Ecotopes

First of all, my yard is beautiful I would like to give them that. However, I truly fail to acknowledge that if I am spending 30k on a yard that and quot;I'm a South Austin artistand quot; flies when it comes to terrible customer service and response. Steve is VERY responsive when you are consulting and when you pay him your $1000+ fee for his concept. However, even after you put down the deposit to and quot;ensure your date to startand quot; don't be fooled. We did this in April to be completed in June. He didn't even start until July. By the time he was done with demo, rock etc it was WAY too hot to put in the 8k in plants that I had purchased. So now either they go in and get burned up, or go in in Oct and possibly freeze because the roots can't take hold. Not a great option. Also between the July and October events I could not really get in touch with Steve and when I did it was all excuses. I finally had to let my husband deal with him.
Also a word to the wise, if you are getting any kind of plants or trees know that even if they die within a couple weeks of him putting them in, they are not under any warranty and you are just out that plant and that money. I had a total of 9 plants and two trees die. I contacted him and sent pictures, to this day I still haven't heard anything back.
I did have to have another landscaper come in and fix the obvious water pooling, washing and damage because Steve didn't put in the proper drains for the heavy Austin rains. Overall, beautiful work. But given that I have had to put another 8k into it to replace and fix things he should have taken care of I would not recommend him at all.

It went smoothly. I had used them 3 or 4 years ago for my front yard which I love (and get compliments on all the time!) I love Steve's designs and concepts... very fun and unusual... and functional!

They clean up tree debris, add mulch topsoil and fix the irrigation system when needed. They are great! They did an awesome job last month too. There were a bunch of leaves everywhere and they cleaned all of them up.

Steve came over to take photos and look over our yard, which has a new pool in it. We were clear we wanted no grass, and that we wanted as much in the way of native plants as we could manage. I tried my best to get across the details of what we were looking for and what the basic necessities were.
It did take several weeks for Steve to get back to us. He came back to our house with a sketch of one zone and an estimate. There was no plan for the second zone. The sketch we did have left no place for us to put lawn furniture because the design was to have these sort of mini sand dunes covered in zoysia grass which were to function as our outdoor seating.
For us, the design missed the mark. I was hoping for something innovative, so in some ways I guess I can't fault Ecotopes for coming up with something that was edgy. But when we expressed that we were not happy with the design, I felt that Steve liked his design and was going to defend that. I needed someone more interested in making me and my husband happy with a design that took into account our needs and wants.
I wouldn't give Ecotopes a big thumbs down - in fact, I have a feeling that this company could work well for someone else. But it didn't work out for us. Steve seems like a solid landscape designer, it was just a poor fit this time. My husband was unhappy that we paid for a design thath we didnt

Ecotopes performed a complete "Extreme Makeover" of our plain-Jane, weed-infested front, side and back yards. They started with an innovative and creative design incorporating native plants, flagstones, zoysia grass decomposed granite (DG) and river rocks. Our house sits on a slight slope from east to west. A French drain had been installed possibly as long as 50 years ago and had long since stopped draining. We have two mature trees -- one in front and one in back. Everything else that we had in the yards consisted of sparse grass, weeds, old stonework and a handful of native plants on the corner near the street. After we approved the design, Ecotopes took almost everything out of our yards, including the ancient French drain, which was no small task. (Removal of the concrete driveway was subcontracted.) They then installed an irrigation system, a DG driveway, walkways, patio stone, and probably the most dramatic feature -- a dry creek bed leading from the front, along the north side and back to the back street (Our back yard faces another street). This feature is both visually appealing and practical (Not that we get enough rain on our property to actually fill the creek bed!). They then completed the design with the rest of the features which include a wide variety of native plants chosen based on when they bloom throughout the year, so we would have color as often as possible. They also installed a steel box planter in a corner behind our deck where the soil is too shallow to support plants. The transformation was like night to day. These guys worked furiously to get this job completed, then returned for several follow-up visits. We were so pleased with their work that we contracted with them to continue services on a monthly basis. We like the fact that we can still get out and putter around in the yard ourselves -- raking leaves, pulling weeds, etc., but if we don't get around to it, the experts know exactly what needs to be done. We also received a discounted one-year membership to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. Before and after pictures of our project, and other similar projects can be viewed on Ecotopes' website.