Gooden's Gardens

BE WARNED! Our family hired this circus and quickly regretted it. They showed up with cousins, nephews, and other children to get advanced type of work accomplished. Lots of unreturned calls, no shows, and broken promises. Wished we would have looked at reviews first. We made the big mistake of making the 2nd and last payment before the job was completed as well. They had a palm tree that needed to be finished and blew us off for months. We ended up having to send a demand letter threatening small claims. Owner lady made a big promise and again flaked. We ended up having to hire someone else to finish their job and haul away what they agreed to dispose of. Owner is a total salesperson and will convince you she's a pro and has the team to get it done. It's a joke and illusion, trust me. Mark these words: She'll tell you someone on the job got hurt, or some family issues are happening, or 1 of 50 other excuses on why things aren't moving along and getting completed. Don't risk having this circus roaming your property, it's too big of a liability. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if they had all kinds of claims against homeowners policies for their workers who I'm sure we're US citizens (which we don't really care about but that could be an issue). Problem is you're not seeing all the players up front and I think they wing it to the point where they're hiring random people they have no relationship with to complete parts of their jobs. And when you have people high up in trees, that's a potential problem for you if that's the first time they're dealt with that person as a "sub" hire. End story, we lost and she never stepped up to make it right, probably just blocked our numbers. IF (and I'd advise you against it) you literally have no other options but to hire this family, I wouldn't pay a dime up front and I'd have an agreement for them to sign with completion dates and disclaimers that they agree that they can't/won't make any claims against your homeowner's policy etc etc. Too many other gardening companies to choose from.

Disaster. Fraudulent advertising. Concrete work done at my home was done by an unlicensed person. Kathleen, owner, said all work is done under her license. Failed to call 811 before digging. Concrete worker used electrical jackhammer in the dark about 2 inches above a gas pipe. Multiple safety issues besides above. A worker who is blind in one eye used a pick axe to dig out tree roots while a boy of about 12 years old (Kathleen Gooden's son) was behind him while he swung the axe. Failed to identify a sprinkler valve leak resulting in a flood in my yard, 3 inch mud. I had to call a leak detection company to find the leak. No workers comp insurance, although there were at least 8 people working, including the 12 year old boy. Diverted a drainage pipe without my permission resulting in inability to connect drainage pipe to outside (public) drainage system. Failed to slope the yard for proper drainage. The work was very unprofessional. I asked for payment for work that needed to be corrected, and Kathleen Gooden took my money and never looked back. All work was corrected by another landscaping company. My advise, stay away from these people.......

They said they would be there the saturday morning before Easter Sunday. They didn't show up. They called and said they had a tree emergency and would be there at 4p.m. Again they never showed up. They never called or said anything. They are very undependable, unreliable and unprofessional. I was very disappointed because I got their name and number through Angie's List.

It went terribly. Terribly might be an understatement. I hired them as our gardeners and the first couple of services were fine, they did a suitable job. They then told me that I needed a repair to my sprinkler system. I paid them for a very costly repair on our sprinkler system and was told that they would stand behind their work, and since they were now my gardeners I trusted that this would be true because they would be the ones checking on the system twice a month. Whatever they did caused the system to go haywire in the middle of the night, turning the sprinklers on, but never turning them off and for some reason bypassing the ability to turn them off from the source, so my tenants were forced to turn off water to the entire house to finally make them stop. The entire yard had flooded overnight, and because the house is up on a hill, it caused very worrisome looking eroding. I called Kathy immediately and she said she would send someone out asap. This was at 7am. My tenants called me at 4pm to say that no one had showed up to do any repairs. I was shocked, I called Kathy right away and reiterated the urgency. I was angry that she was acting like this was no big deal and hadn't even bothered to send anyone out. Someone came out that night, was there no more than 10 minutes and the water was turned back on under the assumption that the problem was fixed. It was not and the same thing happened the following night. Again my tenants woke up panicked and unable to get the flooding to stop without turning off water to the whole house. They were furious. I called again and it went straight to voicemail. I called for weeks and she never picked up the phone again. I had already paid through the end of the month and they never came to finish the work. I continued to call and leave messages for months after. No response. I was shocked, I have never had such a terribly unprofessional experience. Their mistake and refusal to fix it ended up being incredibly costly, not just in water bills, paying to have it fixed all over again, repairing teh flooded hillside, but also with incredibly unhappy tenants who moved out shortly after this. I would not trust Gooden Gardens with your property.

To my knowledge, when planting and installing lawn products or a ground cover, you seal it with mulch or soil to keep it moist. This provider claimed that wasn't necessary and did not do it. I was ok with that I guess, and proceeded to ask her about doing some general lawn maintenance and clean up in the near future. She agreed and said she could, and was really hard to schedule with after. We spoke a couple times over a matter of 3 weeks (from me calling) and she claimed a few different emergency excuses, instead of responding and scheduling any work. I did tell her if she doesn't follow up that I would no longer be interested in the services. She never followed up with me, and once I was able to reach her it was nothing more than excuses. We all experience emergencies from time to time but I found her to be completely unreliable and would have respected the situation more if she at least communicated with me.

The work went exceedingly well. It was a two day project. The owner, Kathy Gooden, is a no-nonsense, perfectionist who knows her profession. She has been in business for over 22 years. The company is a "family affair," every one brings his or her talents to the table. She arrived the first day with her electrician, Gene, and youngest son, Josh. Gene proceeded to work on the lights in the front garden while Josh started the process of digging up the ground cover. By early afternoon the ground cover was in a pile and the flag stones had been pictured and numbered and moved to the side. Tim arrived in the afternoon to measure the ground for installation of the weed cloth. Some of the flag stone was relaid. The next day the area was adjusted so that all the pieces fit in snuggly. The rocks were delivered in the afternoon and placed between the flag stone. It looks wonderful and I'm very pleased with the results. The work was done in a timely and competent manner, despite the "boiling heat." I learned a lot from Kathy as well as Gene. They are both the consummate professionals in their respective lines of work. Her rate is reasonable and she is a joy to conduct business with. I will not hesitate to call Gooden's Gardens when the need again arises.

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They were on time and at work as promised. They were respectful of our privacy and our property. They finished the job roughly on time and on budget. They paid attention to the details and cleaned up after the job was done. Every member of their team was decent and on the job on time as needed. They are the very essence of PROFESSIONAL. I would hire them again in the future.

The overall quality of the job was poor. The one bright spot was the block wall, which was done very well. The bank was not treated with herbicide so after a few weeks, the bank was covered with new week growth. What were they thinking! The bank irrigation was added into the existing old lawn irrigation, which was old and had problems of it's own. I also specified existing bank irrigation be changed to avoid auto traffic from breaking heads, but again the old irrigation was used. This was after a long discussion of how I wanted the irrigation to be, which was not followed. I asked that the new palm trees be staked for support and that was not done. I would not use again, nor recommend.

The overall quality of the job was poor. The one bright spot was the block wall, which was done very well. The bank was not treated with herbicide so after a few weeks, the bank was covered with new week growth. What were they thinking! The bank irrigation was added into the existing old lawn irrigation, which was old and had problems of it's own. I also specified existing bank irrigation be changed to avoid auto traffic from breaking heads, but again the old irrigation was used. This was after a long discussion of how I wanted the irrigation to be, which was not followed. I asked that the new palm trees be staked for support and that was not done. I would not use again, nor recommend.

The crew was excellent with some of the tasks and poor at others. The trimming portion was fine, all work was done satisfactorily. The stack-block wall was a standout. It turned out beautifully. Then it all went bad. The weeds were lightly scraped off the bank, and the ground cover sparsely planted. After two weeks, the weeks over-ran the ground cover, no herbicide was used as promised. Still paying for that oversight. The irrigation was not done as instructed, and some of the old irrigation that was supposed to be replaced was found to be reused. The coverage was poor and needed different heads to avoid over spray. The tall palm trees were not staked as requested, and no one returned to do this even after the job was completed. Clearly in-experienced workers.

EVERYTHING TURNED OUT LOOKING GREAT. THEY WORKED REALLY HARD TO GET IT DONE QUICKLY. THIS WAS IN THE BEGINING OF NOVEMBER AND EVERYTHING IS STILL LOOKING WONDERFUL.

THEY DID EXCELLENT WORK. THEY REALLY CLEANED UP WELL - TAKING AWAY ALL DEBRIS. ANSWERED OUR QUESTIONS WELL AND SUGGESTED HELPFUL WAYS TO MAINTAIN OUR YARD'S LOOKS.