We had Carlos and Clover landscaping taking care of our property for almost 2 years. I do not and will not recommend them to anyone. It was much better when he first started taking care of the property. It was Carlos and 1-2 helpers at first. We had hired them to come in and do a complete refresh to get everything under control and cleaned up. Cost us about $1500 for the major reset and to give them a great starting place to maintain our landscaping. They did a terrific job on the large reset. But what ended up happening was this, after a while, Carlos was not coming anymore, he was sending his son and other workers. We had some bald spots on our grass and we started having plants dying. We called him to express our concerns and he agreed to come by to look at it. He said that we needed a whole new sprinkler system, that it wasn't covering properly. He wanted several thousand dollars to do this. Mind you, we had just had our entire front yard landscaped about a year before including sprinklers, see my other reviews. During the makeover process, we also had new drip lines installed for some of our drought tolerant landscaping that we had put in. Some of our plants were dying. We asked about the drip lines, he checked and said that some of the emitters were clogged, a couple broken. I asked why his guys were not checking the drip lines and emitters on plants that were not doing well? His response was that they couldn't be responsible for checking every emitter and drip line every time that they came. I stated that if the plant looked fine, there is obviously no need for them to be checked at that plant, but if there is one dying or in distress from either no water or too much, why couldn't they just check those? He said it would take too much time and was not his responsibility. I disagreed with that and said that the maintenance of my landscaping IS his responsibility, that is what we pay him for. Our landscaping maintenance. I also complained that as his son and crew was finding distressed and dying plants, they were pulling them out and throwing them in our greens trash bin without ever telling us or letting us know that there was a problem. His response was "Well, you know kids these days (referring to his son) don't have the same appreciation for a property as the homeowners do". I told him that was a YOU problem or his company's problem to fix, not mine. I asked if it would be okay if I just started randomly paying him less money if I am not getting the level of service that I am supposed to? He said no, payment is the same but did not even address it with his son. We had a broken sprinkler a few weeks later, his son said he had to call his Dad (Carlos) to come fix it as they don't carry standard 1/2 inch PVC parts with them. WHAT????? When do landscapers not carry parts for just this purpose? I have had gardeners for over 35 years and that was the first time I had heard that one from any of them. He didn't say that they didn't have the exact part that they needed, he didn't have ANY parts with them. They needed a 1/2 inch TEE joint to fix it. Carlos came a few days later and charged us over $200 for that 50 cent part and 10 minutes of labor. After that, Carlos never came by again, his son and crew continued to get worse and worse, and we had to finally fire them. We have a new gardener in place, the bald spots on the grass are gone without a whole new sprinkler system, only an adjustment of the existing sprinkler heads. We had another sprinkler system break; the new gardener carries parts, and it was a $15 dollar fix while they were here doing their weekly maintenance. They started strong but just fell to the wayside after the son and crew took over. I wish Carlos would have taken us more seriously and took responsibility for what his employees were doing (and NOT doing). Oh, and to echo what someone else said here, he ended up raising our fee by $20 a month but never discussed it with us. All of a sudden, we get his invoice and realize it has gone up. When I called, he said yes, I raised my rates. I told him that he can't just raise it without talking to us first and us agreeing to the rate change. His response was well, I did. So I sent his final check minus the not agreed upon rate hike and fired him. Do yourself a favor and the hassle, pass on these guys. Especially if you are not getting Carlos to do the work directly, he won't discipline or fix his crews bad habits or issues when you have them. Hope you have better luck than we did. read more
