Designscape

First, Designscape is given your budget from McDonald, which allows them to price their services accordingly high. Make sure you get competitive bids. We did not have the time to do this and paid the price. Make sure you get everything in writing. When we finally agreed upon a plan and the contents, corners were cut at every chance in order to maximize profit. For example, our dog run (pea gravel) was on a sloped part of the property. The slope was so steep, there was no way the dog could have used it. I had to pay extra to get a retaining wall of boulders to level the run. We expected a flat, smooth, pea gravel run, but didn't get it and had to pay more. On the day when our lot was graded, I arrived to see the work. The yard did not have one flat area, which was not according to our plan and agreement. I was convinced by Designscape that this was against code in Lake Elmo (which I later found out it wasn't) and I was told that they would come back after closing and level the grade. This never happended. I am still fighting with the owner, today, in order to get the grading fixed. In addition, we asked for seeding the back half of the yard in order to save money, the seed was terrible with no top soil added (which they said, during the planning phase, was their normal process when seeding). They just used netting and straw. It still looks awful has not taken in places after two years. Now I have two areas of the yard that were not graded according to plan and are not draining within the agreed 24 hours after a rainfall. I had to get the city inspectors involved to get a response. Designscape waited until the end of this year and finally came out to re-grade. They didn't notify me (on purpose) until the morning they were coming and only did the absolute minimum to fix the problem (grading a small portion and moving that dirt to form the required grade). The correct fix would have been to add fill in areas and re-grade a larger portion. My yard looks like crap in two places and still doesn't drain the way it is supposed to. The builder and Designscape will no longer return my calls. I will likely have to hire an attorney to file a claim this spring. Be very careful in hiring Designscape. Get competitive bids. Get everything in writing. Never agree to something verbally. Don't pay until your service is complete. And if you build with McDonald - find another landscaping company.

We had a large fenced-in garden area roughly 60' x 25' at the back end of our property in front of our forested outlet, plus an adjacent area half that size covered with ferns and wood chips that extended across the back end of our property to a tree house and swing set play area. We wanted to transform the garden and fern parcels into a more attractive, contemporary patio with fire pit and nature area that included native plant species and stone walking paths to the patio and through the area to the forest behind. Angie was great! She was patient, prompt, thoughtful and thorough in responding to our on-going series of questions and comments about the project, both during the conception/proposal stage and during the negotiation/implementation phase. She came up with creative ideas, some of which we embraced, others which we declined in the interest of our vision, goals and budget. Angie came out to the house on a number of occasions while we were discussing our interests and the plans as they were being developed. We reviewed blueprints with her at least three times in order to adjust some of the details and make sure they satisfied our key objectives in transforming the garden and fern spaces into the contemporary family area with fire pit. She was considerably more attentive to our needs and concerns than other contractors we fielded bids from. In those instances, we were left with the impression that our job paled in importance and size in comparison to the other higher ticket contracts they were working on. As a result, longer periods of time would go by before they responded to our communications with satisfactory answers. They also tended to produce grand plans that were closer to double the size of our stated budget. Designscape's four person work crew took three days to complete the project. The crew consisted of one project manager, Nathan, and three workers. (Original estimates were four days, but were based on just three workers.) Angie came out each day to ensure that all was going according to plan and meeting our expectations. The crew used a bobcat to transport materials up our driveway and around to the back of the house. We were concerned about damage to our lawn, to pine trees beside our garage and to tree roots in the back of our house. They used belts to protect pine branches where necessary and placed plywood down on the grass and elsewhere to protect the lawn and tree roots. When they were done, they used sod to resurface small portions of the lawn nearest the new nature area and planted grass seed covered with straw over other areas where tree roots were visible and where the bobcat made most of its trips. In one of the other reviews of Designscape, Angie was also the principal on the project, but the customer also had some interaction with Mike, the founder and owner of the company. Possibly because Designscape now has more than one crew working on its different projects, we had no interaction with Mike during our engagement with the company. Angie was Designscape's sole representative. We learned that her formal training is in plants and that she previously worked for a gardening enterprise for more than a half-dozen years. With Designscape she is expanding her expertise and design capacity into the broader field of landscaping and stonework. Now that the project has been completed, we are extremely happy with the results. Angie was actually able to swap this project with another scheduled one in order to complete the job before our daughter's birthday party. This rescheduling thus permitted us to hold part of the birthday gathering around the new fire pit. Our daughter was delighted that she could show off the new natural space and fire pit to her friends.

Angie with Designscape Plus created the design. She had really great ideas and really listened to what we wanted. She incorporated the things that we wanted to keep (swing set, shed) as well as creative solutions to clean up the existing area we already had. We were on a limited budget and could not move forward with bells and whistles (BBQ area, sitting bench, fire pit or any of the proposed plantings) but are very pleased to have a lovely new paver patio and bordered playground area with fresh mulch. Angie and Mike are professional and very skilled in their areas of expertise. While on-site Mike noted a drainage issue near our garage and fixed it for us so that it drains away from the house. the project took one week due to rain, however the workers always covered the work and left the area as clean as before they started. We are pleased with the project. Our costs per sq foot: paver material and install: $23 demo of old patio $4.50