GARDENS BY THE YARD

Everything went really well and Leisha and the guys were fun and wonderful to work with. In particular, Leisha has a great sense of humor which is a nice bonus. We ended up needed various other vendors involved (sprinkler, electrician, etc) and Leisha always managed those guys and did a great job. Furthermore, her expertise as a mechanical engineer really helped as there were some grade issues with the property which had to be sorted out and an underground well created. Her background in engineering is a total bonus and not something you would get with most landscaping firms. She is very responsive via text and her team was great. There also had to be some decisions made on the fly which were easy to do. It is obvious she takes a lot of pride in her work and so does her team. We will likely be in our house for quite a while and would definitely recommend them or use them again as needs arise.

I can not say enough about how professional, knowledgeable and hard working the team is at gardens by the yard. We recently bought our home and needed a complete redo of the landscaping. Leisha came for a consultation and explained to us what will work for our yard. She listened to what we wanted and came back with a comprehensive proposal with pictures and plans. She was able to work with our very tight budget and give us more than we even imagined. Her whole team work extremely hard to prepare our soil to ensure success of our lawn and planted beds, install the plants that would work in our various areas of shade/ light, and cane back several times to make sure that all the areas were watering appropriately to take (especially since we did not know the first things about maintaining a yard).

The owner was professional, knowledgeable and easy to work with. Quotes for work were prompt and the work was completed, as scheduled, during the multi-phase project. The crews were polite and readily accepted direction to suit personal tastes. We were very pleased with the outcome and will continue to work with Gardens by the Yard for annual plantings.

Leisha and her crew are professional and personable. She has been a great resource for plant recommendations and strategies for my perennial beds to make them easier for me to care for. She was very responsive when I was confronted with some unexpected and extensive excavation work this past summer. She helped me strategize about how to move plants out of harm's way, and how to create a new bed for them in a much better location. When excavation plans changed, Leisha came to my rescue to save plants from yet another bed. I'm looking forward to working with her again in the coming year!

We really liked working with Gardens by the Yard. Leisha is a creative and strategic thinker with great expertise about what can be done in a beautiful and practical way. She worked with us through landscape design, details of meeting conservation area requirements (part of our yard is in a wetlands buffer zone), coordinating with our renovation contractor, and getting the installation done. She has a wonderful crew, including her sub-contractors (brush clearing, masonry, irrigation/lighting, arborist) and each was expert in their work and delightful. The front and back yards are truly transformed and we are really pleased. We plan to do more work with Garden by the Yard for phase two of our project. We found Gardens by the Yard through Angie's List and one comment made by a previous customer proved to be true for us as well. Communication is sometimes a challenge with Leisha -- she's juggling multiple projects -- but if she's made a commitment to work on your project you can be sure it will get done and get done right. If you can be a bit patient on occasion, it will be worth it!

The consultant arrived an hour late, decided she was not interested in the job, had no specific recommendations and billed me for her time

It went very well. We interviewed a number of designers and liked her approach best. Here is the way things worked out: 1. After a phone interview she scheduled a visit to our house 2. During the visit we spoke at length about the garden and our vision for it. it was a lengthy conversation. She took a bunch of pictures and said she will get back to us. We then set up a 3rd visit where she brought catalogs of plants/flowers with her. We went through a selection process and came up with a list 4. Based on the above discussions we hired Gardens by the yard to provide a final design. 5. The process has started and won't be completed till next spring, but: • She brought a number of plants for us to review and we selected some and one area is finished and looks great • Moved other plants around to make space for new plants that will be planted next year. The outcome is that the area looks much better than before • The island (s) in front of the house look great and finally look like it was designed by somebody who has a great eye for this type of work 6. She , and her crew, have been gracious, professional and great at communicating everything . 7. I selected them based on reviews in Angie's List and saw complaints about them not returning calls or being late. When they have been late they have informed us and it has never been more than 15-20 minutes and it has not been a recurring event. And she always returns calls and emails. email is more convenient for her and us so we often use that as our method of communication and sometime text works too.

As an ongoing project that began early this fall, our site has been cleaned up, bushes, shrubs, and ground covers have been planted, and a new lawn of special "low mow" grass seed is beginning to already come up! Apparently this is the proper season for this kind of installation!! Leisha has provided us with wonderful computer generated site proposals, pictures, and actual plants for us to see ! We are retiring, and we both bring some plant knowledge to the project! It is a real pleasure to be completely included in the design and plant decisions that are being made! We look forward to continuing the design process during this winter, and to an exciting spring installation coming up!

We simply love working with Leisha and her crew. They have become members of the family and trusted advisors on all things landscape related. They are quite amazing and Leisha leads them with her ideas, concepts and deep knowledge. Her customer service is terrific -- she anticipates needs and will even text if her crew will be in the neighborhood to see if we need any help. We couldn't be any happier customers. We expect Gardens by the Yard to be in our family for many years to come.

All went perfectly as planned. The crew is very diligent and earnest and takes pride in the services they provide clients.

Gardens By The Yard is a very engaged and pro-active company, willing to tackle and accomplish just about any request and project. All of the employees are locals and as a result there are no communication issues, which is a relief when the owner is elsewhere and/or incommunicado. Over the many years I have been using GBTY, they have installed new planting beds, steppers, drip irrigation, drainage, plants, lighting, walkway, sod, containers. They have provided ongoing maintenance. They have provided tree service when necessary. I have found the owner exceptionally knowledgeable regarding local flora and fauna. She has a great ability to understand the style and direction desired by the homeowner, creating landscape and garden spaces which enhance the value of the home. This is not your average landscaping company, which promises to help design and maintain your landscape and then falls away as soon as work beyond grass cutting and spring cleanup are discussed. All GBTY crew are uniformly knowledgeable, competent, helpful, engaged and hard working. It's obvious they love gardens and gardening, and helping the homeowner achieve the garden of their dreams is what GBTY does best.

Leisha is a very talented horticulturalist and we love the work she and her company did. We experienced what other reviewers have mentioned, in that it sometimes takes a while to get a verbal or written response from her. With this in mind, I reached out to her at the end of February. We set up a call within less than a week. She was very prepared for the call, having even looked up our property on Google Maps to see the street and satellite views, which I thought was very clever. She asked good questions and we set up an appointment for a site visit, once again, less than a week later, where she could review the site in person, could look at her design books together to select the desired color palette, and discuss specific preferences. That went well and we agreed to move forward with a design. That's where things started to slow down. It took close to 2 months to get the design from Leisha. We went through one more site visit and a minor revision before finalizing the design. Things moved pretty well after that, for a while. Due to the cold spring we had, some of the plants we wanted weren't immediately available, so the planting was done in stages. After the first stage, a nasty, invasive weed called bind weed reared its ugly head. They were able to install a few more plants, then Leisha and her crew spent about 2 months battling this weed, throwing everything they had at it. They finally finished the planting and applied the mulch mid-August. It was a long project, much of which was due to circumstances beyond Leisha's control. Given all of the extra work done to control the weed (much of which she didn't charge me for) and the cost of the plants that died (which I wasn't charged for) due to the bindweed itself or the Roundup they used to try to eradicate it, I feel like the overall price tag was fair. We had no hard deadline for this project, and I was happy that Leisha wanted to deal with the bindweed before putting more plants in. Given all of the additional work we had done, we did go over budget. I would have appreciated better communication about the financial status of the project, but once again, I'm really happy with the final look if it. Leisha and her company do amazing work, so as long as you can be patient and can deal with a little bit of uncertainty on cost and scheduling, she's well worth it.

We contacted her in March, and it took forever to get a quote. It got delayed. We got emails that they were going to come through, and then nothing would come through. She was an incredibly nice woman, unbelievably disorganized. We were patience in waiting for the quote, and then coming in to do the work. There was lack of communication, she said that she would send stuff, and it would never arrive. She said that she would get us quotes, and the quotes never arrived. We paid her well, for the plan we paid her $350. What we were purposing, it was going to be tens of thousands of dollars. She was unreliable.

Did not hire them Couldn't get our calls returned

Mostly it went extremely well. Others have critisized Leisha for not always showing up when she said she would. I can understand the critique as things don't always happen when I thought they would. BUT the results are FABULOUS! I'm now working with her to plan work in our backyard -I trust her and her crew.

Awful, very bad, he did not even respond! very unprofessional

The service went really well. The only warning I would give folks is that Garden's by the Yard is extremely busy taking care of their existing customers. This means your initial contact might take a bit - but once they are engaged (and now you are their customer) - then they are extremely punctual and get stuff done when they say they are going to get stuff done. Don't worry if the initial contact is slow - it is NOT reflective of how they perform once they are engaged. We have had MANY companies work with us on our yard. What I didn't realize is that all of the other companies we worked with basically knew nothing about yard care. For 15 years I have hired people who cut grass who aspire to being Yard Specialists - and they are not. Let me be clear - the people at Garden's by he Yard KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING - others I have tried - were clueless. Loved working with these folks - we will use them in the years to come. Wish we had found them 15 years ago - imagine the thousands I could have saved on wasted plantings and lawn care.

Incredibly. We couldn't be happier with the final result. Our bees are happy too! Since the garden has gone in, we have butterflies, bees and birds in abundance -- kind of amazing. Throughout the project, Leisha worked with us all. We talked often and walked in the space, designing together and thinking through our approaches. We gained enormous confidence in her judgment and knowledge -- her ideas were excellent and she brought a wealth of important and deep knowledge on native plants. Her teams were focused and pleasant -- again, it felt throughout like a true partnership. We knew it was going to be a summer-long project - and it was -- but the end result is simply beautiful.

The process was very easy and informative..we first looked at various plants to replace and then made choices of potential new ones. Leisha, the owner then brought me actual plants to pick. Any I did not like, she took back with out any issue.. She then came with her team to put them all in.. The work was done as scheduled, on time and professionally..there was no mess left and simple directions for us to follow to keep the gardens going.. They have done beautifully all summer. And are hardly any work for us.. When I have a question about any new plant, Leisha responds promptly.. I could not be more pleased..and feel all was done at a very reasonable price.

I contacted Leisha on 6/22, and she responded to say that she was too busy to talk to me until Mid-July. I contacted her again on July 21, and she responded with some proposed dates to have a "call." Apparently, it is her policy not to visit a house until she has first talked by telephone to see if there is a "fit." I agreed to one of her proposed times, but she wrote again the next day to say that those dates did not work any more and asked me to propose some dates and times. I proposed some dates and times, but did not hear back. On July 30 I wrote to say that I was ready to give up and go with someone else. On August 2, she responded to say that she was definitely interested, but that personnel and personal issues had "taken her focus off the ball." She proposed a call on August 3, and I agreed, suggesting a call in the morning. When I did not hear back by the afternoon of August 3, I did give up and went with another (non Angie's List) provider. Hopefully, Leisha's issues will clear up, and others will have better luck, but that was my experience.

Very professional and nice. Thoughtful and knowledgable. Looks great.

Disappointing, due to no response.

She never showed up or called us. Now one month later. We will go elsewhere.

I worked with Leisha (the owner of Gardens By the Yard) to define the look I wanted and the plantings which would meet my needs. Leisha spent hours with me and produced beautiful color renderings of all areas of the project with options for me to choose from, allowing me to visualize what the plants look like and how they would be installed. I asked for low maintenance plants which would provide great visual interest and color over the entire season. There were utilities to hide and extreme lighting conditions to work with (full sun and full shade).The plants chosen not only met my requirements and Leisha took great care to choose the healthy plantings from a variety of nurseries to ensure longevity and with the horrible winter we had, they came through with few problems. This spring has been quite exciting, seeing all of the work come to fruition and it is not uncommon for me to look out my window and see people stopping to look at and take pictures of my beautiful garden. Leisha and her crew were a pleasure to work with, very polite and hard workers and they have since been back for a fall and spring clean up, keeping everything looking beautigul an fresh. Leisha was intimately involved every step of the way and I would highly recommend working with her.

Spent time looking at planting options and did a good job selecting plants that were low maintenance and flowered throughout the season. Provider was enthusiastic about her work and fun to talk to. Major problems related to failure to respond to phone calls and emails in a timely manner, work that took far longer than expected, unfulfilled promises to come to the house at agreed upon times, and extremely frustrating unpredictability. Work was well done overall and the gardens look good. Customer relations were terrible, as noted. Price was reasonable, we felt. We regret having to be this negative because the provider seemed well intentioned but follow through fell far short of acceptable. It's possible some of the communication problems were our fault but in general we felt out of contact for long periods of time when efforts to connect were met by silence or no shows. Very lousey-goosey on that front.