Scapes Inc

We commissioned Scapes to build a patio, a wood burning fireplace, and to do extensive landscaping in our back yard. The design was beautiful, but the outcome was overall somewhat disappointing. The patio surface is concrete that has been scored and stained to look like flagstones. Sounds beautiful, right? It is beautiful from a distance, and at first glance when you step onto it, but we have multiple footprints embedded in the concrete where a worker evidently walked across the wet cement. Unbelievable, but true. We also have some unexplained white spots in the finish. Russell had various possible explanations, but no solutions except to acid-wash and re-coat the patio. Sadly, neither problem was solved by their efforts. Bottom line, Russell concluded that there is nothing to do but to live with footprints and white spots on the patio. Also, when we told them about a six-foot-long crack in the patio finish, they simply suggested we "watch" it over the next year. The stone fireplace with a stone seating wall around the perimeter of the patio is beautiful, but the fireplace smokes excessively out the front. When we contacted Russell about this, these were the options ultimately presented to us as solutions: 1. Lower the fireplace opening dramatically and create something that would look like a "pizza oven." 2. Install a gas line and ceramic logs and give up burning wood. 3. Light a fire at least an hour before we want to go outside. In other words, live with it. As one might expect, none of these options were satisfactory. While we appreciated the company's fast response fixing a sudden issue of water coming up between our house and patio, we know this shouldn't have happened in the first place. They'd evidently merely capped off a sprinkler head when they poured the patio instead of re-routing the water line, a shortcut that ultimately proved unwise. The landscape plants were just as disappointing. The shade plants that died in the first round of planting were not appropriate for their location in full sun. They replaced them with more appropriate plants that didn't survive the freeze we had in December. Interestingly, the same kind of plants in my front yard weren't damaged at all. Russell's response was that there was no guarantee against "acts of God." I'm now in the process of buying and replanting many of my landscape plants including three expensive, espaliered jasmine plants that were well over six feet tall and four feet wide. In Scapes' defense we did experience four cold nights last December here in Dallas. Except for the water issue previously mentioned, their response time on all issues has been slow. After looking back over the past year of our association with Russell and Davey, we simply don't have the confidence in their ability or their commitment to excellence to continue with our relationship or to recommend them. The design of everything was attractive, and the execution of the project has some success, but the failures are significant enough to be, all in all, disappointing.

We moved into a home in late November that had a barren backyard. Grass and fence and brick walls only. We called a couple of landscapers in mid-December. One came out promptly and was one was not responsive.
Davey Devlin (with a delightful Galway Irish accent) with Scapes, Inc, came to our home when he said he would and spent over an hour listening to what we wanted (low water and low maintenance needs, some evergreen, but with some nice colors from Spring to Fall). He then took our requirements and came back a couple of days later with one of their landscape architects/designers with drawings that presented what they proposed, as well as color pictures and plant descriptions and walked us through it all in detail (another couple of hours). We asked some questions, made some changes and the next week they came back again on time with the final plan. We signed off on it and Davey then made an appointment for us to go to Southwest Nursery with him to actually pick out the trees and shrubs that we wanted to plant for privacy, and to see what each of the other proposed plants would look like. We were in early January by then, and had to cancel the first time because of sleet/freezing rain, but he was flexible enough to accommodate our schedule. When we went out later that week, we made a couple of changes while we were at the wholesale nursery in what we wanted and Davey asked if they could install at the first nice weather date. They called and made an appointment and arrived in mid-January.

Davey's partner, Russel (from South Africa) and his crew came, dug, put in many, many bags of mulch and landscape/gardeners soil with fertilizer, built up the beds about 8-10 inches with the mulch,etc. replaced our backyard sprinklers with drip hoses and limited sprinklers just on the retained grass, and then planted everything. It took a little over two full days to get everything in. Russel set-up the sprinkler schedule and has come back twice to make sure everything is working well and has made necessary adjustments.
It is now mid-April and everything has survived and is flourishing, except for one small plant that Scapes will replace. We have been delighted with their services. They were professional and pleasant, and we are very well pleased. We will recommend them to anyone, and will use them again when next we need landscaping.

They arrived on time and completed the work within our budget.Russell also replaced my sprinkler system control box as it was malfunctioning for only the cost of parts.Would highly recommend them to anyone.

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