Plants Creative Landscapes

OK but there are less expensive more responsive companies in the area that do work of comparable quality.

I recently hired Plants Creative Landscapes to design and to install a Mediterranean inspired front yard. The way that they work is that you pay them $600 initially for the design which they will deduct from the final cost if you decide to complete the work with them. This sounded great to me as I had every intention to work with the same company for the entirety of the project. I met the designer at the house, gave her very specific instructions with a clear explanation of what we hoped to achieve, along with a firm budget. She proceeded to miss the first deadline, then the next only to deliver a plan that was over budget and what could best be described as something someone who does not take pride in their work would deliver. It had simple mistakes of organization and a general lack of attention to detail which directly erodes trust. I communicated my concerns and pointed out the disappointing errors to her. They were met with an unprofessional tone which took no responsibility. Think "I'm sorry you feel that way" kind of approach. That seemed odd. My issues were specific. There were missing plant names and the itemized list of plants not matching what was in the visual representation of the plan and the treatment of my budget as a mere suggestion. I asked her to revise the plan in order to adhere to the budget. She returned the plan with the same errors but now the legend had changed as well. What used to denote one plant in the initial plan was now used to denote a different plant. Good luck figuring that out. And, since the missing plant names were never corrected from the first plan to the next, to this day, some of the symbols on the plan are well, just little squiggly things. I certainly don't know what they are. Add to this, the revised plan that she delivers is very sparse. Gone is the bounty of the Mediterranean landscape with flowers and fruit trees and general abundance. Now we're in that part of the HGTV show where they've shown you what is grossly outside of your budget and they're teaching you a lesson. The only difference is that I was never that geezer who thought he would get into an expansive Spanish villa for $150k. I had a very firm grasp of what I could afford and what that would look like. My requests were simple: native, drought tolerant, Mediterranean looking plants. That's it. I had communicated this very clearly. Finally, I felt I had no choice but to move on since I had little trust in their ability to communicate or to execute this plan. I had to assume that the lack of attention to detail and the lack of care displayed in the design phase would surely carry over into the execution. In response, here is what I received. "I hope you have found another qualified contractor to accomplish your landscape goals and I wish you the very best." I expected a partial or full refund along with an apology which directly addressed the errors; one which tells you that this company will hold themselves accountable when they make mistakes. As it stands, I have not heard from anyone else at this company and can't be sure if any of the principals are aware of this level of neglect. I can't in good conscience recommend this business.

First off, despite being given a clear max budget, their designer went 3X over that with her plan. When I had to cut that down, I only got part of my payment credited towards the install based on the percentage they did. They planted hosta and cone flowers that were already dying, did not put down a weed barrier, and moved plants to areas different from the plan without consulting me. I now have weeds covering my mulch a few months later, and several dead plants.

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Pam Dooley (Owner/Operations Manager) was the person my appointment was with, but the person who actually came out to do the estimate told me that Pam was not available so she would take notes and photos of my property and I would get an estimate within a few days. She couldn't answer most of my questions because she said that she was a landscape architect or designer, and didn't typically do maintenance estimates. She was pleasant, though. We walked around my property and talked for about 1/2 an hour. Afterwards, she said she would take some pictures and pass the info on to the appropriate party and they would email an estimate to me shortly (within a week, I believe). I never heard from the company again. I didn't bother contacting them, and from the other reviews on this site, I can see I am not the only person who had their valuable time wasted by this company. Because the initial meeting was scheduled promptly, and the Plants, LLC (aka Plants Creative Services on BBB) associate showed up on time and was professional during our meeting, I didn't rate their responsiveness, punctuality and professionalism an and quot;Fand quot;. Would not give them another chance.

I thought I found the landscape company that would be there for all of my community needs. I hired them for a sod install, and not only was I very happy with the work and install speed, but they also were priced better. I contacted the owner again for additional work and they came back and again, did a great job. In April of 2013, I contacted PLANTS to come do anothe quote, this time looking to have about 4000.000 of work completed.I met with her and we walked the property. I waited about two weeks after and still no quote, I spoke with the office and left messges and emails but still nothing but promises of a quote coming. Each week went by and next thing I know, it was the 1st week of July. At that point i had to walk away, having already lost most of the season and rain to waiting for a company to deliver that never did. I was truely sorry to see the downward slide of customer service. They used to work out of a small location in Decatur, then they moved to a larger space in downtown Decatur. It seems this is one of those companys that as they grew, they lost their personal touch with the customer.

I had requested the provider for a landscape quote. The work was over $20K. Initially they were very responsive and professional. I was looking forward to working with them as they seemed very knowledgeable. Unfortunately they stopped returning calls mid process and I had to go with another provider from Angies. Unless they are too busy ... you would think a $20+ K project and a larger phase 2 project would motivate them.

We have been using them for about a year and a half now. They are an absolute joy to work with. The staff is friednly and professional. The pricing is reasonable. They are excellent at what they do and I would highly recommend this company to other.

A friend referred this company to us so we were expecting (at the very minimum) a pleasant experience. We originally contacted them to come out for an estimate to do yard cleanup, tree/shrub pruning, lawn care, and some planting around mid-March. They came out to our house on March 30 and spent 10-15 minutes walking around and gathering information about what our needs/desires were. At that time, the representative said someone else would be coming out to take photos and get information for an estimate and that we should hear back within 7 days about what the cost of services would be. We thought it was odd that the person who came to our house to provide an estimate could not actually give us an estimate. That appointment seemed pointless but we continued to work with them. We heard nothing from them until April 19 (20 days later) and by then had nearly moved on. At this point we were desperate to get on the schedule because our yard looked terrible. We spent the next 2 weeks negotiating back and forth about what specific services we wanted from the original estimate and each time waiting for them to send us a new estimate. During this time, the delay in response from this company for each correspondence averaged about 3 days (phone calls, emails, etc.). At the end of April, we were finally ready to get on the schedule which we were then informed was booked 3-4 weeks out. Nearly at our wits end, we awaited a reply from Plants, LLC to give us our appointment date and time--the final step. They said they would be and quot;getting their schedule together by the end of the weekand quot; on April 29. That is the last we have heard from them. I have no idea how they stay in business with this kind of customer service. We feel somewhat foolish for letting them waste so much of our time. In retrospect, I suppose were were put on the back burner because our project was rather small scale (about $900), but it is unacceptable to string customers along indefinitely. If the project was too small and a waste of their time and resources they could have communicated that fact to us. Other companies have minimum project sizes so I know this is not uncommon practice especially during busier seasons. The bottom line is that we would never recommend this company to anyone who needed landscaping services. There are plenty of other companies out there--shop around! Work with people who will give you the time of day and not waste your time. The good news in all of this is that we completely changed our attitudes about paying people to do things that we could potentially tackle if we can find the time. I did some research, bought the necessary tools to do the job, and we have been chipping away at the project we were going to pay them $900 to do. Cost of doing it ourselves is half of that.

Estimate and schedule was reasonable. They were flexible on some changes we requested after we received the first estimate and plan. Installation was done correctly and on time. Where Plants LLC falls down is communication. Once installation was done, we had some issues that needed to be corrected. Unfortunately, phone calls were not returned and emails went unanswered. The issues were ultimately resolved, but it took way too much effort on my part and took way too long for them to acknowledge the problem and then fix it.

From start to finish, excellent work. Demolition of existing plants was a dream. Left no stone unturned. Made seamless transition from phase 1. Items we weren't satisfied with got addressed immediately (i.e., sealing pavers, plant locations). We love Plants!

One-day job with 4 crew members. Arrived when they said they would in the morning. Had some delays due to the flagstone not being available, but the crew stayed very late to finish the job. We made on-the-fly adjustments to the work and the crew was very amenable to that. Will now be monitoring their follow-up if any issues should arise with the project.