Personal Touch Landscaping

We used this service for over 3 years to do our regular lawn maintenance twice a month. They would often come on random days and at different times/weeks with the assumption that as long as they showed up 2 times a month it was okay. A few weeks ago we noticed that they were no longer cutting our back yard as they always had. I had resolved to ask them next time they came, but they never showed up. It has now been about a month since the lawn has been cut, and instead of discussing it with them, I am just going to move on to a new company.

I have used them during the summer for several years. They are priced competitively and they do a good job with routine mowing. They will schedule work bi-weekly if you want. I would get someone else to trim your hedges.

First off let me preface this review by saying that this was not an easy job. Our pool shape is slightly uneven and the pool stones were not easy to remove. Several companies did not want to quote. So the work hit some bumps on the way. What I will say is that Joe the owner is good to his word and whatever issue happened, he absolutely made sure it was done or re-done to our satisfaction even though it meant that the job took longer than he had probably budgeted for. We are very pleased with the end result and would absolutely recommend this company.

I have been a customer for several years and have been very satisfied with their work both in weekly lawn service and tree trimming. Untill this year. Early in the Spring I called and asked for someone to give me a price on trimming our bushes and our crepe myrtls. I did not get response after calling several times and leaving voice mails. On one voice mail I asked "why am I such a bad customer that I can't get a call back or a quote". That got me a call back. They apologized and the lady said she was the only one in the office. Someone came out to do the work about a week or so later. My wife happened to be home they day they came and went over the job with the crew foreman. Our main concern was to get the bushes back away from the pool so we could walk around it. And we wanted to leave the height in bushes for shade. They took that as their only concern and did not do any shaping or trimming anywhere else in the back. And the front didn't look very good either and I chalk that up to some freeze damage. But they did leave entire branches and bushes untouched. This is not their standard of work. I called to complain and asked that someone come out to inspect the work before I pay. I have the check waiting. And again I never got a response after several phone calls. So we sent an e-mail complaining about the service and the non responsiveness. That led to a call back asking ME to call the owner on his cell phone. So I called and he was defensive about the work his crew did and what they were told to do. He never even inspected the work in back yard. But drove by the front yard.He apologized about the not calling back and said he was very busy in the Spring. I asked again what made me such a bad customer. He told me that he "I allready apologized for that and if I continue to give him attitutude he's going to have to come over and put this to an end" I'll let the readers decide what that means. I don't know what happened. We have been a customer for years never had a real complaint. And they have even called me in the past to suggest cutting trees etc. Now this year we fell to a lower priority.

The initial experience when I called was good. But not after the work was done. After it was done, the water line was leaking. Also they messed up the grading on one side of the house, so we had really muddy water on one side of the house. A year later there is no grass because of this. I called them many times and they promised a date that they would come fix the problem , but they never came. One day they said that Joe, the owner had came to fix the problems. I checked with my tenant and none of the problems was fixed. I called them again, and they never returned my call. This was last year, July or August. I was tired of them so I didnt call them anymore. Recently in April this year, I had an inspection of the home done , and the inspector said that the water from the sprinkler pipe is leaking and it needs to be fixed and the grading needs fixed. Two of the bushes in the front yard are now dead as a result of the sprinkler not being installed properly. One tree in the front yard was dead and it costed me several hundreds dollar to have it replaced. I decided to give Personal Touch Landscaping a try. I have called them today and left a voicemail. In the mean time I am writing this review hoping it would help my situation. I agree with other reviews that Joe is a good and honest person but communication between the office and his crew really messed up. When I first called PTL, they were graded A on Angie's List and now they are graded B. I hope that they would response to mine and other customers' problem so that they can get their business back. updated 6/18: after many attempts to call them and left a voicemail, I was able to speak to a person and she said they would call me to schedule an appointment for this week. I said thanks and waited. Noone ever called. It was last week. Today is a new week and I have left them another voicemail.

The price was agreed upon and the work was scheduled. The lawn irrigation crew came and performed an excellent installation and did a fairly good job of cleaning up the site after they had completed their work. My problem with the company was with the re-sodding of grass part of the contract. Due to an error, an entire side of my house was not re-sodded with grass. I paid in full for the job believing that all the work had been done. After discovering that one side of my home had not been re-sodded with new grass, it took many phone calls and at least two weeks to arrange for their crew to come out to bring and install the missing grass. To be fair, they informed me after I finally was able to reach them, that they had lost several key personnel and had fallen far behind in their work. I would definitely use them again for landscaping and or lawn sprinkler work. Joe Lane, the owner of the company is in my opinion, a good and honest businessman. The company's work is outstanding but their communication with customers definitely need a lot of improvement.

Let me first mention the good: the actual installation days were extremely fast, very careful, and high in quality. There were maybe fifteen guys working on my property, and it was just beautiful. Another compliment: they employ a guy named Tegan who is pretty much first-rate. He strikes me as knowledgeable, honest, and basically the best thing going at PTL. If you are going to hire these guys, you want Tegan managing your job. The problems I had with Personal Touch, though, were legion. Communication with their office and landscaping crews is pretty bad. Calls and messages sometimes go unanswered, and I can't tell you how many times they said and quot;someone will be there tomorrowand quot; to have that not materialize. Towards the end of getting the project done, Tegan showed up at my house when I wasn't even home, because the office told him everything was ready to go without telling me. Another example: when they broke one of my pool pipes installing a fence, it was a holiday weekend, so I can cut them a little slack. But, here's my pool turning into a swamp and the office phone, owner's phone, carpenter's phone, email, nothing is getting a reply. The best thing I got was the carpenter telling me twice daily that he was and quot;on his way,and quot; but never showing up. I've alluded to the pipe fiasco. This was probably what put my relationship with PTL into a tailspin. Again, their carpenter was installing a fence, accidentally popped a supply line to my pool, was very apologetic, and promised to return later that day or the first thing the next day to fix it. I literally never saw him again. I still have his post digger in fact. I called him the next day, and he said he'd be here at 4pm. Then he called me at 11pm to apologize. The next day, he'd be here in the afternoon. Never showed up. Finally, the following day, I called a plumber myself. When he was here, the carpenter was nervous about breaking the bad news to his boss, Joe Lane, so I can only imagine that Joe wasn't getting the full story, or he would have made an effort to fix things. That said, it goes back to bad communication, which is the fault of the organization as a whole, not just one insensitive and dodgy carpenter. After the pipe, in trying to rearrange compensation with PTL, I had occasion to reexamine the invoices and estimates. I'm no landscaper, sure, but I'm also no idiot, and noticed that some of the work that had been estimated, but never done, had been paid by accident. Specifically, we all agreed to abandon the installation of a gate on my fence. The gate became the object of great conflict between Mr. Lane and I, because I expected to be refunded the cost of installing the gate which never got installed. Mr. Lane offered me $30, which is a ridiculously low offer for a four foot gate. Add to this a few other points of dissatisfaction with the actual work performed (the incomplete cable trellis installation in particular), and I think it's fair to say that I became a thorn in Mr. Lane's side. I disputed the charge with my credit card, and eventually Mr. Lane made an acceptable offer to rectify things. I won't bother with the whole story here, but I found that during that dispute, Mr. Lane was professional and mostly kind, but stubbornly attached to my money that was already in his possession unfairly. If he were to reply here, he'd accuse me of being impossible to please. I'll admit to being impatient by this point... over a month of waiting for the job to be finished, plus the problem with the pool... and maybe that made me more strident than I would have been otherwise. However, I leave it to other members to judge: I think $30 for a gate is absurd on its face, and the rest of our conflict basically boiled down to (again) bad communication. Let me just try to see the other side one last time: I do know that during this fifty or so days, Mr. Lane's truck was stolen, and he lost one of his crew foremen. It was also the busy season. These are reasons to excuse the many things that went wrong in this job. Nevertheless, Houstonians, there are 500 landscapers looking to work for you. I won't choose this company again.

Called for sprinkler repair--was told since they did not put in the sprinkler system, they were too busy to take on new clients. won't be calling again....didn't ask what the repair was to see how difficult it was.

Spinkler system is great, fully installed without wires everywhere, same with lighting, they had electrician come in and put in line for wiring so did not use that fron walk plug you see everyone using. Everything is starting to grow in now despite the heat wave and looks just wonderful. I would upload picture, but looks like they do not do that anymore.

Overall great work except for communication of what types of plants we wanted. They said they would call us from their nursery to tell us what looked good at the time and they did so. However, they did not convey that the plants that my wife really wanted would not be in season for another 3-4 weeks. If we would have known thta we would have simply delayed the planting until the desired plants were available. instead of taking plants that were not our first choice.

Personal Touch Landscaping had previously trimmed trees at our home. I thought they did a fantastic job at the time. I spoke to the supervisor that was on sight about additional services their company rendered and was told that if it was outside then they would do the job. In March, I contacted Personal Touch Landscaping and asked for a quote to have an ash tree planted in our yard. I was told that someone would be by between Wednesday and Friday of that week to give me a quote. Friday came and went and I still did not have quote for a tree. On Monday, I called Personal Touch again and left a message informing them that I had not received a quote for the tree but I was still interested to have someone come by and again try and get a quote. No response from the company then or any other time I have called, I only get a recording. I will not use this company again nor will I recommend them to my friends or neighbors.

Since it appeared that Personal Touch Landscaping had no interest in our project they were deleted from further consideration.

it went great , took 2 days , the guys did a great job, made sure it was 100% before finishing and even added a little extra request at no charge

Mr. Joe Lane, the owner of Personal Touch Landscapes came out, we discussed the sprinkler system and possible revitalization of the back flower bed. I was provided a plan and written estimate for the work. I felt the price was fair and a time was set to begin the work. The crew came out and began the sprinkler system installation on Friday afternoonon 2/25/11 and finished it Saturday morning 2/26/11. At that time, the large back bed was cleaned of weeds and debris. Mr. Lane offered suggestions for revitalizing the large back bed with new plantings and we set a time on Monday, 2/28 to meet at a nursery to see the plants. I asked that he also work on two front beds that needed new plantings. He agreed, and we met as planned and picked out plants. Mr. Lane listened to my ideas and was amenable to a couple of changes I suggested. He stayed to have the plant selections loaded and even went to another plant nursery to pick up what was not available there. His crew of 5 showed up with the plants that afternoon around 4 PM and had the job completed by 6:00 PM. As mentioned in the paragraph above the crew provided excellent work and all of those who worked on these installations were courteous, thorough, and completed the work quickly and efficiently! They also did a good job of clean-up afterward the job was finished. I will definitely use Personal Touch Landscapes again!

We had agreed to trim off all branches pointing at my neighbor's house. The person who came to do the estimate also said they'd tie off the branches so it would not be necessary to get in my neighbor's yard. When it came time to trim the tree, they said they weren't going to tie up the branches and would need access to my neighbor's yard. He said if they didn't get access to it, they'd charge me for the trip and not trim the tree. They also left a large branch pointing upwards towards my neighbor's house. Then told me it was not part of the agreement for them to trim it. If they trim it, it'd be $25. The whole job to trim the tree was $50. I felt like they try to nickel and dime you once they start work. Would not recommend them.

It is really hit and miss when they are going to show up to do the job. They are friendly and apologetic when I call, however its always about 50/50 if they really are going to come and do the work. Also, I have had multiple times when I have asked them to pull weeds in addition to mowing, and then find out that they didn't pull any weeds.

We are very pleased with the outcome - we have received many compliments on our patio so far. Joe and his team are hard workers and Joe is very responsive and eager to please. I have referred others to him and will definitely use him again in the future.

Installed sprinkler system and fertigation system. It took them one long day and they were in a hurry to leave. I got very little explanation of how system worked and am still having a problem with setting the watering schedule. I had some dead sod along the side of my house and I asked them if there was too much shade for the grass to grow successfully. They told me that I would have no problem with the grass if it was watered correctly. I agreed to have the sod replaced, but it never grew and I again have dead sod. I would have paid to have them put rock or something else in but I trusted their judgement. Now I will have to pay to have the new sod removed and something else put in. Also, they left trash in the yard. To their credit, I called and someone came out and picked up most of it.

I conducted the whole business over the phone as I was in Canada at that time. They did all the work for me and they were awesome. They did a great job.

He is scheduled to start the work in June. The owner of the company came out and he was very presentable and very professionally dressed. He had an identifiable uniform and called before he came, which was our agreement. He was on time. He told me where the valves would be installed and the type of equipment that would be used. He gave me warranty information. He had a written proposal by the time he finished so I had a record on his letterhead of the proposal. He was very thorough and had a lot of information about work that he had done in my area. He was very nice and a very professional young man. I had shopped around and his price was very good. I had contacted two other contractors. One of them was 50 percent higher in price and the other one did not return my calls. He answered my questions and I feel that he is qualified to do the work. He was very detailed.

Initially it went well. They were punctual and professional. But when I called back a day later to have them come back out to discuss some of the things they wanted to do, an appointment was made but they never showed up or even called to explain why.

I was excited at the get-go because not only was Mr. Lane prompt to show up for the scheduled estimate, but because his Angie's List rating was so high. I liked his estimate, but when I called back with a few follow up questions, I got nearly two weeks of run-around, excuses why he failed to call back as promised, etc. etc. Obviously, he has too much business booked already to spend his time with our job, but if he was a professional, he would have said so at the time we met. Instead, I've wasted two weeks of my time expecting him to get back to me, and he has neither done that nor shown the least courtesy towards me. So, I am looking for someone else to do the work now. But have lost two weeks of time.

They just gutted the whole thing and replaced it with shrubs and flowers. They put edging in, they did some stonework around the beds, and they trimmed the things that we kept. They did a great job. Their professionalism was great: they came in a timely manner, they gave me an estimate, their crew was courteous and professional, and they are very reliable. Landscaping is expensive but I think they are competitive.

They did NOT show up to even give me a quote on my project.

Joe Lane came out and gave me an estimate which was significantly more reasonable then a previous quote I received and within the budget I had outlined for the project. The work was started the week he gave me and the crew worked very hard when the weather permitted. I liked his crew and I love the patio......I would recommend Personal Touch Landscaping to all of my friends and family. Thank you Joe and crew for my new outdoor living space.