Landscaping is one of the easiest trades to enter and one of the hardest to evaluate from a quote. These questions surface most of what matters before money changes hands.
Insurance and licensing
Ask for a certificate of liability insurance and confirm workers compensation coverage. If someone is injured on your property without it, that exposure can land on you.
For irrigation work specifically, Texas requires a TCEQ licensed irrigator. Ask for the number. For tree work, ask about arborist credentials. Neither is a formality: both cover the parts of the job that can cause real damage.
Who is actually doing the work
Ask whether the person quoting will be on site, and whether the crew is employed or subcontracted. Neither answer is wrong, but you should know, because it determines who is accountable when something needs correcting.
Ask how they handle a problem discovered mid-project, because on Central Texas soil something usually is: rock where they expected soil, a drainage issue nobody saw, an irrigation line in the wrong place.
Soil and site questions
This is the fastest way to separate people who know this region from people applying generic advice. Ask which soil you have and what that means for the plan. Anyone who does not distinguish caliche from blackland clay is guessing.
Ask how they will handle drainage, what the watering schedule will be given your city restrictions, and whether the plant list is adapted to zone 8b. A confident answer to those three is a strong signal.
The written quote
A real quote itemizes: materials with quantities and sizes, labor, what is excluded, the timeline, and the payment schedule. A single number on a page is not a quote, it is a hope.
Ask what happens if plants die. A warranty on installed plants is common and reasonable, and how someone answers tells you how confident they are in their own soil preparation. Ask for references from work done at least two years ago, since anything looks good the week it is installed.
Red flags worth walking away from
Pressure to decide immediately, particularly with a discount that expires today. Legitimate contractors are usually booked out and have no reason to rush you.
Large deposits up front. A reasonable deposit covers materials; a demand for most of the total before work starts transfers all the risk to you. Cash-only arrangements and reluctance to provide a written quote both point the same direction.
Door-to-door solicitation after a storm, offering to do work with materials left over from another job, is a pattern worth recognizing. So is anyone unwilling to provide an insurance certificate or a licence number when the work requires one.
Checking work rather than references
Everyone provides references who will say something positive. More useful: ask to see work done at least two or three years ago, because anything looks good the week it is installed.
Drive past a couple. Look at whether the edges are still crisp, whether the plants have filled in or been replaced, whether hardscape has settled evenly. That tells you about base preparation and soil work, which is precisely what you cannot evaluate from a photograph.
Online reviews are worth reading for patterns rather than individual complaints. One unhappy customer means little; the same complaint appearing repeatedly, particularly about communication or unfinished work, means a great deal.
Getting the contract right
Everything agreed verbally should appear in writing, including plant substitutions if a species is unavailable, which happens routinely. Without that clause you may find something quite different planted and be told it was equivalent.
Define what completion means and tie the final payment to it. Include cleanup and disposal explicitly. Specify the warranty period for plants and for workmanship separately, since they are different things.
And agree how changes are handled. On Central Texas soil something unexpected usually appears, rock, an old slab, a drainage problem nobody could see. Knowing in advance how a change order is priced prevents the most common source of disputes.
Common questions we get about this
Three come up almost every time.
Can I do this myself? Usually part of it. The diagnostic work and the finishing details are where experience shows, and the preparation underneath is where shortcuts cost the most. Most homeowners who do it themselves succeed on the visible work and struggle with base preparation, drainage and timing.
When is the best time? In Central Texas, almost always autumn. Soil is still warm, air has cooled, and anything planted or installed has months to settle before summer stress arrives. Spring works but races the heat.
What does it cost? Any number quoted without seeing the property is a guess, because our two soils, the slope and the access change the work substantially within a few miles. What we can say is that the invisible preparation is where the real cost sits, and where the cheapest bid has usually economized.
Comparing landscapers?
Ask us these questions too. We would rather answer them up front.