Cascadian Landscape Inc

This is the review I wrote on Yelp. I interviewed a few of my neighbors who were using Cascadian. They all had great things to say about them. Unfortunately, I interviewed them during the beginning of their project. In talking with them again, because I was having problems with Bob, they told me their rest of the story, which is not different from my own experience. My problems started towards the 2nd phase of the project and remains until now. It's not a small project by any stretch. The concrete along is over 4000 sqft and there are hundreds of plants. Project started December 2013. Still uncompleted items remain as of the posting of this review, Sept 28, 2014. Let me start with the positive. Bob's crew does great work. The work looks good and there's a good amount of attention to detail. I do believe they take pride in their work! Bob has a good vision on how to do the yard to give the look and feel we were looking for. We hired him because he was able to articulate how he would execute what we wanted. He was not the cheapest guy nor the most expensive guy. His bid came almost perfectly in the middle. Bob seemed like a very honest and easy going guy. We had a great working relationship at the start. I paid him way more often than stipulated by the contract, and even paid for some change orders in full before they were completely finished because Bob said he needed some help with cash flow. I took his word on his promises and had no reason not to trust him. In life, there's got to be trust and civility among the people we meet and work with. One has to stand behind ones words! That just my principle of life. Now the bad. I think my relationship with Bob deteriorated late spring and got worst over the course of the summer. Progress on the project was completely stalled. What supposedly should take 3 months had dragged to 4-5 months...and then 7-8 months. It's not like his full crew was over here working hard because the job was under-estimated. No, that's not the case. His guys were missing in action for weeks at a time! They would return when I complain, but they would soon disappear again. Promises of finishing this week became next week than next week than next week. It just dragged!! It's stressful and a waste of time hounding him to do what he said he would do and what I paid him to do. Lots of unfulfilled promises. My trust weaned and have completely disappeared. When it comes to Bob's word, I believe what he says when I see it!! It became a stressful experience with him asking for payment after payment for things he's done, even though his contract only stipulates 3 payments. It became practically a mild argument with him demanding payment and me eventually caving and meeting him halfway to keep the relationship workable. You should know that when you work with Bob, you WILL be expected to pay him more often than stipulated in the contract. And you WILL hear how much free stuff and free work he has done for you. It's an endless broken record of how much free stuff you get from him. It is both annoying and stressful arguing about which free stuff and how much of it there is, etc, etc......where is the stuff I paid for?!! I must have paid for some of this stuff too right?! AND lastly you will have unfulfilled promises. And lastly a word about his crew. He has a very small crew. I count perhaps no more than 10 guys. I was led to believe that he can tackle massive jobs like mine, but he's not able to do it. What I've surmise is that he's juggling. He would start multiple jobs at a time, work on each a few days, and then disappear to work on other jobs. The first installment payment is rather hefty. He's very motivated to start jobs, but very unmotivated to finish them....and he will drag projects on, like me, for as long as possible until the customer screams loud enough or stop paying. Like I was saying, this is not the kind of experience you would look forward to, even if the work is well done and hopefully eventually finished. This is his modus operandi. Let me close by saying that I am go to go through arbitration with the licensing board with Bob. We have come to an impasse. He is not paying his supplier. His supplier has placed a lien on my house. He's demand I pay him. I told him to first finish the work he's promised to do before more payment. We couldn't agree so I will be asking the licensing board to help me sort this out. It very well might be that I am out of line, that his verbal promises are worthless in the eyes of the licensing board and that he doesn't have to complete the work listed in the contract. Or it could go the other way. Regardless of the results, I wish nobody to go through this level of stress and trouble to get their yard done. Message me if you want more details or wish to see his work (or want to know how the arbitration process works once I've completed it). I will update this review with the result of the arbitration process.

We had Bob Delong out to bid on using concrete block pavers to build a raised firepit with seating area, extend a pool deck, and strengthen existing decomposed granite paths in our multi-level landscaped back yard. Bob worked with us on materials and design, and bid the job at a very reasonable price. His excellent crew did the work cheerfully and timely, making mid-job adjustments as necessary. After the job was finished, Bob replaced some of the pavers because we didn't like the colors, and even came out two years after the install to remedy a drainage problem that became apparent well after the install. Call him up!