Landscaping Barrie, TOUGH OAKS Ralph J Young

If you are looking for excellent work done; right, on time and on budget with the best customer service around - Cynthia and Ralph are the ones to call! They have handled multiple jobs for us restoring paver stone patios and fixing messes left by construction and renovation. Every time I have been thrilled with the outcome. Highly recommend!!

Thank you Ralph and Cynthia! This dynamic duo did an amazing job on my front porch. They listened well and understood my vision and even enhanced it with some well thought out suggestions. They work hard and great together! (I could never work with my husband!) Everyone just loves the stonework and steps and I truly enjoy sitting and having my early morning coffee on it. My 1960's backsplit has been transformed beautifully. Thank you!

Tough Oaks put in our new steps and driveway in the summer of 2020. The design is very nice, and I’ve posted a couple of pictures showing how Ralph integrated the field stones instead of just plopping them on the side. He designed and built a nice two-tiered garden bed and selected plants that will do well there. He even extended our downspout a bit and hid it under river rock. The steps are all the same height, which is a big improvement over what we had before. What we really like most, though, is what you can’t see: Our driveway has always had large ruts. We’ve had it repaired and the ruts came back within a few months. When Ralph pulled up our old interlock we found there were only a couple of inches of gravel underneath. Ralph promised us 16-17 inches of A gravel and 1-2 inches of high performance bedding, and as you can see from the photo they really dug down. Then he graded it to slope gently away from the house and packed it all two inches at a time until it was like concrete. He also matched up the top of the bricks with the garage floor so there is no bump when we drive in. As of this writing we’ve only had it a month so I guess I can’t technically say for sure that the ruts won’t come back, but looking at the quality of the work, I would be very surprised if they ever did. The other thing I’d like to compliment them on is the quality of the communication. Cynthia really kept us in the loop the whole time. I would definitely recommend this business.