I'll attempt to keep this review relatively short. Anything too long is sure to stress me out, as dealing with this company has been a complete nightmare and I would really like to just forget about them. That's easier said than done, however, as I am reminded of their ineptitude every time I look at my lawn.
We contacted O'Grady's Landscape because we needed some landscaping performed on a sloped section of the yard after a severe summer storm last year. The storm had blown over an enormous tree, disrupting the nearby ground. Terry O'Grady was very nice when he came out to survey the damage and was arguably the most thoughtful of the contractors that we interviewed. We chose his company because we liked his idea of tearing out the several old azalea bushes near that tree and replacing them with grass. We have two young children, and the idea of having more grassy areas for them to play in really appealed to us. In fact, we extended the scope of the contract to remove some other bushes and a couple small trees in another part of the yard. Thus the excitement began.
The work was to be performed when the company's schedule opened up. At that point, they would contact us to make sure it was a good time for the work to be done. Well, excitement turned to concern when they contacted us the night before they intended to begin work. Perhaps I was out of line, but I had expected more than 12 hours notice before someone was going to be tearing up my yard and using loud machinery. It's hard enough to get my two-year-old daughter to take a nap without all that noise. However, we had no real conflicts with them starting that next day, so we let the issue slide.
Over the next few days, they removed several bushes and all sorts of other things. There was really no cause for concern. The yard looked completely trashed because they were tearing things out and it was to be expected. Then, one day they just didn't show up. Perhaps they had a scheduling conflict that day. We didn't know, so we gave them the benefit of the doubt. However, after a few days, we began to wonder if they were coming back. The work outlined in the contract had not been completed, so we contacted Terry O'Grady to get a status update. He said that they were finished and that he would be sending a final invoice. We told him that there were several items that required addressing, but after explaining them to him, he basically told us that our expectations were too high. I don't want to misquote him, but he said something to the effect of "it can always be done better." Frankly, our thought was that it couldn't have been done any worse.
Among the things that were supposed to be done, that sloped section of the lawn was supposed to be finely graded and seeded after bushes and tree debris were removed. I don't know what their definition of fine grading is, but all I can tell you is that there are huge chunks from tree stump sticking out of that part of the yard. The debris from this stump, which had been ground up by another contractor beforehand, was to be removed by O'Grady's. It appears that, while they removed most of it (or maybe they didn't... who knows?), they decided to leave some parts of the stump there and try to just cover them up with dirt. Well, they did quite a poor job, because the chunks of debris are literally sticking up out of the yard so high that I cannot mow the area. Additionally, there is a rock that I would estimate to be the size of a basketball sticking out of that area as well - another thing they just tried to unsuccessfully cover up. Ironically, they hauled off several large rocks in a different part of the yard that we had requested to be saved, but they left this one there. Go figure. Let's assume that I could actually mow that sloped area with the stump chunks and the large rock. If I did, I would be at risk of breaking an ankle from the many craters that are in this "professionally landscaped" area. To say that the yard is now lumpy is a complete understatement.
But the complaints don't stop there. The company had used a trencher to dig out some flowerbeds near the curb so that grass could be put down. In doing so, the trencher gouged our sidewalk. Did they fix the damage? No. Did they even apologize? Not at all. I guess we were just too unreasonable to expect such things.
Unfortunately, this review is my only recourse. Terry O'Grady refused to address the problems and insinuated that we were unreasonable to expect them to be fixed. My father-in-law had offered to pay for the work and unfortunately did so when they sent him the invoice. This was before we could tell him to withhold the payment, because at that time we thought that O'Grady would be reasonable enough to fix the problems. Having already received his money, any incentive for him to fix his workers' mistakes was gone. I guess good customer service and meeting contractual obligations just doesn't offer the same appeal as cold hard cash. read more