New Dawn Gardens

I left it to the last minute to call him when I purchased the deal, then he was unreachable for quite a while. Once we spoke on the phone, things went pretty smoothly. He did the aerating when I wasn't home (as we had agreed). I was a little surprised when he came to the mulching--I am not sure we had scheduled it in advance, though we may have done. I thought he was bringing two helpers, but he only brought one, though they were efficient and got everything done in the time we had agreed.

The work went very well. Richard show up on time, we reviewed the work that he was perform and he got right to it and did an exceptional job.

Got the deal from Angie, very reasonable! Apparently lots of other people had the same idea. Took them a while to get back to me. But, once they did, they were terrific. Very pleased with their work and look forward to working with them this spring!

Overall, everything went as expected. Richard was a pleasure to work with.

Richard and his crew arrived early, which worked out great for me. They did an excellent job in cleaning up my 1500 sq. ft. Patio. Richard pruned all of my roses, topped off my soil, added Epsom salt to all of the acid loving plants. They moved all of the patio furniture and did a through job in cleaning behind all off the furniture. Richard has a wealth of plant knowledge and enjoys sharing it. I highly recommend New Dawn and I will use them for future landscaping and cleanup.

Lawn cleanup went well. Richard and his crew worked with me to have fall cleanup done before county leaf pickup occurred. Met with Richard regarding landscaping plan last weekend. He is working on it, but have no doubt it will be great.

I purchased the deal - 4 hours of landscaping for $120. Someone came out to talk about the specific tasks to be done and said it could be done in the 4 hour time frame. I explained that I wanted it done and if if I had to purchase some additional hours I would do that. They were scheduled to come between 1:00 and 2:00 on a given day. They called and said they were running late. The first person came about 3:30 and the second person didn't come until 4:00. They stopped when it was too dark to work at 5:15. So, I got total time of 3 hours instead of 4 and they did not finish all the work we had talked about. They did do a majority of the weeds, which was what I would have put priority on, and they did some trimming on the evergreens. If it had been light enough to inspect after they said the were finished, I would have asked them to do more. I did not call them back to complain that they had not finished what we had agreed on.

The appearance of my home is greatly improved by his staking large crypress type shrubs. Everything has been trimed and looks very neat. I plan to use him again.

After some delay in getting in touch, Richard came out personally with a crew of two and all three of them worked hard doing the yard cleanup I wanted. Richard also gave me advice about tree/bush health and possible addtional work to do in the Spring. He was very knowledgeable and pleasant to work with. I would use him again. I felt I got more than my money's worth from him on this deal as he put in more than the 4 man-hours promised. Also, I asked for help by Thanksviging and although he was very busy with Big Deal responses, he did the work a day or two before T'giving.

I was promptly contacted and we set up a time to meet to discuss the scope of the work. A time was set up to come and perform the work, the work was done promptly and professionally. He is extremely knowledgeable, and it shows in the work.

It was a Big Deal. His name was Richard Miller. We were very pleased. It took a long time for him to get out here but we understood. It was $125 and we paid $37 extra for mulch. He did a consultation and we discussed what we wanted done. He explained that he was running behind because of the Angie's List coupon. We were happy with it. We really liked his knowledge. He really knew a lot about the trees on our property. It was fine for the amount of money we paid.

I signed up for the Big Deal. It took a long time to get an appointment but once they did come they were professional and gave me good advice on my garden. The yard work performed was what I expected and I was pleased with the end results.

I think I wrote that in the first box.

.Mr. Miller was hard to get held of after I purchased the Big Deal. He was very apologetic after we did connect. He came and was very thorough in going over what I needed done and was extremely knowledgeable about plants. He freely gave me advice about my plantings. After a few weeks his men came and did what I asked, very neatly. However they did not come when I was home, which bothered me as Mr. Miller had said he would do that. I would really like to contact him again. I think I would try to make sure it was not in a rush season.

I purchased the Angie's List deal of 4 man-hours of fall landscaping clean-up and landscape review. Richard was very responsive to my call, even though his deal was very popular. We talked about the work that I wanted to get done and he helped me to be more realistic of what could be done in that time and done well. He and his assistant came back and completed the work of cleaning out a flower bed to seed for grass. It should be all ready for the spring!

I have had a mostly positive experience. Richard was clearly overwhelmed by the response to the deal and scheduling the consult was challenging--e.g., a voice mail left on Saturday morning asking to come by that weekend, and a lack of email response to confirm a day/time I suggested then followed by a call tat the suggested time saying he was on his way. The consult provided helpful information about plants and re-organizing my yard. He informed me that the work I wanted done with the deal of moving some raised beds was likely to take more than the 2 hours and that he'd provide a discounted hourly rate. Richard himself is pleasant and helpful. The work I wanted done was moving 2 large raised beds. Richard and a helper did that in approximately the 2 hours, including leveling the beds and moving a pile of wood chips. Richard pulled some weeds in the yard and suggested moving the wood chips to the other end of the yard to cover the excavated spot. They went only half an hour longer than the deal and left my yard looking clean and fresh.

I was very happy with the initial consultation, as well as the actual work. The back yard looks signficantly better. I expect the full benefits of the pruning won't be evident until the spring.

Overall, not well. They said they worked nine hours (3 men three hours) on the leaves but it looked to me like they had raked leaves from a fairly small area of my yard -- the driveway and some bushes in front of my house. I was barely able to notice the difference. I wonder if they used leaf blowers or just rakes. I have a large yard (3 acres) with clumps of trees on the sides and back -- lots of leaves. I didn't want the leaves taken up from the bushes in front of my house, I wanted leaves from the larger yard area moved to one side of the yard, under trees, where they decompose over winter. We discussed this. I usually clear leaves myself with a blower and can cover a much larger area in nine work hours. I have mixed feelings about having to pay $96 for the extra hour I hired them to rake leaves (they offered a 20% discount from their usual fee, for the extra hour). I did not expect them to move all the leaves in the time bargained for, but I thought they'd clear a much larger area they they did cover. I met with the owner a few days after paying Angie's list. We walked around the yard and discussed what needed work. Initially I asked them to do one hour trimming shrubs and two hours raking. I asked for early-mid November. They called twice during November saying they would be out in a few days, each time they postponed until later, by then there were plenty of leaves down and two weeks of warm sunny weather -- great for taking care of leaves -- had passed. So I called and told them forget trimming shrugs and just work on the leaves, soon, before the weather changed and the leaves got wet and packed down. They came out a few days later in response to my call, which was good. I was not home when they worked on the leaves. My take on it is that they primarily do landscaping, this was clearing leaves in a yard. That's probably not what they usually do. I also had the sense that they got many jobs via Angie's list, perhaps more than they could handle in the time frame, so it took them longer to get a crew together and do the work. That's all speculataion on my part though. The owner was polite but either my expectation was unreasonable or they didn't have the crew and equipment they needed.

After quite a bit of difficulty connecting, we were finally able to set up a time for the yard consultation, which was helpful. Richard was very nice, had some good ideas for the yard. However, he told me he would get back to me about scheduling the actual yard work, and I have not heard from him since. It's been way too much of an effort so far, so I'm just going to cut my losses, unless I do get a call. I was looking for a company I could use for the long term for landscape design and implementation, and unfortunately, Richard indicated that his schedule is already full, and his company wouldn't be able to perform work I will need in the spring to get my yard in shape. So, overall not a satisfying experience.

I used to do this work myself, but I have pretty bad allergies, and my allergist had been on me for a while to get someone else to do this. In the meantime, my summer was crazy and my front yard was a mess with lots of weeds, a small tree growing, and overgrown bushes. Richard contacted me as soon as the deal was purchased and we exchanged a few emails to set up a time for him to come see my yard and what needed to be done. He was on time for our meeting and we went over all that needed to be taken care of: weeding, removing the tree, cutting back the bushes, eradicating some mint that had gone wild, general cleanup of leaves, mulching. He let me know that his crew would be in the area around the schedule of the yard waste clean up of the city (they pick up some yard waste twice a year). I came home one day and everything was done except the mulch. After a few weeks, I contacted him about the mulch and he let me know they were just waiting for the last of the leaves to come down and should be putting it down next week. My only complaint was that he did not follow up to let me know about the mulch, I had to contact him to find out the status.

Richard called me to set up the appointment to estimate the job. He arrived on time. He took notes on what we discussed and provided a time window in which he would show up to complete the job. Since Superstorm Sandy had recently blown through, he was careful to point out he was overbooked but would do the best he could. He actually came more than a week earlier than he promised, called me 2 X to alert me he would be coming early, came when he said he would, worked neatly and finished the most important work we prioritized. Excellent communicator and personable.

Richard and I did not meet for three or four weeks after I purchased the package. When we did meet, we got along well, and he had good ideas. We agreed on a day and time for the work to be done. I suggested that he wait until after Thanksgiving, as he was trying to rush to get my work done by then, and I didn't really care about having it done for the holiday. He dropped the pansies off for me to look at and approve before he planted them. My one less than top grade for responsiveness could well have been occasioned by the burst of business Richard got from running his special on Angie's list, and by the occurrence of Hurricane Sandy at the time I normally would have had the work done. My concerns were 1) that it was a bit annoying to play phone and email tag to set up the initial appointment to assess the work to be done, and 2) when we met, his cell phone rang constantly, and he took most of the calls.

We have only received about half of the service to date. The garden consultation was professional, friendly and useful. Now we are waiting for the company to schedule the actual lawn work we had discussed. Due to the popularity of this deal, it seems they are overwhelmed with requests. Hoping that the work will happen in the next few weeks, and I will come back and update my review then. So far so good, just hope the work is done soon.

Richard is wonderful to work with. After I purchased my Angie's List deal (4 hours of lawn work + 1 hour garden consultation) I contacted him to setup an appointment and we met at my property. The first thing you discover about Richard is that he is very experienced at lawn/plant/tree care and he is absolutely passionate about his work. We walked around my recently purchased property (.7 acres) and Richard easily identified the many species of trees and plants, trouble spots that we should pay attention to and tips and guidance on how to maintain everything. As a new home owner who does not have a strong gardening background, I really appreciated his knowledge and expertise; I learned a great deal even from this initial visit. It took him and his staff a few weeks to get to us to do the actual work (in fairness, we had the Thanksgiving Holiday and he was slammed by all of the Angie's Deal customers) but I never once lost contact with him and every single time I called him, he answered on the first attempt. I don't think I've ever worked with a contractor who I didn't have to constantly play phone-tag with and I was pleasantly surprised with his responsiveness. As for the work, Richard did a fabulous job. I barely recognized our home after he cleared out a considerable amount of dead plants and weeds. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend his services to anyone.

Richard Miller got in touch soon after I purchased the deal. He came over to assess the job and estimate time needed. Within a week or two, he came back to perform the work. The job took longer than the time I had purchased; he charged me a discounted rate for the extra hours and hauled away all the trash (also at a discounted rate). He was very friendly, competent and efficient.