A.P. of Above & Beyond Landscaping (Pawtucket, RI area) agreed to landscape a wooden-framed garden for my parents (they are in their mid-70's) in front of their addition to their house. A.P. of A&BL also promised that they would install 2 drainage pipes from the gutter spout that would run under the garden at an incline to the sidewalk so that rain would not flood the garden area but instead flow from the roof gutter through the drainage system to the sidewalk. After the work was complete, the garden landscaping looked OK but soon after we discovered problems with the quality of the their work and their customer service. With regards to workmanship, they did a very poor job with the drainage system. A.P. of A&BL attached 2 cheap PVC tubes to the gutter spout with DUCT TAPE (YES, DUCT TAPE) and buried the whole joint in the ground. See the picture below. There is huge chance that this will not survive the season. Next, they MISALIGNED the end of the tube with the holes that they drilled in the wooden frame of the garden to let the rain water flow out to the sidewalk. Again, see the picture below. It would not be difficult to align a 6" OD tube with 1/2" drilled holes. Therefore, THIS DRAIN DOES NOT WORK AT ALL. As for customer service, A.P. of A&BL agreed to lay a bed of small rocks all along the foundation, but they did not. This is clear example of them not fulfilling promises made to paying customers. Lastly, after the work was done, my parents called A.P. of A&BL to tell him the drain was not working, and even though A.P. said he would come by to fix it, A.P. of A&BL NEVER CALLED BACK OR CAME BACK! Now I have to help my dad dig it all up and re-do the piping system.
In summary, at best, they do a decent job at simple landscaping but maybe not doing everything as promised (example - not laying rocks as they promised they would do). However, they clearly do a low-quality job with anything more complicated than simple landscaping (example - using duct tape on tubing used to drain water and sloppiness with constructing a simple design (misaligned tube with the drilled holes)). The worst part of their service is that they did not even try and resolve the problems once they were told about it. I can't help but think that because my parents are elderly that A.P. of A&BL thinks he (or they) can get a way with poor workmanship and ignoring requests by paying customers to correct mistakes they have made.
I would have given them 2 stars based on their landscaping of the garden, but because they did not even come back to fix the problem, I demoted them to 1 star. read more