GARDENS BY THE YARD

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I am not sure what happened. I waited for her for almost a couple of months before I start looking another one which is now.

Leisha was wonderful. She talked to us about what we wanted in our front yard landscaping and educated us about possible choices and looks. She kept to the budget even when she encountered problems with extensive roots that needed to be dug up from a large bush that had been there previously. Her team was great. They were very personable and arrived on time each day. Our front yard looks gorgeous. We love looking at it! Many of our neighbors have now hired Leisha as well! A plus all the way around!

I purchased a deal for $299 for a mid-season garden clean-up. The deal included a one hour consultation with Leisha and 6 hours of labor from Leisha's crew. This experience got off to a rocky start because the way the deal was worded was that the purchaser would receive 6 hours of labor from her crew. It was supposed to say 6 man hours - quite a difference. I brought this discrepency to Leisha's attention and we were able to work out a compromise. I give Leisha lots of credit for this. Speaking of Leisha, I found her to be very knowlegable and full of good ideas. She suggested some interesting plant material for a troubled area of my garden that pleased me very much. The best part of this experience was working with Leisha's crew. Xavier, Adam and Andrew were such a pleasure to be around. They edged my beds and spread mulch around the most delicate plants and shrubs without harming a single leaf or plant. These hard-working, pleasant and extremely polite young men made this a very positive experience!

They came up this year and they are beautiful and they did a nice job.

Gardens by the yard was a wonderful experience for my husband and myself. We met 2 years ago and have continued to use them. They do everything. Leisha is so knowledgable with trees,shrubs, plants, planning a garden, and so many other things that make your yard look spectacular.

Leisha came over to our home laden with plant photos organized by color, light requirements, etc- She asked a lot of questions about our preferences- When she returned she had come up with a beautiful plan, giving us 4 or 5 options for each particular plant she had proposed- She was a pleasure to work with and obviously has a passion for her work- I look forward to using her services again-

We?ve had landscaping done before but, every time, the landscaper basically did what he wanted. Sometimes it didn?t turn out well, for instance, when the landscaper failed to take the local deer population or the size of the mature shrub into consideration. If I provided guidance (ie, a list of requested plantings), it was followed only if convenient. This time, I wanted someone who would work with me and design the plantings to meet my objectives and to do well under the specific conditions. Each area of the yard has very distinct soil and sun conditions; what would do well in one area (or someone else?s yard) wouldn?t necessarily do well in another. Additional requirements were that plantings had to be deer resistant, low maintenance, and user friendly (ie, no thorns or prickers). Leisha, owner of Gardens by the Yard, was the solution to the problem. She asked for my input and provided guidance based on knowledge. She showed me options, gave me names so that I could research on my own, and provided computer-simulated renderings. For the flower gardens, she ensured that the color palette was complementary and that the bloom times would over-lap to provide the greatest duration of color. She listened to my concerns, modified the plans to suit me, and allowed me to be involved as much or as little as I wanted. When she wasn?t sure of something, she researched it and came back with answers. The long-term success of the plantings was important to her; her approach was thoughtful and logical as opposed to simply planting what was quickest and easiest to obtain at the nursery. Her crew of young local guys ? and gals ? is great! They work hard and seem to enjoy what they do. On each day, people were assigned based on their capabilities and experience. And some are even immune to poison ivy! Leisha had suggested some hardscaping and recommended a contractor (Masonry & More). She and her crew coordinated with the contractor and regraded the yard after the work was completed. Leisha then subcontracted for hydroseeding. I should also mention that Leisha did her best to minimize expenses by shopping sales and sharing equipment rental costs among clients. We are quite happy with both the process and the results. It was nice working with someone who took the time to really consider the outcome. I only wish that I had before & after photos to illustrate the dramatic change that Gardens by the Yard has made to our property. What to know: Landscaping projects can not necessarily be completed in a single season; some things are best planted in the spring and others in the fall. Also, it can take a couple of years for plants to establish themselves, and for modifications to be made based on the success of plants in a particular location. So, be patient!

Leisha arrived initially to assess the property and to talk with me about my preferences and goals for the project. She then put together a proposed plan which included plant pictures as well as some sample plants to be sure I was happy with the intended plantings. Her presentation was carefully thought through and very professional, and took into consideration the soil quality, sun exposure, maintenance, and overall aesthetic goals. The workers she had on her staff were equally professional and were careful with the property, always cleaning up thoroughly before they left. The work quality was excellent, and the gardens were exactly what we had hoped for. Her pricing was very fair and well documented. We will be looking forwward to our next project this spring!

They didn?t schedule it and I never heard anything back from them in the future. All I had was a charge. They did not follow through.

Everything went smoothly as planned. No problems. My husband and I are very pleased and will hire Garden's by the Yard for more work next year.

I first contacted this provider last year, and though we had difficulty finding a date acceptable to both of us, we did meet to discuss the project I wanted completed. Leisha, the owner of the business, seemed very knowledgeable and was extremely enthusiastic about doing the job. Unfortunately, she never got back to me with the promised design and estimate. I did not have the work done, as the summer was over. This year, in April, I contacted her again by phone and she apologized for not getting back to me, saying that she would call me within a week. She never called. I do not understand why she did not keep her word. We never discussed finances, so it could not have anything to do with money. I regret that she acted so unprofessionally, because I really wanted her to do the work.

We got a deal (coupon) from Angie's list for a foundation plantings design. When I say it was a deal I mean it. Leisha was wonderful. She came to the house on a Saturday morning and went over what my wife and I would look for in a design. What types of plantings do we like and so forth. Leisha also gave us some education on plantings and going organic vs. chemicals. It was great. She then came back 2 weeks later with a beautiful layout, a representation of how the house would look if we used the plantings she suggested and pictures and names of all the plantings in her layout. Amazing! Leisha's design was more than I could have asked for.

Leisha and Gardens by the Yard stood out among the four estimates we received from top Angie's List contenders as someone who would be very responsive to our needs and requests, very easy to work with, and give us good value, and these qualities played out as we worked together extensively during a fall season and the following spring through fall. She worked with us to achieve our goals and to keep costs down. She was very responsive to our wish to be "green." She loves plants, and it was fun to develop the plan and go with her to an excellent nursery to select the shrubs. She is very knowledgeable about a wide range of issues, and researches questions that she can't readily answer. She wisely carried out the work in stages, with fall being an optimal time for some things and spring for others. She jogged us by email about maintenance issues (e.g., preparation for winter and protection over the winter). She was very free with her knowledge about how to care for our yard moving forward. I enjoyed the collaboration and am very happy with results. We get lots of compliments. Our yard looks great in all seasons, and it's going to be stunning as things fill out over the years. The single concern was that some of the workers were not meticulous about alignment of the shrubs, but Leisha resolved those issues without question.

Leisha was extremely patient and responsive despite having to deal with two first time homeowners who had absolutely no experience with landscaping. It was important to Leisha to incorporate the preferences of all members of the household and she used this information in her design ideas. She is extremely knowledgeable about horticulture and truly enjoys her work. To ensure the best plantings, she even came over one morning to track the path of the sun. Leisha was incredibly involved and easily accessible. She dropped in when her workers were at our home and she made sure to consult with a representative from the town conservation department to ensure that the work did not interfere with regulations (home abuts conservation land). The work completed so far is the foundation for a diverse and colorful plant pallet that Leisha will be adding in the Spring. We will continue to follow this project through with Leisha, who is as interested and excited as we are to continue to transform this landscape.

We are very satisfied with their work. Leisha has a winning personality and shows up, gets the work done. She has great people helping her who are very focused and professional. Leisha looks for plants on sale, listens well, responds quickly to e-mail. She took a tired yard this summer and made it very attractive.

Her plans and implementation were beautiful, and she did a great job of understanding the style I was looking for. She is easy to work with, pleasant, reliable and talented. I look forward to our next project with her!

Dealing with Leisha, the owner of the company, was great. For the drainage project she had some good suggestions for new materials we could use that were environmentally friendly and would reduce our costs. She also brought in a consultant who has done work for the Big Dig to help her with the design plan. She was very involved and accessible. Unfortunately, we weren't as happy with the three-man team who did the work. They were three young guys who seemed to work hard but had a poor attention to detail and were very sloppy with the finishing touches. Overall we were happy with the final product, but they had left a large pile of gravel on our front lawn that we had to clean up; there was a lot of dirt on the driveway and back stoop that we had to sweep; in temporarily relocating some hosta, they had unearthed our grounding line to the house and then just replanted the hosta with the line poking up randomly between the plants (it's supposed to be buried 12 - 18 inches in the ground); but worst of all was the pipe that funneled all the water out toward the street was cut too short and was dumping water right on the inside of a wooden retaining wall, which would have quickly deteriorated. Plus, the way they connected an extension to one of the gutter downspouts, it was leaking terribly and causing water to run down the side of the wooden retaining wall. We had a heavy rain and were able to see this happening. We contacted Leisha with our issues and she very promptly responded. Steve, who seemed to be in charge of the three-man group, came out and extended the pipe so that it cleared the retaining wall and put some type of patch material on the gutter. The gutter doesn't look great (grey on white) but it did stop the water leaking. He also reburied the grounding wire. Additionally, we noticed that the Dingo they used to dig the trenches had damaged the siding on the back of our house. We had the siding repaired and Leisha agreed to deduct the cost of the repair from the final bill. When we did the regrading it was the same three-man team that did the drainage work. Compared to the drainage project, the regrading went relatively smoothly. The only complaint was on their last day, Steve had to leave at 5:00 pm for an appointment and said he would be back by 7:00 pm for the final 30 minutes of work on the Dingo (which is fairly loud). He arrived back at nearly 8:30 pm and then proceeded to run the Dingo until 9:00 pm. We should have stopped him, to be considerate to our neighbors, but at that point we really wanted the job finished so they would take the Dingo cart out of our driveway - we had been parking on the street for 5 days while they did the work. Again, we were happy with the final outcome for the regrading, it was just the lack of professionalism of the crew doing the work that disappointed us. We really liked working with Leisha and would be happy to work with her again, but we would not recommend the three-man team she had, nor would we do a project with them again. REPORT UPDATE - December 1, 2010: It's been about four and a half months since this project was completed, and now we're noticing some things we're not happy with. The first is that for the regrading, whenever it rains we get a small pond in our backyard that stays around for about a day. Because we're on a hill, the regrading created a bowl shape in the center of our yard, which we were fine with. However, when they were regarding, Leisha had pointed out to us that there was a lot of clay in our soil. Clay is very dense and we've since discovered that it doesn't absorb water well. At the time, we didn't realize the implications this meant for us: namely, the bowl they created is sitting on a few inches of the top soil they brought in, then almost all clay. That's why we get a mini-swamp back there when it rains. We're incredibly disappointed that Leisha didn't bring this issue up to us when she saw all the clay in our soil. That's something I would completely expect a competent professional to identify as a potential problem for what we were doing. The other issue we have is with the drainage system she set up. We can definitely say it's working and doing its job. Mainly because it's been dribbling and tricking water almost non-stop for weeks. Even days after any rain has come through, it's still trickling water. The way Leisha set up the final drain for this project, the water is flowing down half of our driveway. Having it constantly wet, collecting leaves and debris, isn't ideal. But worse is that with the cold weather it's freezing to ice, right where I have to park my car. Clearly this is something we can't live with long term. Again I feel that Leisha should have foreseen the potential issue and suggested extending the final drain closer down to the street, or even working to funnel it more to the side of our driveway. The upshot is that come next spring we're going to have to spend probably several thousand dollars more to correct both of these issues, which we're not happy about at all.

They were excellent. The woman who owns the company, Leisha, was very involved. We were afraid that the project wasn't big enough for her, but she was very cool about it. She came by often to check on the work. Our irrigation guy was a little lagging and she came by to water all of the stuff. It was awesome and I would highly recommend her. Her staff was very nice too. I have a two-year-old who liked to go out and see what they were doing and talk to them. They were all so nice to him. They were nice to have around. We are going to have her come back next year to do the front of the house.

The owner, Leisha Marcoccio, came to talk to us about our plans. She wanted to understand the aesthetic that I like - problem is, I don't know the names or anything about the plants. She does! The finished product reflected that she not only got my taste but she picked plants that are both showstoppers AND easy to maintain. She knows many of these. My husband was more involved in the hardscaping details, the schedule and the price. She drew up a plan and was patient with our changes. There were no surprises at the end (extra charges, etc.). She seemed incredibly genuine but you never know until the end, or really until the next year if your plants are still thriving and ours seem to be doing well. Her crew was punctual, polite and she oversaw each detail and every concern. I can tell you, it was a much friendlier experience than any landscaper we've dealt with in the past. She seems to really care, which is why I got on here to recommend her. We chose to maintain the plants ourselves but once I had relatives coming and called her in a panic to see if she had or knew anyone who could weed. A clean-cut college student who works for her in the summer was there the next morning. Awesome.

Leisha has tremendous knowledge of perennials, trees and shrubs. She is very patient and helps you figure out what the overall plan should be. She makes herself available readily and even will accompany you to select plants from a nursery. She always charges very fair prices and sticks to her estimates. She follows up to see how the gardens are progressing. Also her employees are very well-trained and honest, nice people that I like to deal with.

Leisha has consistently been a careful listener, has provided sample pictures of the various options for additional plantings, solicits feedback regarding likes/dislikes, and continues to demonstrate the utmost professionalism from client communications to project management and execution. She has also been an expert resource when I inquired about automated irrigation and questions about pruning and upkeep. Leisha clearly loves what she does and it shows in the results.

We had some initial ideas on our garden designs and had planted some items ourselves in the past - but it was not very well thought out. Leisha walked through our gardens and asked specific questions to understand our preferences, looked at our sun/shade exposures, and talked with us about our lifestyles and time to garden. Leishe relocated our existing plants to more suitable locations, provided us with options to review potential plantings, purchased and installed plantings in all of our gardens to move us towards our initial vision. Leisha worked with us each year over last 4 years to add to our garden design, to shop "end or year" and "early bird" sales to help us get good prices on larger ticket items, and created beautiful gardens that bloom and look great throughout the entire growing season! Leisha was excellent to work with - she has a strong knowledge of plants, the sun/shade preferences, the blooming season, and what looks great together. She also had strong project management skills and can prepare a plan, determine the sequence of events, and implement to meet an agreed upon deadline. She is an excellent communicator - who provide great summarizing emails to confirm agreement with next steps or to offer alternatives (usually with attached photos of possible plants/flowers for your consideration). Leisha also partners with reputable and hard working heavy equipment operators - who can handle larger items such as trees and can provide additional sets of hands for larger projects. Overall, I would highly recommend Gardens by the Yard - our gardens look beautiful and we constantly get compliments from our guests!

They did an outstanding job. Lisha who owns the business is very good at listening to what customers are looking for and she was extremely punctual. The communication was excellent. She provided mock ups of the design, she provided samples and pictures. Anything we asked for to help us make the decision for what we wanted she provided. She supervised the installation. She has been very good with following up.

We were delighted with the design and quality of the work. The plants recommended were unusual and appropriate for the style of our home and our own aesthetic preferences. Leisha is very knowledgeable about the plants and the site conditions. She is honest, fair and reliable. We will continue to use Gardens by the Yard for additional work during 2008.