TL;DR: I do NOT recommend working with this company. They did not listen to what I wanted as a…read moreclient. They misrepresented payment rates. They did not manage to a very clear up-front budget. They asked me to interrupt my work multiple times to supervise and guide the gardening staff. In my experience (you can read more below), this company is a "yes man" style, where they will say yes, agree to a price, and then charge you double. They will make mistakes and you will not like the results.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Family Tree & Garden was suggested to me as a full-service garden company at reasonable prices. I was very open to a variety of different projects and I stressed that I did not want any major changes all at once, and I liked my plants to be on the "wild side," not formally pruned/shaped.
Prior to an on-site visit, the company received a list of possible gardening projects to take-on long term. I provided a Not-To-Exceed budget of $100/week or 400./month, which the manager said was a great start. I was quoted $36./hour and assured the workers were "very fast." I expected someone at the house 2x per month.
A work-crew of 2 came to my house, promptly and masked, on the first agreed-on date. After they left, I was dissatisfied with some extreme pruning we didn't discuss in advance, that left my lower widows no longer visually-screened. I let the manager know that it wasn't acceptable, and was in fact, exactly the kind of over-pruning I was worried about and had expressly discussed avoiding. The manager apologized.
The workers came by a few days later, on Saturday, with a larger truck to remove additional green waste, as discussed.
The manager had a lot of questions, and we went back-and-forth texting and sending pictures before the next visit. I was worried and trying to make sure no other mistakes were made. The manager asked me if I could work directly with the workers myself instead of with her. I was willing, although, in retrospect, I didn't realize what I was truly being asked to do.
I asked bluntly if there was going to be a language barrier between my un-practiced Spanish and the workers and was told no. On the next workday, I met with the lead and showed them which plants needed to be relocated/planted.
My work was interrupted three more times that day. The lead asked additional questions like how much I wanted to be trimmed from bougainvillea and whether I wanted mulch to be placed on top of weed-cloth they were installing (I had already said no to mulch, but I repeated myself).
Despite my best efforts to touch plants and point, plants were mistakenly placed, one dug up and moved and I have no idea why.
After two visits (a morning and a full-day), roughly 12 hours on-site, and despite mistakes, the manager texted me that 24 hours had been put in on the project. I was shocked and I said so. That is when I was told that each worker makes $36./hr so the crew of two is billed at $72./hour.
The Not-To-Exceed initial budget of $400.00, intended as an initial trial to see whether the time/value was a good match, had been completely ignored. The work-time was unsupervised/unmanaged. I was told $864.00 of work would be invoiced.
I was left feeling dissatisfied by the mistakes and very much taken advantage of. I will pay the bills, in two monthly installments, because I do not want the workers to suffer in this difficult time, but the work provided was not a good value; definitely not worth twice as much as quoted.
