Morningstar Landscaping & Construction Inc.

Best experience we have had with any contractor.

Part of the yard has a severe slope and I wanted to level it up a bit to make it more useful and to control erosion. After considering a few options, I went with Morningstar. After contacting Jodi via Angies List she responded promply and got the process started. She arrived when she said she would. Submitted her bid as promised. She kept me informed as to when they could start and the order which things would happen. Her crew showed-up every day until the job was finished. Late in the process, we realized that additional fill dirt would be needed to complete the disired result. She took responsibility for the mis-calculation and absorbed all the labor cost associated with the additional dirt. Very fair. The wall turned out very nice. Unfortunately, you have to walk down the hill behind the house and look up to see it. Good thing we installed steps.

Jodi's guy did a great job. We barely new he was here while he was working. The outlets and wiring were done in a couple hours and everything was perfect. I highly recommend Jodi and her team for electrical needs and also for stone work. I had a flagstone patio installed by her and her team a couple years ago and it still looks brand new. Jodi is very professional and I always feel comfortable talking with her. It's nice to have a contractor that you can trust to do quality work and give you a good price as well.

I recently added a bedroom onto my house. To make room in my front yard for this addition I lost about 75 feet of natural limestone walkway. It was very important to me that the addition match the existing structure. My contractors succeeded. It was equally as important to me that the walkway replacement match what was left of the original walkway. I got bids from 4 different contractors. Jodi was not the highest nor the lowest. I chose her because of her professional demeanor which included her promptness for the original meet and greet, her ability to focus on the business at hand and the delivery of the proposal. When I told her I was hiring her she told me the exact date she could be here, weather permitting. I also told her I had an out of town trip scheduled and could she work around that because I wanted to be here for the process. As it turned out, it was pretty rainy the week before, but she was able to reschedule me to an earlier date to accomodate my desire to be present. She had 3 men work on my project and it was fascinating to watch. They were all very friendly and obligingly put up with my curiousity. I took several photos as the job progressed. I had to leave before they were completely done, but Jodi sent me pictures while I was gone. She was always very good about letting me know what was going on at any given time: i.e. the dilivery of stone, arrival of workers, cement truck arrival. etc. During her initial visit we discussed possible layouts. The new walkway had to closely pass a pretty good size tree and provide reasonable access to the drive way. The job also included removing about 4 feet of the original walkway that was not demolished by the contractor. When I returned from my trip on Saturday the walkway was done. In fact, hey had just left from finishing and cleaning up. They kept the worksite cleaned up every day. The walkway is beautiful. It does not match exactly the existing walkway because it is brand new and the original is 7 years old. I think that in about 6 months I won't be able to see a difference. They also did a great job of removing the remaining old walkway. Morningstar Lanscape did an excellent job. Jodi followed my directions exactly (at least to the best of her ability given various acts of nature). She kept in constant contact about the progress of the job and was readily available to address all my concerns. I will definitely use her again should the occasion arise and have already recommended her to my contractors. She told me she does outdoor lighting as well. This is on my to-do list so I will be contacting her for that project.

Jody from Morningstar Landscaping Inc called me and said that she's real busy and she cannot come out to give the consultation. I told her that's fine and if she has anytime to give me a call because they really have a good review in Angie's List and I would love to have the consultation with her. She never called. About a month ago, I called her again and left the message again, this time she texted me and was very rude. She was saying that she was on site and that it was so loud and she cannot make a call which was fine. I told her that I need to have this work done in my backyard and if could come out to check my yard, she told me that there will be an $80 consultation fee. She never discussed this thing and looked like she doesn't want to come out because she was busy. I'm not sure if this is the right company to go for.

They didn't win my business, they will not return calls

Morningstar is AMAZING. I honestly cannot say enough good things about Jodi and her guys. She came out to bid the project on a Friday, and we started work on a Monday. (We lucked out as she had a 2-week opening - I hear this never happens!) She was at the stoneyard on Sunday afternoon sending me photos of different stone to see which we preferred. They had it delivered and Martin and the guys started working immediately. The job site was ALWAYS clean (I have a 2 year old who plays out back, so this was important). They built the most beautiful stone wall I've ever seen. :) The amount of rebar they used to support the wall was incredible. We originally didn't want columns (because we were watching our costs) but Martin wasn't comfortable with the stability of the wall without columns, so they went ahead and put them in. Jodi only charged us a SMALL amount for additional stone and did not add any labor fees into the final bill. When they'd finished the stone, she brought in the wrought iron guys to finish out the job. They were prompt, also very clean, and finished up quickly. My husband is EXTREMELY picky and during the final walk of the project he pointed out very minor scratches and dings to the iron that most of us would never notice. Her guys didn't blink an eye at the request for touch ups. They did every last request that day. Jodi is also a master with plants, trees and grass. She had her guys add dirt to our beds (at no additional cost) because they looked a little low. She also had them mulch the beds at the end of the project just to give it a final face-lift (at no additional cost). A sprinkler was broken during the fence install (these things happen), and Jodi had a guy out to fix it three days later. We were out of town during that time so she personally came and watered our yard with the hose since we couldn't run the sprinklers. Can you say service?!?! I can't say it enough - she's amazing!!! We were thrilled with the final outcome and honestly every step of the project. She's always in contact with you, her team is awesome, and their work is beautiful. You can't go wrong with Morningstar!!!

Went very well. See previous comments.

I contacted Jodi via their website for a consultation/estimate on replacing our back yard deck with stone. I received a quick reply, noting that they were very busy and requesting what part of town I lived in, to facilitate the scheduling of an appointment. I replied with the city I lived in (Georgetown), and waited to hear back. 11 days later (this morning), I received an email from Jodi that I was on her books for an appointment today, though I had not received any other correspondence. In attempting to determine a time and location for the appointment, I mentioned again that I lived in Georgetown, at which time I was told that they do not currently serve my town. While I cannot speak to the quality of their workmanship, I was less than impressed by their professionalism and organization. They apparently never read my previous email of where Iived (which would have stopped the whole process anyway), and scheduled an appointment that they never notified me of. Additionally, their Angie's List listing shows 'Austin and Surrounding Counties' as the areas they service, and I live in a surrounding county. It would be nice if they were more specific in their descriptions of what their service areas are.

Jodi and her team came out and walked through several options for the project, and helped to design a perfect pergola for our back patio. The pergola is a completely custom design, with large cedar legs and a beautiful fan shaped canopy, all of which wrap around a circular shaped stone patio. The pergola is gorgeous, and they stained it a deep reddish brown color and ran power to install an outdoor outlet for lighting and power tool usage in the back corner of our yard. All work was completed within 2 days and the team left our yard cleaner than they found it. The quality of the materials and the workmanship is excellent and I could not be happier with the result! I will definitely call Morningstar for any future projects.

I had no problem using Jodi and company again. The quality of work on the patio was excellent and I expected the same on the additional landscaping in the backyard. Jodi and her crew delivered as expected. Now I just need to keep all of the new plants alive this winter and watch our new backward grow in the spring! Thanks Jodi - you have another happy customer!

Jodi was great to deal with - she was very knowledgeable about native plants and gave us good advice about how to save on costs. The team arrived on time each day and the project was completed on time - no hidden costs or anything. But, I will say that like all contractors, you have to watch what the guys are doing so that it's done to your specification. That said, they were perfectly willing to make adjustments and make sure we were happy with the work. All in all, I would use Morningstar again!

After my initial request for an estimate, Jodi made herself immediately available for a consultation. She made it clear that she places importance in using high quality materials to make sure the customer stays happy with the work long after it's complete. I received the proposal within a few days of our initial consultation. Jodi met with us a 2nd time to walk the project again for clarification and further discussion at our request. She also planned to prepare all of the documentation required for our HOA review. Unfortunately, during this process it became clear that we would be moving out of state so we've decided to not proceed with this project; however, based on our interaction with Jodi up to this point I have no doubt that we would have been very happy with the work.

It was a great experience. Jodi showed up on time and helped us decide the shape/size of our new patio. She knew what kind of stone to recommend and told us where to go and have a look at it. She was very knowledgeable about what would work best for our yard and what would be the most attractive. Her bid was presented immediately and was about the same as our other two bids. She seemed the most knowledgeable and involved so we went with her. Her crew were excellent. She showed up each morning to get them started and checked in with us regularly. They worked continuously all day and even worked Saturday to finish up. It finished right on schedule and they cleaned up everything completely. Most important the patio is very attractive and exactly what we asked for. We were so impressed that we are currently using her irrigation crew to put in a new sprinkler system.

We got the estimate and decided to proceed with the project after we negotiated it down a bit. They were supposed to do a much bigger job, but Jodi did not measure our yard before starting. Halfway through the project, she tells me she's going to need $3500 more (plus $1000 for electricity work she said they did) to finish the job or they're going to stop working. (We had already given her $10,000 upfront of the $13,000 estimate.) I agreed to forgo our plant budget of $1300 to use and gave her an additional $1000 check, that should not have even come out of our pocket in the first place since it was not our mistake. They have not completed the project and the backyard is a mess. The stone work that they did turned out very nice and they cleaned up after themselves for the most part. But so many other things have been left unfinished (with so many additional costs) that we're going to have to hire another company to finish the job since Morningstar quit.

The team arrived in the morning and was very friendly and professional. The crew cleaned up after their work everyday. They kept me informed throughout the project and checked in with me frequently. Jodi checked in with her crew every morning and if I was around gave me an update of the project. It took about 4 days to complete the whole project.

Jodi came out to survey our yard, listened to our concerns, and offered several suggestions on what she felt would be a good fit for our project. It was important to me to create a unique outdoor space that didn't look like other yards in our neighborhood and we could not be happier with the results! Jodi worked with her team to design a custom covered patio with a vaulted cedar ceiling. The patio cover is stunning and well scaled to our two-story house, and the wood that was chosen for the beams and supporting columns was very high quality. While planning these details, Jodi worked with us and our HOA to help us come up with a design that would meet our expectations as well as the HOA guidelines. After the patio cover was complete, the masonry team built out two large, curved stone patios that are absolutely gorgeous and expertly crafted. I watched the stone masons at several points during construction and was very impressed to see them repeatedly pick out specific stones, individually shape them for a perfect fit, and then build out the patio design like a giant puzzle. They then encased our BBQ grill in stone with counter tops on each side in addition to beautiful curved benches. The stone masons also built a large, octagonal fire pit into the second patio that they framed with three stone benches. The end result is absolutely gorgeous and the service was outstanding throughout the project. Jodi kept in touch with us every step of the way, walked us through what to expect next, and even evolved the design as progress was made. Several times, she suggested changes that I never would have thought of that made the design even better. The crews arrived on time as expected each day, work was completed in the time we expected, and we were kept well informed throughout the project. We are very happy with Morningstar Landscaping's work and will definitely hire them again for our next project! I would highly recommend Jodi and her crew, especially for larger, more complicated projects.

I live in South Austin and have used Morningstar Landscaping three times. The owner, Jodi, has always responded promptly to my inquiries and requests for an appointment. This last job we contracted with them was relatively small compared to our previous projects. I was pleased to see that Jodi was just as enthusiastic and interested in doing this project as she was in my two larger projects. Scheduling the work was very easy, and the actual labor went much faster than we had initially anticipate. The crew showed up when promised. The front of my house and around the sidewalk was left in pristine condition when they left. Our front lawn slopes downward so we wanted steel borders where the lawn meets the sidewalk to keep our soil/lawn from eroding after rains. They also installed approximately 4 foot borders around my three oaks and filled that area with thin layer of Cibolo stone, thereby enabling the tree roots to receive more water without competing with our St. Augustine grass for water. They also replaced the grass/weed strip between the sidewalk and street (commonly known as that "hellish strip") with Cibolo stone in order to cut back on water usage. This required one of the men to remove approximately 4 inches of dirt, clay, grass and weeds. A thin layer of sand was then spread over the leveled area and then a load of Cibolo stone was spread on top. Every couple of feet a slab of Oklahoma flagstone was snuggled in as stepping stones for contrast. This is the same flagstone that was used when they built our patio in the backyard. We had their full attention from start to finish. This project was completed in 1-1/2 days. The crew was wonderful and did a super job, and once again it was a very pleasant experience. I would definitely recommend Morningstar Landscaping.

Nothing. It didn't go at all. Non communication is a major factor with this company.

All I can so is WOW! It is beautiful. My first contact with Jodi was last year for an estimate on my back patio. By no fault of Jodi (owner), I could not have the work performed until this year. It was well worth the wait! When I saw the beautiful stone being used I asked to have the front patio and walkway done at the same time. I was kept informed at each step of the job. So much care and special touches were put into the work which makes everything look so much more amazing. They even cleaned up everything every day before leaving. Jodi, Raphael and crew are amazing and definitely know their stuff. I will ask them to come back when I am ready for the next project. If you are looking to have a small job or a total transformation, do not hesitate to give Jodi a call. You will not be disappointed. Thank you Morningstar Landscaping!

My new Patio and surrounding garden look like a 'cozy' English garden. I just love it ! Comments overall:a) Design of patio - Jodi listened well to what I was looking for, and came up with a wonderful design) Her foreman, Rafael (has worked with Jodi >10 yrs), was incredibly professional, pleasant, and very innovative himself with ideas (I realized I had asked for steps in the wrong place, so talked with Rafael and Jodi - it was 'no problem', we'll change it to make it work for you. And they did, and it was much better than my original idea!c) The team that came each day were prompt (here at 8am), and worked usually at least 8-10 hrs each day to get the job done.d) After the work was done, they cleaned everything up, hauled away debris, etc as soon as the job was finished. Bottom line - they did an absolutely WONDERFUL job with the design and creation of my patio and garden area. As I told Jodi, the only thing she forgot to do, was give me some extra business cards to hand out to all of my neighbors who dropped by and RAVED about how wonderful the garden looks!

Jodi Phillips (Morningstar Landscaping) and her crew had done some extensive hardscaping in the fall. Because our experience with her was so positive, we contacted her again this spring to do the selection, placement and planting of drought resistant, native plants. Because we are a retired couple we wanted as little upkeep as possible. Plus - I wanted lots of color and flowers that would attract butterflies. Jodi sent me a list of plants that she thought would match what I was looking for. She was right on target - she is wonderful at visualizing what plants would look good and work well together. The outcome is amazing. I am so happy with the results. Due to unexpected rain, there were a couple of delays in our project, but true to our first experience with Jodi, both she and her crew were here as promised and completed the work on time. Everything was planted, watered, and all debris was cleaned up and hauled away. She is awesome ... I would not hesitate to hire her again and would highly recommend Morningstar Landscaping for any of your landscaping or hardscaping design - you won't be disappointed!

This company has a man who does good quality work with flagstone and masonry. Beyond that, I cannot recommend.

I did a lot of research before hiring this company. So many of the reviews are so great so I am not sure what happened with our project. We had stone work done which worked out great but the landscaping project was poorly planned and was not timely. In fact we are still waiting on a few bushes. I first contacted Jodi in January of 2011 trying to get a head start with scheduling for the spring. We still had to work around many other scheduled jobs. There were several times during the project that we were to have installation of plants but no one showed and no phone call whic was very frustrating. The planting began mid April and lasted through mid May and this was not a large project, just planting in already existing beds. After the project was "completed" many of the plants did not survive as they were planted in the wrong areas. I realize the summer was incredibly hot and dry but I was adamant that after the investment we made I would do everything I could do to keep them alive by doing a lot of watering by hand and covering some of the plants with large umbrellas to keep the hot sun off during the heat of the day. I have hesitated to write this review but feel very strongly that our experience must be noted. We are now in the process of replacing many of these plants because according to several landscapers that i have again had visit the property said they were planted in the wrong areas. I am not sure why our experience was so different than others but am very frustrated now that we are replacing because of poor planning. I contacted Jodi the end of October to see if she would be planting the missing bushes in the spring and if she could offer suggestions on those bushes that never made it. Her response was that she was out of town for an extended period and she was working on "trying to schedule out pre-paid clients." After a couple more attempts we have heard nothing. I know landscaping can be a scheduling nightmare but this was ridiculous. We are having a much better experience this time around even though landscapers are crazy busy.

Jodi (The owner of Morningstar as far as I can tell) came out and spray-marked a couple of design ideas on my yard so I could see what it might look like once completed. I decided on a design and she sent me some proposals. After changing my mind maybe half a dozen times we finally settled on a proposal I was happy with and she began the project. I should also mention that she threw in the extra flagstone to cover my existing 10x10 patio for free. Throughout the project Jodi stayed in touch with me and event sent me pictures of the progress when I was out of town. She accommodated every request I made and her guys were always polite and professional. Once the patio was completed, I noticed the fire-pit was considerably taller than I was expecting. Jodi explained that it was built to their standard size but she offered to re-size it for me which I thought was incredible. This was after it had already been stoned in and mortared. I fully expected to have to pay extra to have this fire-pit re-sized but her guys came back and cut the masonry down and re-stoned the fire-pit to the height I wanted at no charge. For the Pergola I paid the extra money to have Morningstar stain the pergola for me. Jodi took color samples that I emailed her from websites and had them color matched to get the exact color I wanted. The Pergola looks amazing. I don't plan on doing any more patio work, but if I did I wouldn't hesitate to use Morningstar Landscaping again.