THREE SEASONS LAWN

Rich was punctual when he came to talk with me & check out the yard--he made his recommendations the same day and gave me a price. Since mine was a relatively small job, and required no pavers be ordered, he was able to work in between a couple of his larger jobs. The day scheduled for the job, he and his crew showed up to do the heavy work & later Quentin took over to level the yard & plant the new plants--he had some major difficulty with his wheelbarrow malfunctioning, but the work got done! I felt a good job was done. Since then, The silver plantings died, but I can't blame Rich---they got smothered by "cudzu" or something similar, that overtook them while I was out of town last summer.

This company is absolutely horrible! Rich Alexander and his wife, Charity, and Rich's son Quinton are total crooks, in our opinions. We should have seen the writing on the wall from the beginning, but Rich is such a smooth talker, we suckered in to his slick ways. We got 2 other estimates for a "Cypress Gardens" type of back yard at our new home, but we liked his designs best. (He said he spent weeks designing it, but we saw it in a picture that had been taken a few years earlier. The lie should have tipped us off, but we let it go.) He only showed up for appts to go over design and materials about 1/2 the scheduled times, and of the times he came, he was often quite late. Some appts were to show us samples of the material choices, but he would show up empty-handed and then talk on and on about things we had already gone over. His list of excuses for failures was ENDLESS! Although we had the other estimates in 3 days or less, we spent weeks waiting for his. Again, great promises, then lots of excuses. First it was a family trip to Orlando, then it was a cruise. He was waiting for prices. He was shopping around for plants. He claimed to have been a landscaper for 18 years, but it took him nearly a month to get an estimate. He knew we needed it done before it got hot, and my petsitting clients were on hold, but excuses, excuses. Then we wanted a contract. He was resistant, but we became insistent. Charity (who runs the home office said she would be glad to write one up, describing everything that Rich was promising to do, but he kept "forgetting" to bring it or would say that she made mistakes and it had to be rewritten.) All we ever got was a plant list, which ALSO had no itemized pricing. He kept backing up the start dates. We had agreed that he would only start on a Monday since it was a 5 or 6-day job, so the yard wouldn't be dug up on weekend (we have 5 dogs). So without a word, his workers showed up on a Friday morning to remove the sod. I told them to come back on Monday. They left our side gate wide open. Rich never ran out of lies: "He is always on site if his workers are there." He didn't even stop by every day that they were here, and when he WAS her, walking around and talking ad nausium, he kept leaving to talk to our neighbors about doing their yards. "He only does ONE job at a time, so he can get done quickly and concentrate on doing everything to the best of his ability." Actually, the job took several weeks because they were doing other jobs at the same time. (He and his workers eventually admitted it.) "The paving crew would come on Sat and even work on Sun if they had to to get caught up." No show, and no one answered our calls all weekend. On Mon Rich said that he didn't know his paver crew was doing a personal job all weekend, but the paver said he was working with Rich on a 3 Seasons job in Punta Gorda that weekend. "I work right with the crew, shoulder-to-shoulder, every day." We saw Rich plant 1 small palm, otherwise he almost never got dirty. (And he cut our irrigation electrical line when he did it.) "He has a professional landscape lighting guy who does all his lighting for him." When it came time to put in the lighting, he was installing it himself. He said he never said he had anyone else, and he was very experienced and qualified to do it himself. "He would use a 300 w transformer, which would be more than adequate for our large yard." It was actually only a 75w, which wouldn't come close to bearing the load. (The REAL lighting professional we hired showed us.) Rich also crossed wires in TWO places, causing our circuit breakers to blow repeatedly. He told us it was an electrical problem with our home or circuit breakers. We hired professional electricians who also showed us that the house was fine but the extention cord for the fountain/LED light in the retaining wall that Rich used had been cut and was shorting out. "The irrigation system is faulty." Truth be told, we paid $150 to an irrigation company to have them show us where RICH cut the lines when he planted the Foxtail Palm. They also showed us that the control box settings were unbelievably messed up, so once they reset everything and repaired the cut lines under the palm the system has been running perfectly. "He would bring in at least 6 loads of dirt to properly regrade the yard that Medallion Homes admitted they screwed up." He didn't bring in any dirt because he said "he found out it would cost him $700 to rent a Caterpillar". ANOTHER LIE. A tractor with a front-end scoop wouldn't cost a fraction of that. "He doesn't like concrete curbing around landscape beds so he always makes borders out of the same pavers as the patios." When he thought he was finished we reminded him that he had to put in the border for the artificial turf, and he denied ever saying there would be a border. I showed him in his picture book the border he said he had done for another job, so he had his guys do it, but they only concreted the pavers on one side and they fell over. We had to tear them out and pay a curb company to put in a quality landscape border. "The retaining wall will be of large limestone blocks." (As in one of his pictures.) NOT! We got orange bricks. And although I told him the top border was crooked, he glued them down without lining them up. Some aren't glued, so if someone sits in those places the wall falls down. "They do a complete cleanup of the property, including the concrete dust all over the pool cage and fence from the pavers." Never happened. This man has no idea what he's doing. Or perhaps he does. As long as he can talk people into giving him money for work they won't get, I guess he can be considered successful. He kept talking his way out of everything. No-show appointments, unanswered calls, switched materials, endless lies.He got part-way through the project, then went off the grid for a week. No contact. Everything was torn up with mud/dirt everywhere. When he came back, the whining started. He misjudged the material costs. He misjudged the labor costs. He misjudged the timetable. He was getting heat from other customers who wanted THEIR projects started. So he kept going on that he didn't have time to widen the driveway, expand the landscape in the front yard, put up the fence barrier landscaping on the side of the house. We saw the writing on the wall, and agreed to omit those things from the project in order to get him to complete the work that was already started. By the time he was asking for a payment we were abundantly clear that the guy was doing more damage than good and my husband held off a small amount for work undone just to get him off our property. When he called a few days later to say he would put in another little lighting power box my husband told him nicely (because Rich tends to disappear quite easily) that we didn't want him doing any more electrical work, but several plants were already dying. Rich said he "always stands behind his work" and would be back the next day at 10am, but of course we haven't seen him since. He didn't even return our shovel that he said they took by mistake, despite the fact that they spent the next week doing a project for our neighbor 2 houses away. (THEY had all the same problems we did, and they can't get answers to their calls, either.)

Rich and Charity, owners/operators, are very nice and personable. They answer the phone every time I call and take care of whatever needs to be taken care of immediately. I tried many landscapers in the 2 years I've moved into this area and every one of them either cut corners, skipped services, damaged property (screens & tie-downs on the caged lanai) and didn't stand behind their promise and service, basically ripped me off! This landscaping company is the only one out of a dozen I gave a chance to do my lawn and garden that has fulfilled their promise. Their crew are also nice, helpful and punctual. I can count on them being here every Monday morning. I can count on them fixing whatever they might break or accidentally damage, a sprinkle head knocked over while they mowed the grass or grass dying for some unknown reason. They fixed the sprinkler head right away and replaced the grass upon my request although it wasn't clear to anyone for sure how and who had caused the grass to die in a small area of the lawn. I think finding upstanding professional lawn/yard maintenance crews is not easy so finding one that actually take their work seriously and care about customer satisfaction is definitely a huge plus in my book. I would recommend this company to others and will continue to use their services in the future.