A Yard and a Half Landscaping Cooperative

It was fabulous. His name was Giovanni and he was fantastic. He is coming back in the spring to do additional work. I had gotten other estimates.

Excellent! They performed the work on budget, on time and with the best communication and expertise. We love the final result and it was a pleasure to do business with them.

This job turned out to be much more complicated than originally anticipated because of water table issues and finding hugh granite slabs in the area that needed excavation. The two workers who did the excavation and installed the patio and the patio walls were the hardest workers I've ever seen. When we ran into problems such as the hitting the watertable, Yard hired a consultant to ensure that what they were proposing as a fix for our flooding would work. Altho this was an extra cost, it was worth it. They also added electricity to the patio area to run the sump pump. Neither of these was anticipated in the original estimate. I'm happy to report that our patio looks great and inspite of having some very heavy rain recently, our patio is dry and we have not had any flooding. We highly recommend Yard and a Half; they are excellent.

From the initial consultation through to cleanup after the work I am happy with Yard & a Half. Carolyn met with me for an hour and walked around our tiny yard, answering my questions about species and proper care, offering advice when I asked for it. She was very knowledgeable in an accessible, non-pushy way. She didn't charge me for the consultation (I think it's usually around $65/hr). It took a while for the estimate to arrive, but that was to be expected since the consult was in the spring and the work wasn't going to happen until the fall. It was more than I was hoping to pay, but I decided to go with them because I had a feeling they would do an excellent job. And they did. Koletta came with one guy to help her and worked in the rain for about 4 hours pruning a very tall privet hedge and our dogwood tree. They moved a lot of stuff out of the way and put it all back neatly. They removed all the cut branches and swept up when they were finished. The hedge and the tree both look great and the trimming really lets in a lot of light to our yard for the winter. Now our hedge isn't in danger of toppling over when it snows, either! In all, a great experience and a happy customer. They are going to be returning in the spring to trim our lilacs.

We discovered that a drywell that was supposed to have been installed 10 years ago by another contractor, who replaced our driveway, never was. As part of the same job, that contractor poorly installed a drain in front of our garage doors (because of our sloping driveway), such that it broke apart over time. We contacted several companies about installing the drywell and replacing the existing drain, including A Yard & A Half. Carolyn Edsell Vetter from Yard & Half scoped out the project. Since I had done a lot of research on drywells and drains online, it was very apparent that Carolyn knew her stuff. We decided to hire A Yard & A Half, rather than the other companies, because they had done good work for us in the past, their price was reasonable, and because of Carolyn's technical knowledge. The project began about 6 weeks after we signed the contract and was completed in two days as originally estimated. Overall, the job they did was excellent. The two employees of the firm who did most of the work - on two of the hottest days in the summer - were technically skilled, meticulous, and obviously took pride in their work. The materials used in the project were excellent. The drywell was placed and constructed exactly as a drywell should be. The driveway drain, which, in addition to the downspout from the roof, led to the drywell was constructed properly too and in a fashion such that it will be durable for many years. We have had had several heavy rains since the completion of the "system," and it has worked flawlessly. I highly recommend A Yard & A Half Landscaping.

It was a very good experience. We had extremely hot weather this summer so a lot of the new grass didn?t make it. They came back to reseed the whole thing and it looks great now. They are very nice folks, the project manager was responsive, and I thought the price was good.

A+. They are great to work with, very friendly, service oriented, and the yard work is meticulously done. They are reliable, hard working, and take pride in their work. We moved out of the area, but otherwise I would definitely still be using them. The yard always looked great. The spring clean up, in particular, is a big job in our yard, but they made it look beautiful.

They are very good workers. They are thorough and careful. They do an excellent clean up job. They are very knowledgeable about what they are doing. They made some great suggestions about switching to organic lawn care. They are very reliable and trustworthy. They are good people. It is an excellent company.

Fantastic experience. Landscaping looks amazing. when our lawn did not take due to the timing of the install and hot early summer weather, they returned in the fall and weeded and re-seeded the lawn. It looks fabulous now.

Not a very good company to work with.

Even though the project took longer than expected, we are very pleased with the look and quality of the final result and definitely would contract them again.

I called to get an estimate. Apparently, they only do estimates on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Unfortunately, I travel frequently and am not available on those days. So they refused to come out! They must have more work than they know what to do with! Incredible. I'll call someone else.

Yard and a Half ended up as our second choice (out of three), only due to cost. Their prices were reasonable, however, we found another company that was able to provide a scope of work closer to our ideal within our budget. Although we didn't work with them, I would definitely recommend to a friend that they consider Yard and a Half as an option for future projects.

The driveway looks fantastic and they did more for the money than other companies proposed they would do. Other companies were just going to spread stone, but A Yard and a Half did some regrading other companies said could not be done, added some metal edging that made everything look even better than we expected, and used some found stone on our property to create a stone edge - we didn't expect them to do this; they did it on their own and it looks great. They also completed the job more quickly than expected. I would definitely use them again.

They were on time, professional, and did a excellent job.

Geovani and his crew did a fine job constructing a wooden beam retaining wall for us.The wall looked like it was going to a really expensive disruptive project so we had put it off for years as the wall continued to deteriorate. It was located in a constricted space plagued by tree roots and the job appeared to be, as another contractor put it, a "nightmare". Heavy excavation equipment would be difficult to put in place. Fortunately, the hard-working crew of Yard-and-a-Half only required one small CAT for the job --they were willing to dig and prepare the site by hand. They finished up in four days at half the price of several other bidders. The new wall looks good and is built much better than the original, and the asphalt patch they put next to it fixed the driveway drainage problem as well.

A Yard And Half was absolutely fantastic to work with. Given the wet summer we had, the start date had to be move back a bit, but once it was confirmed we were done within 3 weeks. Carolyn was outstanding at staying in touch and working with us through the design phase. This was the first project for us, and we're definitely going to use A Yard and A Half again.

Better than expected. The results are spectacular. See photos.

{When we told them we were not going to use them for our project, the assigned Project Manager asked us what our 'decision-making factors' were. We responded with the following note that will describe our story.} We evaluate all people we meet with in three main areas: 1. Scheduling the initial appointment 2. The project discussion during the appointment 3. Turnaround time on the bid The reasons we did not choose Yard and a Half are as follows: Scheduling: Your availability to meet with us was restricted. You were not available to ever meet in the afternoon after work although we said that was the most convenient time for us. We agreed to meet with you in the early morning because your company had received good marks from Angie?s List, but my wife had to get to work and could not stay for the entire meeting. In considering your company, we felt that with all the different projects we had if we had to meet with you during the project mornings only would not work for us once the project started. In retrospect, we should have talked with your boss to find another project manager from the start. The Project: You took our list of projects down as though it was a shopping list and added little insight into options we might want to consider. We thought perhaps that the bid itself would offer some alternative suggestions and while you presented different possibilities for each project, they seemed to lack any vision for our home. The Bid: You told us that you would get us the bid in about 5 days. We met on 3/31. Two weeks later (4/15) after we contacted you to see the status of our bid, you used a holiday as a reason for the delay. We finally received your quote on 4/19. Our project contains a number of items that need to be managed, if we had to chase a bid it concerned us about the project itself. After careful consideration of your bid and the interactions with you and your company we felt strongly that this would not be a fit. {Yard and a Half did not respond to our note. Not that they needed to but...}

They were pretty good but no where near as good as what I gathered from angies list. They were okay. They were better at certain things than others. They were good at dealing with the drainage. They weren?t that good at delivery the plants that I contracted them for. It?s one and half year latter now and one of the plant just started to flower and it is not the plant that I had ordered from them. They were quite professional. They gave me a good quote and they pretty much stuck to it. They did not deliver a couple of things that I had ordered from them.

Met Eulalio at my house to review the work. He was pleasant and on-time. After discussing the project, he asked if I had received other bids and what those bids were. When I did not answer straight forwardly - I thought these questions were a little probing - he said he wanted to make sure I understood that this would be an expensive job and that his company was very thorough. His estimate was emailed to me a week after he came to the house. I'm sure they are thorough - they also do a soil lab analysis as a matter of course - but their bid was much more than other bids. We've connected with another company to do the work in the future.

The person who actually came out, Colletta, is very hardworking and very nice, and she proposed some landscaping. Some part of it worked out okay, however, a main part of it, specifically planting three hemlock trees, has not gone well. Only one of the three trees looks decent. The other two have not properly grown or filled out, and one of them looks diseased. They gave me directions for watering them, which I followed, but the trees never thrived. I have followed the directions exactly. When I call, Eileen in the office is impatient, and always questions me and acts as though it is my fault that it hasn't worked out. She has been blaming me for the problems, and she has been rude. When I bring the rudeness to their attention, she is intensely apologetic, but then when I contact her again she is again impatient and accusatory. They came out and said that the tree appears to have been dying because of a lack of watering, and they even replaced the trees with the same negative results. I hesitate to complain because the person who did the work was very nice, but the work has not gone very well. They will not stand behind their work, and they blame me for it. I would like for them to uphold the work they did, and to find a reason for the problem besides blaming me. They also cut back a shrub in another area so far it hasn't ever grown again in two years, and the trees continue to look bad and diseased. They are accusing me of being unreasonable, but I only ask that they stand behind the work they did. I do want to stress that Colletta has been honorable and has done her best. If the work had been done properly, the price would have been reasonable, but the work they did has not worked out. They seem to pretend to be something they are not, and they do not take responsibility for their work.

Carolyn the project coordinator did a wonderful job scheduling two separate crews to complete the work. The crews that came did wonderful work and I will be having them out again in the spring.

They did a good job. They have been quite responsive when we had some specific problems.

Geovani was great to work with. He promptly provided me with an estimate that was competitive with the other estimate that I received and also answered my many questions and provided material samples. During the estimate, Geovani raised a number of valid points about potential issues and solutions for addressing them that had not been noticed by the other people who provided estimates. The crew did a great job building the wall which is a huge improvement over what had been there previously. There were some questions about the foundation after the old wall had been removed, so Geovani brought out a representative from the dealer of the wall material to evaluate various options. The wall was built quickly while working around existing plantings. (The only plant that was damaged on my neighbor's property was promptly replaced by them.)