Sustainable Landscape And Gardening

The cleanup service was $200. We really needed help as the weeds had gotten out of hand and some of the plants were overgrown. After the cleanup service they were hired to come out and do bi-weekly maintenance. Pros: 1) I was able to schedule a day for them to come out pretty quickly after hiring them. 2) The guys worked really hard in the time they were here. 3) I'm able to pay online with a credit card. Cons: 1) They arrived at around 3:00 in the afternoon. At that point I had given up on them even coming since I figured we were looking at a 4-5 hour job. They stayed until about 5:30 or 6 when the sun started setting and had to leave, but they were only able to finish 3/4 of the yard. The lead guy said that he'd be back to do the bi-weekly maintenance and would make sure they took care of the last part. That never happened. 2) They bagged up the debris (about 8 big bags) and piled them up in a corner of the yard since it wouldn't all fit in our compost bin. The lead guy said they'd dump them in the compost bin as they came and did the maintenance. No problem, except that never happened and we ended up having to dump them ourselves. I could barely lift the bags they were so heavy and the smell from the rotting plant matter made me sick. 3) They managed to put two holes in our irrigation hose as they were hacking at the weeds. I understand mistakes happen but they apparently didn't notice or didn't bother to mention that it happened and it was a while before I noticed the problem. Of course in the meantime we're in the peak of summer heat and dryness and the plants weren't getting watered. We tried repairing the holes ourselves but apparently since the hoses are commercial grade we can't get the right diameter connector, so I had to ask them to fix it. Logan's response was almost to chastise me for not bringing it to his attention earlier and promised me he would be back tomorrow to fix it. That was nearly three weeks ago and it's still not fixed. 4) The main reason we hired them to do the maintenance was to pull weeds, which I thought I made clear to Logan when he came over for the initial consultation. Most weeks they don't touch a single weed, and I can't comprehend how you can call a yard "maintained" when there are ugly weeds three feet tall in plain view. So, after using their services for about three months, the yard looks no better than before I hired them. In fact, I would say it looks worse due to the irrigation issue since some of our plants have died. Additionally, I had requested a quote from Logan in mid-May 2013 for an estimate on redoing our front yard. He was pleasant enough during the consultation and promised to have the estimate within a week or two. He also said it would be no problem to stick within our budget of $5K. When I didn't hear from him, I followed up and got the run around time and time again. This went on for weeks and I FINALLY got the estimate on August 6th--two weeks turned into over 11 weeks. The estimate was well over our budget and when I asked for it to be revised, it was radio silence again. At this point I was fed up and got an estimate from another company (Hallmark Fine Gardens). They were able to give me the estimate (interestingly it came back exactly the same as Logan's), draw up the contract, and finish the entire job, all within 3 weeks from my first email to them. That's how it's supposed to work! I really don't know what the problem is/was with Sustainable Landscape and Gardening, but I'm done trying to figure it out.