Ecoscape Environmental Design

We had a small yard and were looking at a revamp on the order of $ 20−30k. Apparently this is not enough to warrant Bill’s time as he never actually gave us a design even though we put down the deposit. On top of this, it had taken so long that when we finally asked for our money back, he said that he couldn’t find the paperwork and gave us only $ 300 back instead of the $ 600 we gave. I also had lost my paperwork, which just goes to show that no matter how fancy the designs in the window, don’t trust them, especially if you are not a big client.

I have somewhat mixed feelings (being a rather picky/​critical fellow), but overall I’m satisfied. The good points: very friendly staff, lots of detailed docs concerning the design and terms, a very all-​natural philosophy (no use of landscape fabric or poisons) and very nice results. But there were a few things that marred the experience, as detailed below.
I had Ecoscape redesign my small front yard (about 900 sq ft) in June 2010. It consisted of replacing the existing grass lawn with xeriscaped plants, including new soil and cedar mulch, two new berms, some new boulders, and a drip irrigation system. When the design was done and the official estimate was presented, it was almost 60% over their original guess (although in fairness they warned that was purely a guess). At the time, that made me very uneasy, but I was partially invested already for the design work, and I wanted to get the work completed before too late into summer, so I signed the contract. In the end, the grand total was actually about 30% higher than the original guess… still a bit more than I’d budgeted, but not so far out of line as the first estimate.
The results were quite nice, and should only look better in coming years as the plants mature and fill in a bit. It’s more park-​like than yard-​like (quite a lot of mulch), but that should be alleviated as the plants mature and spread out. So based purely on aesthetics so far, I would give them 4 stars.
Unfortunately, one of the two small spruces utterly died in only a month. Bill came out to have a look, and I casually asked about getting it replaced. He said he’d «go back and come up with an estimate». I never got an estimate or any more communications after that, and I was kinda sad that for the high cost of the job, they wouldn’t replace one of the more major plants in the design despite such a quick death. That policy is explicit in the contract, but it’s still disappointing. Other companies in the area (e.g., Sun & Shade, Native Edge) tend to have one year warranties on their plants, so if this is a concern for you, Ecoscape is probably not the right choice.
They also claimed they would have two follow-​up visits to adjust the watering schedule. When I had another company do the winterization blow-​out (Ecoscape charges $ 75, which seemed excessive, so I had another company do it for $ 25), I took the battery out of the controller and noticed that it was still set to water every other day… the final setting after a month was supposed to be only twice a week. So either they forgot or there was some miscommunication about this part. The fact that I didn’t opt into their maintenance plan may have simply made it financially unattractive to deal with me further.
So overall things went pretty well, and I’m happy with the way the yard looks, but the lack of a plant warranty and the seemingly high prices are certainly negatives worth considering.