Alltex Nursery Landscapes

First let me say that we have now spent $50,000 with these people over a three year period. This is a huge amount of money for us. When the crew comes to do the landscaping they are incredibly organized. There is no loitering. These people work as a team from morning to night and only take a lunch break. They are polite and friendly. The trouble begins after they leave. Big, tall weeds start growing up through the material they have laid and in the gravel. Just clearing the weeds provides my husband with a full time job. They will not come back to help. They couldn’t even come back the second summer to replant some plants and one tree that had died. So the third summer we wanted the entire project completed. This total project was bog. They replanted a tree, planted grass, made several new flowerbeds, and built a very nice patio. The privacy fence they built for us is beautiful. They had to remove. All the gravel they had installed the previous year because of the weeds. It was replaced with river rock. The business owner PROMISED me that we would never have to go through the weeding and maintenance again. His son’s company would come out monthly and take care of the weeds. We also have one sick tree, but they will not come to work with it either. The new sprinkler system they installed needs adjustment. Three heads are broken. I have called and called., demanded and begged. I am finally completely worn down, and will probably have to fire them though they obviously don’t care. I am so very disappointed.

This work was done is 2014. I am now having to have the deck dismantled and reinstalled because poor workmanship by ALLTEX. I had instructed ALLTEX to be sure and set the boards with grain facing upwards so that water would not cup on top of the deck. ALLTEX did not do this consistently. ALLTEX also did not use hold down cleats between the planks at each joist. Only about half the required cleats were installed. This has caused planks to warp because nothing was holding them in place. ALLTEX also did not use proper plank spacing such that I must add two 60 additional foot of IPE planks to conform to 1/8 inch spaces between planks.

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Please see under Landscaping for my full review.

However their worse mistake was faulty installation of the irrigation system.  The system had a number of leaks resulting in the loss of 20,000 gallons of water.  We use rainwater so that this loss emptied our reservoir so that we were wihout water for several days.  Alltex would not arrange to replace the water so that we had to call around to find someone with a water truck to refill our tank.  Alltex did pay for this water loss == over $1000.  But the irrigation woes did not end.  I was carefully monitoring water usage and found that the tank was losing water much faster than normal consumption.   I found a very wet spot which was another irrigation leak.  Yet another leak was found a month or so later.  They did repair these leaks however why did they not ensure that the system was leak-free in the beginning.

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The owner very much wanted the job.  He seemed knowledgeable about both hardscape, appropriate plants and irrigation systems.  However we never saw him during the actual job.  It turns out he had a medical problem and was incapacitated during the entire job.  He send out his son to supervise the job.  It was a mess.  The son had NOT been provided with the final agreed plan and was not carrying out the agreed work.  Also we had asked to approve the plantings prior to these being delivered to the site, this did NOT happen.  The workers were slovenly leaving cigarette butts, empty drink bottles and empty food bags around our yard.  In a number of areas the irrigation lines were left above ground.  Also the stone work was not properly set into the ground so that the concrete was showing -- not a professional installation.  Perhaps if the owner had actually supervised the work the end result would have been acceptable. 

Halfway through the job, we were told by ALLTEX that they had "forgotten" to include $8000 worth of work in the estimate.  This ended up making their bid higher than another bid we were considering. 

However their worse mistake was faulty installation of the irrigation system.  The system had a number of leaks resulting in the loss of 20,000 gallons of water.  We use rainwater so that this loss emptied our reservoir so that we were wihout water for several days.  Alltex would not arrange to replace the water so that we had to call around to find someone with a water truck to refill our tank.  Alltex did pay for this water loss == over $1000.  But the irrigation woes did not end.  I was carefully monitoring water usage and found that the tank was losing water much faster than normal consumption.   I found a very wet spot which was another irrigation leak.  Yet another leak was found a month or so later.  They did repair these leaks however why did they not ensure that the system was leak-free in the beginning.

I had offered to let Alltex do additional landscaping work after the first leak in exchange for the $1000 in lost water, however after waiting six months I finally asked for payment because no quote was ever offered.

The plus was that Alltex did make good on all the requested repairs, the minus was the amount of time and effort documenting the faults and getting the repairs done. 

06/04/2015:  Latest in the continuing ALLTEX installation.  Alltex also built a firepit for a gas burner to include connecting a gas line to the propane tank.  The distance is over 60 foot to the gas tank.  In trying to have the gas components installed I now find out that Alltex undersized the gas line. Alltex put in a 1/2 inch line.  Because of the distance the line should have been 1 inch in diameter.

Very good work, meticulous with good ideas that you haven't thought of

didn't use

Good

I called four Kerrville landscapers, one of which is the largest area landscaping company, two independent landscapers and Alltex Nursery, not the largest nursery, but a strong competitor. Only two responded. A rep showed up from largest landscaper, looked over the yard and indicated that it would be difficult, but that he'd get back to us. He never called back. Danny Massey, owner of Alltex Nursery came by, looked it over and indicated in a very positve manner that they could do it. He provided a written estimate two days later. I decided to accept his estimate and told him to proceed. A date was set which had to be slipped by one day because his crew had not finished a previous job due to inclement weather. Once they got started it quickly became apparent that it was not going to be a simple job. It turned out that there are large shelfs of limestone near enough to the surface that his crew couldn't dig the trenches deep enough with hand tools. They had to bring in a jack hammer and end up spending two days more to complete the job than was originally planned. They did an outstanding job and Danny stuck by his quote. I have nothing but good things to say about their work. Highly recommended.