Smith & Baker Landscapes LLC

Description of Work: Install flower beds, six cypress trees, move a fairly large crepe myrtle, create a small water feature, do some leveling, and construct a pea gravel driveway from rear of the house to an outbuilding. Overall, we were very dissatisfied. Both Smith and Baker do deserve a lot of credit in that they worked hard. My big objection is that Justin Smith, with whom my wife and I dealt, at best revised history in order to avoid his obligations. The leveling, cypress tree planting and the actual construction of the flower beds were basically done well, except that the azaleas are pink despite my wife's saying she hated pink and two of the cypress trees are too close to a power line. Some of the biggest problems were with the driveway. (1) Prior to contracting we asked Smith if pea gravel would work as well as crushed limestone and he told us it would and would not be a problem. Apparently the difficulty arose when he decided to "flatten" (raise) the elevation of the driveway in part by adding more gravel. That had the effect of making the gravel so deep that a vehicle would bog down in it. He later solved that problem by mixing dry Portland cement with the gravel and, even though the cement was necessary due to Baker's miscalculation, we offered to pay and did pay S&B an extra $550 as one-half of its claimed extra expense of $1100. We made the payment despite Baker's not insisting on it and our being offended by his revising history and claiming that he had "definitely" advised against the pea gravel. (2) More importantly, during the work, I expressed my concerns that the elevated driveway would change the natural drainage of the lot and might flood the outbuilding. Smith then said let's wait and see how it goes. Some months later we did have a heavy rain and the outbuilding almost flooded. When I contacted Baker about it he did come out and evaluate the situation. But, conveniently forgetting his earlier comment, he wanted an extra charge to fix the problem he created! I was especially upset regarding the installation of the wiring for the fountain in the water feature. I explained to Smith that there was an available underground 110 volt line nearby which was already connected to a switch in the house and that this line was not in current use because it had been for lights in a tree which had been lost due to Hurricane Gustav. I showed him the location of the line. After installation I asked him about the line and he said his electrician had preferred to run a new line. I later encountered electrical problems in the outbuilding, which received 220 volt electricity via three large underground cables from the main house service. It was very frustrating for our contractor, a separate electrician I hired and me. Finally we ran new underground cables and, in digging the final few feet to tie them into the house main, we discovered that S&B had cut one of the three earlier cables and then simply covered it up--never telling me about it! In addition to the trenching I personally performed, we incurred over $1000 in expenses. I could have accepted S&B's making a mistake, but intentionally cutting this large line and not mentioning it shows a high degree of ignorance or intentional coverup, or both. It appears to me that "both" applies. S&B did move and replant the fairly large crepe myrtle (about 15' tall). However, they did not secure it adequately so it turned over. They replanted it and secured it with guy wires. However, that work was inadequate and it turned over again. Since it overturned on a holiday weekend and I wanted a permanent fix, with much effort and time I personally dug it out , repositioned it and secured it well with guy wires. Have had no further problems. A Japanese maple was planted behind the water feature as specified. However, it was in distress from the day it was planted. When we told Baker about the fact it appeared to be dying, he said let's wait and see if it in fact dies and if it does S&B would replace it. Later, when we pointed out to him that by then it was clear that the maple, as well as other plants, had in fact died despite our frequently watering them, he said S&B had no responsibility because by then it was past the warranty period. The small water feature appears to leak, about 5-10 gallons per day if left running.

Description of Work: They surveyed my lot to identify problem areas for water drainage. They then reshaped the ground in my yard to allow ground water to flow to an existing storm drain in the front/center of our front yard.