By The Blade Lawn and Landscape

Service was performed well and quickly. Exactly what I was looking for.

We had a great experience with By The Blade. When I first called, the office staff was professional and efficient in getting my request out to the crew. I was contacted by a representative quickly, and then we got a plan for our landscaping. It is BEAUTIFUL, and makes our backyard so much more enjoyable than before. Perfect for the summer! I would work with By The Blade again!

They contract with mowers. The first 2 years were great, this year not so much. These guys would go to the trouble of picking up sticks and throw them in our flower beds. Then we had contracted to mow a small fenced area with a push mower, which they did the first 2 years. This year they insisted on squeezing a giant stand up mower through the gate and scratching the poles and tear up the lawn with the sharp, small turns. When we complained, the lawn manager said that he can’t have people b******* all the time, either find somebody else OR we could pay double what we were paying. No thank you.

It was good. They do a very good job and high quality work.

The work was B, because they missed some spots where my lawn needed to seeded.

They were lovely. They were nice to work with and I trust them at my home. I like working with them and I would not stop using them.

They mow my yard, they do spring clean up, they do my irrigation, they winterize my irrigation, they do my back flow test and they have a handyman service and I use them for that too.? They clean my gutters and my french drains.? They do everything.? They're my go-to people.? I've been living here for eleven years and they saw me moving out of my house and they stopped by and they thanked me for allowing them to provide service.? All A's for them.? I've already told them if I moved back they got to come to where I'm living.

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They are great. They did a nice job. They are a little slow to respond. Some things that they planted died and they come back out and they replace it. They got around it eventually.

Extremely low quality. They hire very unskilled workers that just try to finish a lawn as quickly as possible. They tore up my lawn pretty good. I was constantly calling asking for their guys to slow down, but it didn't do any good. Very poor customer service, even worse quality. I called twice in June of 2016 to complain to have them slow down because they were flying through with large commercial mowers and tearing up grass with the tires as they would spin out. Huge spots everywhere. So I called and cancelled never got a call back. They just kept coming out for another two months after I cancelled and stopped paying. Then wanted to sue me for the work done after I cancelled.

The guys at BTB got in and out quickly, doing a good job on our mulch removal as they usually do.  We've used BTB for mulch replacement and removal, bed improvements, yard care, water systems, and more since moving to Parkville a few years back.  They do good work at a fair price, and our neighbors have used them as well.  The only hit on them at times is communication - I've had several instances of miscommunication or misunderstandings in my dealings with them, but owner Patrick Vogt is usually able to smooth things over.  His guys work hard and I'll continue to include them in bids for our home.

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• By the Blade was hired by my townhouse association approximately 5 years ago.  During this time they have destroyed flower, vegetables, newly planted grass and seed.  They have promised reimbursement but never followed thru.  Last year and this year so far they are mowing with equipment that is ineffective.  The blades obviously are not sharpened and the mowers are not level. Consequently the lawns are not mowed..only laid down while other parts are scalped.  Deep ruts are left with every service.  The trimming is sloppy at best. It is half done with many parts of the property missed altogether,  We were also promised a major edging/trimming annually this has not happened in 3 years. 
• Many calls have been made with promises of walk throughs etc but nothing has happened to remedy the problems.  This company is paid close to 30000.00 a year for their service.  Their contract will be up next year.,hopefully the association will not repeat this mistake.  Hopefully others in our situation will not make this mistake initially.
• This review is made as a last ditch effort.  We have been ignored for quite some time by this company..but the checks have been accepted.  

Patrick was very professional and informative when I received the quote for the sprinkler system.  It was easily the most affordable and I was looking to install rotary sprinkler heads so I chose By the Blade to perform the installation.  I was on the schedule within two weeks which was wonderful, however communication was sometimes spotty and I was not sure which days the installers would be at my house.  The sprinkler system turned out great and I already have lush grash in the front of my house with plans to seed in the back over the next week or two.

I went to Cripple Creek Rock Company to look at materials for building a retaining wall to prevent an erosion issue in my front yard.  At first I was going to do the work myself... but I've already got too many projects and too little time, so I asked them for a landscape contractor recommendation.  By The Blade Landscaping was the name of the contractor that they recommended highly for completing this type of work.
Being an Angie's List member, obviously the first thing I did was go home and check them out.  Quite a few C's, D's and F's -- uh oh, not good.  It took another trip back to Cripple Creek, and yet another strong recommendation by their staff, before I decided to bite the bullet and give By The Blade a try.
As it turned out, I made the right choice.  First, after hearing that I wanted the stone retaining wall to coordinate as closely as possible with the stonework on the front of my house, he recommended a different material than what I had chosen.  I went back to Cripple Creek (a third time) to look at his recommended material, and it was indeed a much better match, and no significant difference in price.
With an unseasonably warm March, an opportunity presented itself to get the job done earlier than I had thought.  Called Patrick, and set-up a date and time for the installation.  He and his employees were here when promised, and after walking through the job once again to make sure that we were on the same page, they got started.  Three days later, the job was done, and it was done right -- not just in appearance, but in proper construction technique for a retaining wall.  While this job required a lot of earth-moving, they finished off the job properly with mesh underlay to help hold the upper soil until grass grows back in, and leveled everything out properly both above and below the new wall.
One thing to be aware of: he is definitely into the practice of suggestive upselling.  He's persuasive but not pushy, and I didn't mind at all - the guy's in business and he has every right to try to suggest other ways to make an extra buck.  I even had him provide a quote for the flagstone pathway he was recommending, but in the end, I just had him do the retaining wall work to stay within my budget.
In summary, while other Angie's List members may have had difficulties in the past, my own experience in the present with Patrick and his employees at By The Blade Landscaping was an "all A's" experience.  I would call him back to perform other work for me (perhaps that flagstone pathway someday) without hesitation and with confidence.

I used him  for more than a year and the bills were always inaccurate and the guy never once, not once stopped by to see how his crew had been doing or check to see if I was satisfied.  One month my bill was $140 and the next month it was $720 and the following month is was $75.  Mind boggling for mowing a lawn that was $35 per mow at 4x per month for maybe 8 months out of the year.  It wasn't until I called and pestered him that I got a response.  I wouldn't know him if I passed him on the street.  He was ill prepared to talk about the charges.

I kept asking Patrick for everything in writing but he would just give it to me over the phone. They did not have the appropriate equiptment to build the bed, which any lawn service should. They tried charging me for an all day rental for a roto-tiller when it was only used a couple of hours. They tried charging me triple the price of what it would cost to rent one, which they didn't even tell me right away. They came with the truck, left 2 guys who didn't speak English so we couldn't talk to each other to do the work. They did the job which didn't take as long as they said it would. In fairness, the job the 2 guys did was good. Then the bill came. They were tacking on travel time from where they had been before which he never mentioned a word about. He quoted approximately $90.00 over the phone then tried charging me about $150.00. He argued with me over the phone about the price which he had quoted. He was unprofessional and insulting. He came very close to saying out loud that I was a "witch" and was insulting because of a disability that I have. He was even yelling at me and I eventually had to tell him to stop yelling at me. He did finally end up agreeing (very immaturely) to let me pay what he had quoted me. I would not recommend him to any body, for any reason, at any time. He was just very rude, unprofessional, lazy and dishonest. He should have put the estimate in writing so everyone was on the same page.

THE OWNER PROMPTLY RETURNED MY CALL AND SCHEDULED AN APPOINTMENT. HE WAS POLITE AND VERY PROFESSIONAL. FOR THE FIRST MONTH, THE MOWING WILL BE DONE ON A WEEKLY BASIS, THEN EVERY OTHER WEEK. THE PRICE MAY BE A BIT HIGH AND THE FREQUENCY OF THEIR MOWING MAY BE MORE THAN NEEDED, BUT THE WORKMEN SO FAR HAVE DONE A THOROUGH JOB.

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