After a number of lackluster experiences with TaskRabbit (getting ghosted mid-conversation, having…read moreconfirmed Taskers not show up, having Taskers provide inefficient service), my husband and I decided to start a gardening project on Yelp in order to request quotes for our front and back yard. Isai responded within the hour with an offer to drop by for a free consultation and his contact information. We were able to schedule something for the next day which had to get pushed back another day, but throughout it all, Isai was very communicative and punctual. I received a number of quotes within three days from my Yelp request and Isai was the most reasonable by far. We were able to book a day and time that worked for us the week after. Before our appointment, Isai reached out with at least six different photos of options for ground cover and I appreciated being included in this process even though I don't have extensive knowledge of landscaping or gardening at all. The day of, Isai and his team came in the morning and within just a few hours, completely transformed our front and back yard. They worked quickly and methodically to uproot all of the weeds from the front rock garden and in between the concrete; shaped various shrubbery and trees; weed all of the planters in the back yard, lay down landscaping fabric, and also the mulch; and, sweep up various leaves and fallen fruit. Payment was easy through Zelle and as he left, he notified us that the yard waste would be a little heavy because the weeds were wet. He also asked if we had pets (we don't). He indicated that weeding the front yard was difficult and that a little Round Up at the first inkling of weeds would go a long way in keeping them at bay. We are truly impressed by Isai and his team and very thankful. I would not hesitate to recommend them and to request their services again.

I have been using Isai and his team to do bi-weekly yard maintenance for going on a year now. I…read morewanted more than just a mow and blow lawn service, since I have minimal grass, and more of a cottage garden aesthetic. So I needed someone with more attention to detail in terms of knowing when to prune, pulling weeds, etc. Isai and his team are amazing! They consistently come on schedule and are very good about assessing different needs during each visit, and focusing on the right maintenance tasks. I have been slowly landscaping my entire yard myself, so there are frequent changes, and Isai and his team are able to assess and adapt to any changes without issues. I have recommended them to multiple neighbors, and they now also do my next door neighbor's bi-weekly yard maintenance as well. They do a great job and I highly recommend them!

Quick response and lightning-fast estimate. Two days later, 2 strong, personable folks arrived on…read moretime and diligently completed my gardening cleanup, exactly as I wanted and fast, for a fair price. They managed the green waste, taking it out to the street in proper bags for recycling. I couldn't be happier! I have 4 more projects for these great neighbors (this business is hyper-local to my West Oakland home) and I'm so glad and grateful to have the help while keeping my dollars at work in my own neighborhood. Highly recommended.

Very pleased with Hoes and Ditches' approach to maintenance - they really care about making an…read moreovergrown space look tidy, fresh, and new again. My back yard looks so much better. As soon as they finished the job I thought "Why didn't I do this months ago?" High-quality work and thoughtful communication, 10/10, would recommend :)

McKay Irrigation Systems gets a very high rating on Yelp (and also from some of my neighbors) for a…read morereason: they do great work. Sherman McKay runs the show, and he runs it well. He's great with communication, and his estimate was right on point. I had some drainage work done at my house which trashed my entire irrigation system, so I needed to have it replaced, both in the front and back yard. The McKay crew did a bang up job of it. They came in on time and on budget. They had the whole system laid out and running within about two days. Then Sherman spent some time with me to make sure I knew how to operate the controllers. In fact, they do more than irrigation, and I will likely have them come back and put in some new plants and do some other work in my backyard. They did such a good job with the irrigation system that I have high confidence they will make quick work of the other jobs too. I strongly recommend them.

Sherman is awesome! We were having an issue with our irrigation control system that resulted in a…read morereally high water bill (spoiler alert--it was my fault, I set it incorrectly). Sherman came over for a quick site visit, adjusted the control for me free of charge and he also took a quick look at our overall system which he thought was running pretty well overall. I'm so appreciative of his help and him sharing his knowledge with me. When we upgrade our irrigation control system this summer, I'll definitely go with Mckay Irrigation. Highly recommend based on my positive interaction, Sherman's vast knowledge and just generally great overall customer service.

I needed a small repair (irrigation pipe broken). I had to wait a day or two, when I requested…read morescheduling an appointment, but after they got back to me, everything went very quickly. Very satisfied overall.

They showed up on time They texted to confirm…read more Showed up shook hands introduced them selves to me inspected the sprinklers and gave an estimate. Thanks for great service

I'm getting really tired of flaky contractors, which is about 95% of them these days. I wrote these…read moreguys to get an appointment. They offered me one that worked. I wrote them back within an hour or two to confirm. Nothing. Wrote them again on the day they were supposed to show up and they said they can't come to the appointment and offered appointments I couldn't do. These people really need to get better at communication and customer service.

I moved into my current home in 2022 - it had an existing irrigation system but I quickly realized…read morethat it was not in a usable state and for the first summer of living in my home spent hours a week watering plants and grass using a nose. In 2023 I vowed to myself that I would have a functioning irrigation system by the end of the rainy season/start of summer. I reached out and started getting quotes - one of them was from Green Sunsets (Daniel). He was prompt when he came by for the quote and it was clear that he had extensive knowledge of planning and setting up irrigation systems. He ended up quoting me for a). a new system vs. b). going in and troubleshooting the existing system which I appreciated. His quote was reasonable and he was patient and thorough with me when I had a few followup questions - I ended up moving forward with Daniel to do the work. He was able to get me on his calendar pretty quickly and the whole job ended up taking about 3-4 days. Daniel had a team of workers to help him - his team was hard working and I appreciate that Daniel was also present for all of the days and directly checked the new system as it was installed to verify that everyting was set up correctly. In addition to the irrigation work, my yard was also very overgrown - Daniel and his team also did great work for me at the same time in removing a broken trellis, removing pesky vines, and pulling out a bunch of overgrown plants and bushes. Fast forward one year to spring 2024. After the rainy season ended (and irrigation system needed to be used) I noticed that there were a few breaks/leaks in the tubing/lines. I reached out to Daniel to ask about and he came by to my home. My initial thought was that either thirsty squirrels or our gardener had broken a few of the lines. Daniel assessed and came to the same conclusion, but since it was a fairly small task offered to help fix at no charge (even though the leaks were caused by our gardener). Daniel's work left me as a very happy customer and I am happy to recommend Green Sunsets.

Miguel & the crew at East Bay Landscaping are prompt to respond to requests, tidy, timely, and…read morethorough. I had many questions about yard maintenance when moving into my new house this year, and Miguel did a full walkthrough to troubleshoot the irrigation system, cleaned up the yard, and even provided me plant care maintenance advice with recommended products. Highly recommend Miguel & his team for your home!

Miguel did an excellent job replacing my retaining walls in Rodeo, CA. He's professional, cleans up…read moreas he works, and is a true perfectionist. After seeing the first wall he completed, I trusted him with all four. I'm very happy with the results and highly recommend him.

Guillermo did a wonderful job on my hard front AND backyard! Professional and hardworking service…read more He arrived on time which is very important to me gave me a very competitive but fair estimate and began work immediately. Prepared the dirt, removed tree trunks, his team did it all and in a very short quick turnaround too. All my neighbors stop by to compliment me on my front yard now. Thanks Guillermo! I would most definitely recommend him and his team to friends and family.

We hired Guillermo for sprinkler service and yard. The service provided by the team was above and…read morebeyound. We will for sure be a returning customer in the future!

Trevor is great. Calm. Thorough. Dogged. He had to fold his long frame up to get to my irrigation…read morecontrol but kept at it and found the elusive problem. I am so done with gardeners who think they can charge me an arm and a leg and they barely know how to add an emitter. Trevor is the guy. I'll be calling Trevor annually to do an annual physical and hopefully no more trampled emitters from tree trimmer or my dog.

My husband suspected that our sprinklers stopped working. I thought... "Oh no! Not another problem…read morewith this house!" My strategy was to avoid the problem, but he tested it and, sure enough, no sprinkling :( I contacted several local companies and these were the quotes I obtained: - Company 1: $2900 to replace all 10 valves. This might not fix everything and then we might need to replace the electrical components ($1500 additional) - Company 2: $1500 for a new controller and installation, but only recommend 1 type (with a cumbersome looking app) - Latham: $200 (2-hour minimum site visit) to install new controller and can use any extra time to address other issues. We were able to research controllers and bought one we liked (~$200) that had great reviews and an amazing app. Trevor was reliable, showing up on time for the quote and later for the work. After I initially left a voicemail, he responded within 2 business days, then we corresponded by text. Clear communication by text (though sometimes there is a 1-2 day delay). He is usually booked 2 weeks in advance, but worth the wait! On the day of the installation, Trevor was even able to stay an extra hour and fixed a zone that never worked for us AND he replaced some sprinkler heads that were old and not working well. He even let my husband tag along to learn. So total he charged us $325 ($100 for the extra hour, $25 for sprinkler heads). My husband was so happy that he rounded it up to $400! Trevor really saved our butt on this stressor. I thought earlier with the first astronomical quote that we would just have to live with a dead yard. He is our sprinkler guy now and we highly recommend him!

I said "Jennifer, I want a gabion fence." Jennifer said…read more"I've never done one but..." I said "We can learn" And we are almost done! Jennifer's got guts!

We had to quickly coordinate the planting of a tree in our apartment complex and Jennifer and the…read moreteam were able to quickly come in and provide excellent service at a reasonable price. The attention to detail and exceptional customer service was a plus. The cleanup and disposal made the job effortless on our part and we have years to come to enjoy the new tree. I would definitely recommend her for any landscaping or irrigation projects.

Mata and his crew did a great job replacing cracked and broken old concrete around our Berkeley…read morehome. Easy to work with and fair.

I would have given ZERO stars. Don't trust their overall YELP rating. I made that mistake. I feel…read morethe finished work (driveway, pathways, and wall) are reasonably acceptable. This is ONLY because we checked daily work and instructed them to fix mistakes and sloppy work. They spent a lot of their time redoing what should have been completed right the first time. Daily progress (or lack there of) showed us that the owner/project manager (Tevita/Mata) is not a good project manager nor that he gave his crew clear direction on this project. The process after contract signing was horrible...not at all professional. The project took much longer than Tevita initially quoted (over 2 months vs the 2 weeks he originally told us). This resulted in change orders and cost overruns. He also tried to charge me to fix their breakage/mistakes/errors (e.g., fixing the sidewalk his workers broke). His crew was not respectful of our property (we had to live with their mess...it's not a vacant lot). They did not regularly clean up the work site nor organize equipment and materials left onsite. Seeing their lunch garbage (cans, bottles, wrappers, etc.) at the end of their workday was common. This continued even after repeated complaints to Tevita and to his crew. No one on site could to provide straight answers as to that day's work or when specific project goals would be completed. Whenever I would spoke with him, Tevita made excuses, provided misinformation, denied deliverables he previously promised, and deflected from answering direct questions. He has a habit of talking over the customer when asked questions he doesn't like. On at least one occasion, he raised his voice and started yelling to avoid answering questions. If it was not in writing, he'd say it wasn't what we discussed. I have never had such issues when working with professional/reputable companies. Tevita and his crew failed to meet every single deliverable date he set. I found him very difficult to work with. I feel that he does not show proper respect to the customer. Instead he appears to think that the customer, the person paying him, should accept subpar work. I suspect that he may also not fully understand the processes involved with the work being performed. I feel that Tevita and Lamata Concrete are not professional. They didn't use professional equipment and they didn't manage the job site or their onsite work time professionally. Their workers typically started late morning and were gone by early afternoon. Lamata Concrete has major logistical problems. They couldn't get an adequately-sized crew or required materials to the job site at the start of any given day, typically interrupting workflow for hours to go fetch supplies. Had they staged materials and tools at the worksite (where there was ample area to store all materials needed for the entire project) and had his crew worked a full 8 hours per day at the job site, I believe they could have finished weeks ago. They are SLOW...3 weeks for a stamped concrete driveway and pathways. I definitely CANNOT recommend them for a cinder block wall. It took way too long (over 2 months) to complete. I feel like they have never built this type of wall. I regret hiring Lamata Concrete. I CANNOT recommend Lamata Concrete nor would I use them again. They were such a hassle to work with compared to the many other professional/reputable companies I have hired. My opinion...take their negative YELP reviews seriously and ask for references and talk to those references. Tevita's response is a great example of how he makes excuses, provides misinformation, denies promised deliverables, and deflects from addressing the real issue. I find it a bit childish and very unprofessional.