Joel Lugo answers the phone and walks every job himself.

He started Autana Hardscapes in 2020 and still takes the call, prices the work, and is on the property while it gets built. No dispatch board, no call center, no stranger showing up to a job Joel has not walked himself.

Get Your Free Quote Call (260) 258-2986

Freshly manicured lawn with crisp mow lines in front of a brick ranch home near Fort Wayne, Indiana

Owner operated since 2020
Insured
Boom lift operator certified
Certified outdoor lighting installer
Free written quotes
Residential & commercial

Every photo on this page and across this site is a real Autana job, taken by our crew that did the work. No stock, no renderings.

Two Autana crew members in orange work shirts running backpack blowers through a fall cleanup at a brick home near Fort Wayne, Indiana — Fall cleanup crew, orange shirts, backpack blowers, leaves still coming down. This is the crew.

Not the cheapest, not the most expensive

Quality over quantity, on purpose.

That is the phrase Joel uses more than any other, and it is a pricing decision as much as a philosophy. We are not chasing the lowest bid on every estimate, and we are not positioned as the premium name in the county either. Joel prices deliberately in the middle of the market, because that is where a crew can do the work right and still get hired.

My job is to not make people wait. Joel Lugo, owner

Being insured and certified is part of how that promise gets kept. Joel holds a boom lift operator certification, which renews about every four years, for the height work that comes with lighting and tree jobs. He is also certified for outdoor lighting installation through our supplier. Both mean the work is done by someone who trained for it, not a crew figuring it out on your property.

Before the first shovel

Joel walks every property with you before he prices it.

That walk has two questions built into it every time: what do you want, and what went wrong with the last vendor. The second question matters more than people expect. It is usually where the real job gets defined, not the first one.

Joel tells a story about four houses on the same block. Four homes, four different owners, four different preferences. One wants the lawn mowed and bagged every single time, but hates a hard edge along the beds. Another wants her front lawn push mowed and bagged separately from the back, every visit, no exceptions. We track all four of those preferences, by address, every week. Most crews will not bother. It is easier to run one setting on the mower and move on to the next yard. Joel does not run it that way.

Crisp mowing stripes cut into a large residential lawn in the Fort Wayne area

The 30-minute promise

A callback in about 30 minutes, not whenever.

The line Joel says most often is that his job is to not make people wait, and it is aimed directly at how the bigger companies operate. A callback from a large landscaping outfit can feel like a favor, something that happens whenever someone gets around to it. Joel built the response time into how we run instead of leaving it to chance.

The target is about 30 minutes from the time you call or fill out the form. Quotes are taken 8am to 6pm, and appointments run 10am to 6pm, usually booked two days to two weeks out depending on the season. If you are dealing with storm branches down or a lawn that got away from you, call rather than email. That work moves faster on the phone.

How the quote works

A written quote, and no surprise on the bill.

Every quote comes out of Jobber, in writing, and free, with the labor hours and materials laid out. A surprise under the sod or behind a wall does not turn into a surprise on your invoice, and when the job comes in under, we bill the lower number.

That is the opposite of how a lot of estimates work, where the number only moves in one direction once the crew is on site.

How we say thank you

Referrals earn a gift card, not just a discount code.

When a customer sends someone our way and it turns into a job, Joel sends a gift card back, roughly $20 to $200 depending on the size of the work that came from it. It is a small thing, but it is how a lot of our best jobs get found. A neighbor talking to a neighbor still beats an ad.

Who we work best for

Bigger yards, HOA ground, and commercial buildings.

The ideal residential customer has a larger property and lets us handle everything on it, mowing, mulch and hardscape together, instead of splitting the yard between three different vendors. On the commercial side, HOA common ground and commercial buildings are exactly the kind of steady, visible work we want more of. It keeps our crew busy and it keeps our name in front of a lot of neighbors at once.

One crew, four seasons

Spring cleanup through snow plowing, same crew.

We do not go quiet for half the year. Spring cleanups start the season, mowing and mulch carry through summer, fall cleanup and trimming close it out, and the same crew runs snow removal and salting once the ground freezes. If you are on the schedule, you are on it year-round, not just for the months that photograph well.