This was a large job, about 4/10 of an acre, total redo with removal of lawn, hedges, and a few…read moretrees. Some drainage mitigation as well. Creating a drought tolerant, pollinator supporting landscape that ties into what this part of California should look like. Add some dry steam beds to help with drainage, add some lighting, etc - all in all, just under $80k in work. They were not the low bidder, but the business had been around for years, was big, and promised the right equipment, an experienced crew of employees, a landscape designer, and understanding of drainage, etc. What they promised is NOT what we got.
Started out with a designer coming in with all the right tools - so far, so good. He came up with a design for the amount quoted by the owner - which seemed acceptable - the design was accepted, although we were going to change some of the plants. Then the owner stepped in and said nope, that is not within the scope of the project, price just went up 50%. That should have been my first clue...
We finally settled on a plan (at an increased cost), met the entire crew, including an experienced landscape guy that was supposed to be there supervising the project every day. We never saw him again, until the project was "done". There was ZERO supervision of the crew of day laborers.
The first few weeks were just some contract laborers with pick axes - seriously. They whacked away at the lawn and raked out what they could - I never saw any equipment. No bobcat, no tractor, NOTHING. The lawn was never removed. The job foreman never showed up. They trespassed on the neighbor's yard and went fishing in the private lake. And created a huge dust storm every afternoon blowing, which really made all the neighbors angry.
I ended up supervising every single step of the way with a very inexperienced crew of contract people, NOT employees. I had not counted on taking 6 weeks out of my life to supervise every single rock that was laid, and try to explain why trees are watered differently from drought tolerant plants, and asking repeatedly about lawn removal. The contract employees had no skills, no sense of design, spoke little English. The initial creek bed was perfectly straight, and all at ground level - at one point, it was actually flowing UPHILL. It looked horrible, and nothing like the design plans. When we finally got a manager and the owner out, they said the crew had used lasers to lay the creek bed, it was all done correctly. I reminded them I was there all day every day, and on one even owned a laser. So they brought out a laser to "make the little lady happy", and guess what? It was flowing uphill.
Everything was poorly done - the drip system (described as state of the art) was cheap, and done incorrectly. Several plants died from lack of water. Lawn sprouting up everywhere. The drainage fix was flooding, they punched through our water lines multiple times, then denied responsibility, installation of water piping was all wrong (a plumber finally came in and redid an entire section). And after a year of trying to get them to fix things, I finally hired someone who understood irrigation and came out and redid the entire drip system, pointing out the many, many, MANY issues with the installation. Of course, that just adds to the cost of the project, but at least now, the plants will stop dying, and I won't be hauling buckets of water.
If I could afford it, I would hire another landscape company to come out and redo the entire thing, but we are already so far over budget, that just isn't a reality.
I would NOT recommend this company, you can go down to Home Depot and hire day labor and get the same exact people with the same exact skills, buy a saw, a blower, some pick axes and rakes, and get the job done for 1/8 the cost.
I have the impression they have ONE team of experienced people, one set of real equipment, and the biggest job gets that team and that equipment. So if you get the "A Team" you probably get a decent project. If you get the contracted people from in front of Home Depot, you get a disaster.