Mr. Mathein of Green City Gardens created a very concise landscaping plan as well as listened to all my concerns. He even made modifications per my request just prior to install date.  Work and end result were great, and these once barren beds are now beautifully landscaped.

Green City Gardens did a wonderful job taking our home's just finished construction site and turning it into a lovely landscaped yard. As anyone who has built a house or added on a home knows by the time you get to landscaping you tend to be tapped out on your budget and tired of the idea of more construction - even if it is outdoors. JD was terrific at listening to our vague description of how wanted to use our outdoor space along with our definite concerns over budget and translated that into a beautiful yard that will satisfy our needs for many years to come. He took into consideration the style of our home and our lack of interest in spending a great deal of time tending to our yard so that we would have a low maintenance, perennial landscaping that aesthetically enhances our home. Another nice bonus was that everyone that was brought to work on our project was professional, personable and easy to work with. We will continue to use JD and his company in the future as the purpose for our yard changes.

We had a very good experience! Plant selections were very nice - considered colors, textures, and height in all beds. They worked efficiently and very 'clean' as well. Plants did very well all last summer despite hot/dry conditions and appear to be poised to re-bloom this spring.
I plan to have their team back to do some additional work this summer.

After a rough start and misunderstanding JD and his crew came back and gave us great service and gave us a good deal on the services provided.

It was great, he called to make sure that we had the right time scheduled. Outside of being a perfectionist in what he does, he had a great personality and was easy to work with. He did a few extra things that needed to be done, that I wasn't even aware of. I can't wait to call JD again.

I couldn't be happier with our experience with J.D. and his team at Green City Gardens.   I found him to be extremely responsive, professional, creative, and well-priced.  If you are considering working with the Chalet Nursery or any other landscaping professional, I would highly recommend meeting with J.D. as well.  After doing so, I can guarantee you will choose to work with Green City Gardens.  They created a very unique and beautiful garden for us and, truly, I couldn't be more pleased with it!

J.D. and Green City Gardens are passionate about what they do and are real professionals. This was a great experience from start to finish, although we're not finished: we're so impressed by their work on our front yard we're going to have them come back next Spring and do the back yard too. J.D. came out to see the overgrowth in front of our house and was mindful of what we could keep in the way of ground cover and flowers that "fit", vs. looking at new designs. His ideas were on the mark each time, even after we asked him to revise some of the design in terms of new plantings and placement of new beds. J.D. is a true consultant; that was evident in him coming out a couple of times to re-measure and re-assess new bed placement, as well as his willingness to encourage us not to overdo anything and keep budget a key consideration. We never felt rushed to finalize a design, and his keen eye for sprucing up what was already in place proved to us he had our best interests in mind. Some landscapers can be biased as to what plantings they like and have had experience with, but J.D. was quite flexible. He accomodated our schedule, and has the mind of a general contractor, in that he also had had great ideas for other things we were in the process of lining up such as exterior painting and underground sprinkling and how the timing of each of those projects would best work sequentially with the new landscaping.

When the day came for the work to be done, I expected a truck and crew to show up and to see J.D. some time during the day to check on things. It was J.D. himself who pulled up in the truck with just a couple of crew members and they worked tirelessly for a day and half to do the entire front yard project. When i told J.D. I didn't expect that he'd be the one leading the work, he just smiled and said "I love what I do."

And it shows, in a big way. By the end of the day we were already receiving compliments from neighbors. Our overgrown mess of a front yard has gone through a real transformation to highlight the front of our house, new colors and variety in new plantings.

J.D. and Green City were always responsive. The level of communication he maintained with us during the design, and revised design process was outstanding. As stated above, we requested a couple of revisions. He was thoroughly patient and you could tell he just wanted us to be sure we knew what we wanted and how it would turn out.

OK, and I can't resist: J.D., besides being a genuine guy, is also one of the funniest professionals we've ever met. Had a hard time pinning down his quick wit and humor, but if Robin Williams were a landscaper........   :-)

I love working with people who are A) excellent at what they do, and B) easy to do business with. J.D. and Green City are all that and more.

Our experience with JD was wonderful from start to finish. We had a drainage issue in our back yard and wanted to install new greenery to hide our neighbor's large shed. We also wanted to spruce up the front of our house to give it more curb appeal. JD and his crew at Green City Gardens came to our rescue.
 Working with JD was so easy. He is obviously very knowledgeable about plants, shrubs and trees, but his enthusiasm was incredible. He had great ideas for plants that would provide beauty and privacy. He drew up the perfect plans for our small house, that reused some of our existing plants and added several new to create the garden that we wanted.
 JD and his crew showed up at the house on time and worked through two full days to remove the old plants, prepare and form the new garden areas and install all the new plants and shrubs. They also put in a dry well to address the drainage issues. Many of my neighbors remarked that they had never seen a crew work so hard. The end result is a beautiful landscape that is the envy of our block.

J.D. and his crew were amazing.  From beginning to end they went above and beyond.  It started with J.D.'s great ideas for adding color and educational plants, like elderberry, to the garden. He created a vision that kept with the spirit of the garden and respected the existing plantings, taking out only what we needed to to open up the space.
He was then flexible and responsive throughout the process, answering questions, even accommodating a specific installation date so the work could be done while the school was closed for a holiday.
Beyond that, he demonstrated a genuine desire to help, and a commitment to the job that made me feel I had a true partner dedicated to getting the job done well. One example of this was that J.D., on seeing our rotting garden bridge, went out of his way to solicit a donation of a gently used garden bridge in lieu of fixing the old one (which would have added to our cost), and even made an extra trip to install it. 
His crew did a beautiful job with the rockscaping, and left the garden in prestine condition after the work, even stopping to pick up and haul away some garden waste that wasn't even theirs! Not only was it an absolute pleasure working with them,  I'm thrilled with the result! I highly recommend Green City Gardens!

They did a great job. Very reasonably priced. Extremely helpful in making suggestions about what plants to use. Work was done promptly and professionally.

JD and his crew were wonderful from start to finish. Before JD, our heavily shaded back yard consisted of patches of grass and dirt but it is now beautiful. He really listened to what we wanted. He and I sat at his computer looking at pictures of plants he thought would work and I got to pick what I liked from that. He then developed a plan and included color pix of the mature plants so we could picture what they would grow into.
JD's first estimate was a bit higher than we wished to spend so he reworked it by subtracting some of the plants and putting in some that were a size smaller.
JD and his crew then did the work in less than a week and were courteous and professional. The yard is now absolutely lovely.
I want to add that we had 3 other companies provide estimates and plans and JD's was the least expensive by thousands of dollars, and fit what we envisioned the best..

I really don't want to be inside at my computer writing this review because I want to spend all my time now in my yard - both back and in front of the house - after J.D. Mathiem's masterful planning and planting yesterday.   My family and dogs were outside all day enjoying our new outside living space.  I joined Angie's List to find a lanscaper and p

icked the one I found with 5-star rating: Green City Gardens.  The perfect experience that ensued is both a testimony to J.D. (owner) and Angie.   We turned to J.D. to speed up the process of making our outside living spaces feel as inviting as our inside.   In hindsight, we could never have done what J.D. created even if we wanted to take years to create.  J.D. saw our space, listened to our wish list, sent the perfect representation of same.  He was warm, creative, funny.  He gave us install date and came out and created a sanctuary for us in back yard and warm, inviting look out front.  His crew were was hardworking and accomodating.  And J.D. was focussed and intent while creating his vision which made the job get done to the last detail.  Even for our small yard, there was alot of work involved but it all seemed to get done seamlessly and on time. 
I am telling all and anyone about Green City Gardens.   And adding that true to his word, J.D. returned today to make sure the timing system for the sprinklers were set correctly so that our investment would grow tall and even more beautiful.   Anyone who thinks they can do this on their own should think again.  And why when you can turn to someone who truly, truly has a green thumb.   Thank you J.D. and thank you Angie, Anne Boguslavsky

Excellent!  See my comments above.

J.D. scored right away by answering my first call on a Sunday when I was planning to leave a voice message, and we managed to have a few laughs in the course of that conversation.  As noted above, his proposal was the best among several that were also good.  I liked that he offered to go with me to the growers to nail down exactly what cultivars to plant - and I took him up on that offer once we got to that phase of the project.  I also liked that he worked with our design plan without nitpicking the fact that it wasn't fully detailed as he probably would have preferred. As with every big project, there are always speed bumps - some in our control, and some that aren't. One bump in control was checking assumptions - we thought J.D. was checking into options for material to frame our raised bed along with our own research - and he thought we were handling the research and procurement of those materials. As that was a critical path item before we left on vacation, I would have liked a little more confirmation on who was doing what.  As it turned out, my husband came up with an ingenious solution and together with J.D., they worked on the install of that piece. Other bumps out of control - Mother Nature!  We discovered a beach of sand under our old driveway (courtesy of Lake Michigan), necessitating a deeper dig and about 24" of gravel.  J.D. and his team swung into action and took care of the challenge right away, and with such quality. And - there was the intense heat and drought conditions during the summer of 2012 - and J.D. kindly agreed to delay the install of the landscape as much as he could without throwing off other clients on his schedule.  About the install of the ground covers and grasses - he did such an artful job of interpreting our fairly loose design. As I spent time watering and pulling the tiniest of weeds over the fall of 2012, I appreciated more and more the thought he put into what went where. Finally and most importantly - the people.  J.D. by now you should surmise is great to work with.  But he is matched by his business partners who did such a professional job on every aspect of the install.  Truly great guys - extremely diligent and willing to answer questions and endure my photographs each day as they made progress.  They kept the site tidy, were respectful to the neighbors, and the quality of their work is obvious - very tight, very exact, very solid. J.D. and his subs were outstanding - even happy to do extras, like pulling out a "shrub" I detested and coming back to replace bits of sod that didn't thrive as well as the rest.

The design JD created was beautiful. Perhaps a little more than we had hoped to spend, but well worth the cost! We have received many compliments from our neighbors and friends. Very satisfied customer.

We worked with Green City Gardens, and JD the owner, designing and building our front and backyard landscaping.  The design included both plants and hardscape, as well as grading and drainage.  All in all, we are very pleased with the work.
The first phase of the work, our front yard, was completed in October 2011.  We had him install a retaining wall, new sodding and plantings.  JD was very easy to work with for both design and build. He was very responsive and personally made sure that everything was in order. We really like the end result, and since then we have had many people tell us how much they like our front yard.
Since we liked his work so much, we asked JD to come back and design a patio and plantings for our back yard as well.  For this second phase of work, JD was very thorough and open to multiple discussions on the size and shape of the patio, including a midway rework of the shape.  It has just been completed, and again we really like the end result.

We needed some general landscaping and figuring out what to do with some unusable parts of our yard.  JD came over and spent close to an hour discussing options.  He was very patient going through a variety of flowers and  plans for the yard.  Later that week he also followed up with new ideas.  He sent BEAUTIFUL drawings of the landscaping design and came over a few weeks later to do the planting.
JD and his team are absolute professionals and they were very efficient the day of planting.  The design was implemented as we discussed and looks amazing! My neighbors literally stopped by for the next week to say how nice it looks.  I would recommend Green City Gardens to anyone - they did an amazing job.

J.D. and his team are real pros.  I first called JD last fall to give me some ideas for re-landscaping our front yard.  He had great ideas and is able to quickly sketch them out to give you an idea of how it might look.
We finalized a detailed plan and agreed to install it this Spring.  The actual implementation looks even better than the drawing.  He's a master at colors, shapes and different plant/tree options -- exactly what I wanted.   His team was pleasant, professional and attentive. 
We have been working through some backyard/patio options next -- assume we'll have an equally good experience.

Company is owned by JD Matheim (sp?) and he comes to do the work along with three other workers. All work hard and are careful of other plantings. Great communication throughout the process. He underestimated the sod by six rolls and the mulch so he came back the next day by himself and finished the job. He didn't charge for the additional sod and mulch.

They have done a great job. I will probably use them again. They are sensitive to budget restraints.

J.D. and his team were excellent to work with. We had a limited budget and long list of items that we wanted to have accomplished in our front yard. J.D. was the only landscaper (out of the 4 we received quotes from) that put together a beautiful plan and kept our wish list within the budget. There were changes that needed to be made once his team started the work, but I think that is very common with any big project. In the end, our front yard was transformed and is now beautiful to look at. I can't wait for all my new plants to start blooming this spring! We will definitely be using Green City Gardens for any future landscaping needs.

J.D. and hist team transformed both our front and back yard and we couldn't be happier. We selected GCG because J.D. listened to what we wanted and how we planned to use our outdoor space--and then came back with a terrific design. During the actual installation we improvised with some of the tree and shrub choices, and J.D. made it work perfectly. The paver walkway and patio is stunning, and the quality of the work is exceptional. Even when we a couple of our shrubs and portions of the sod were not thriving, J.D. came out right away to replace them.

We also had GCG come back for fall clean-up and they did a really nice job.

My experience with Green City Gardens was excellent. JD was prompt with providing a quote, and flexible with me when I had to change dates. They worked hard and as long as daylight would allow. They had to come the following day to finish. When it was all said and done, the landscaping looked great and my yard was cleaned up better than expected. His quote/final price was very fair and JD was very enjoyable to work with. I would definitely use him again.

Overall, they were excellent. They were good, friendly, timely and competent. I would rate them highly and would continue to use them in the future.

Very well.  We picked GCG because we loved JD's design.  he wasn't the cheapest but he was in the middle to lower middle of the pack -- we got a number of estimates.   The work was as described and JD was very responsive to any questions/concerns/problems.  Our neighbors have given us tons of compliments and one has asked for his contact info.  JD's design was tops because it was smart, creative and it was US -- he really listened and even though I swore I did not know what I wanted, he pulled it out of me and made note of my likes and dislikes.  He figured out what I wanted when I didn't know myself.... and the results make me happy everytime I drive or walk up to my house!