his team did their best to accommodate our concerns. Some changes were made mid-way through the project, which he was flexible with. Ulysis headed up the onsite team and was a pleasure to work with. He communicated with us throughout and helped troubleshoot when something unexpected came up. The project took longer than anticipated, but that was due in part to the weather and part to the need for more materials to be delivered. In the end, the area looks great, and we are pleased with the work that was done. Thank you guys for finding a solution to our problem, and for making it look nice, too!

They were awesome! I would hire them again and would recommend them. They were very easy to work with and very responsive.

Working with Brett and his team was an absolute joy. Things you should know before you hire them:

- They were responsive, polite, and always true to their word. This is pretty unusual in landscaping/construction and we were really pleased.
- Brett, the owner, has great ideas but doesn't force them on you. We did end up taking most of his recommendations in the end and I'm really glad that we did.
- Brett was willing to research and accommodate solutions that he wouldn't necessarily implement in his own yard but he made sure to find the best of what we wanted in our style.
- They did take a lot longer than they expected but it was because they wanted everything to be perfect.

Land Escapes was truly outstanding and we recommend them 100%.

The backyard looked amazing when the project was complete.  The retaining wall was perfectly in line and was a beauty to look at.  We got many compliments from neighbors.  The other projects turned out great as well, including the new front sidewalk.  Brett was very helpful when we were trying to figure out how to make the yard user-friendly again.  He made suggestions based on our budget and stuck to that.  He was always available by email and answered emails promptly.  His crew was courteous and polite, and always punctual.  We would definitely use him again.

Well designed, excellent plant and tree selection.  Will call on them again.

I'm very pleased with the work!! We had received a lot of rain in the days leading up to the job so I expected the work might be postponed, but they had provided with me with a date range and they still managed to complete the job within the proposed date range. 
Once we made the decision to have our pond removed, I received several bids. The one from Land Escapes was not the lowest, but I had the highest confidence that the work would be completed competently and professionally--which it was! Communication was excellent. 

In November 2015, we obtained a proposal from Brett Bathurst at LandEscapes for a landscape spring clean up, to include “tak[ing] out existing leaves and debris” in all landscaped beds, including cobblestoned areas. The proposal included “clean up and redefine” all natural beveled edging, and trimming to “make shrubs uniform, trim back and shape up evergreens as needed” and “install 2-3” of premium hardwood dyed mulch on all landscaped areas.” We put a $300 deposit in for a $1,030 bid. In response to a solicitation from LandEscapes, we also contracted with prepayment for sprinkler service (spring turn on, adjustment in mid-summer, then winterization).

A crew of two from LandEscapes arrived on Sat., March 5, 2016. The crew of two spoke nearly no English and had no understanding of the project. They appeared to have no experience with landscaping tasks, as they began to suggest they would remove good shrubs that had simply not yet leafed out for the summer and would pull up perennials.  Bret showed up after our calls informing him of obvious language difficulties, walked around our property and talked with the workers.  We incorrectly assumed at that point that he had communicated the needed work plan to his employers.  

What we have found since Land Escapes completed their work is that almost every aspect of the contracted work was done incorrectly and incompletely, creating new work and expense for us.   Workers did not remove leaves from the decorative rock areas.  Very little trimming of some shrubs occurred, and others were so dramatically sheered that we are not sure they will survive.  Large volumes of mulch were dumped on top of perennials.  When beds were edged, the grass that was cut in was dumped into the beds and is now beginning to grow.  So much mulch had been literally dumped onto our beds that roses and other plants were buried in it.  To make an already bad situation even worse, we have found that the leaves were not removed from around shrugs and rose bushes before the mulch was added so each time we attempt to uncover buried plants or reduce the volume of mulch, we scoop up a handful of leaves that then becomes mixed in with the mulch.

The result of work Land Escapes did on our property is that we now have more work to prepare for summer than we had before they arrived. It will take us several weekends to remove excess mulch and clean all the leaves under that mulch and from the decorative rock areas.  We do not yet know how many plants may be lost as a result of their reckless and destructive handling of our beds.   The beds that should have looked fresh and ready for summer now are strewn with a mix of mulch, leaves and grass patches that we will be cleaning out for weeks to come. 

We sent a text to Brett about the failure to remove leaves in a cobblestone areas as that was the first problem and most immediately obvious issue. Brett’s response was to make a trivial adjustment to the charge, cancel our irrigation contract and refuse to fix his shoddy work.  He stated in his final bill: “That was our last time out, we will not be able to help you anymore.”

We should have waited to pay LandEscapes for any work on the spring cleanup project, since we are now faced with more work and expense than before. The company implied that we were the problem, made no effort or offer to fix the situation, but instead simply stated that Land Escapes would never again do any work on our property.  We are in agreement with Brett’s conclusion because we would never again trust Land Escapes to do even the simplest of work in our yard or beds.