EXQUISITE LANDSCAPE

While initially charming and eager to get our business, we soon figured out that Aaron Garcia of Exquisite Landscapes, LLC is a CRIMINAL who in the end stole over $4,000 from us, doing only a few items off the entire proposed design and walking off the job without finishing 3/4 of the work. What he did do is of horrible quality and needs to be completely ripped up. He drug out our project, doing just enough to prove he had been there, but in 2 weeks time only did about 8 hours worth of work on our back yard--and that is being quite generous. We complained every day, and he would vacillate from being enraged and insulting us, to simply telling us whatever he could to shut us up. He lied to us EVERY time we spoke, and would tell my husband one thing, while to me say something completely different--lying about why he couldn't show up to work, why materials were unavailable, why he changed our irrigation system, etc. After two weeks on a job that should have taken 3 days, we had cheap black plastic under rock for over 85% of our yard (instead of the promised flagstone patio and path we paid for and what his "design" showed), a crappy irrigation system (he actually stole the one we had and replaced it with a much less efficient one, plus didn't fulfill the quote of using all PVC pipe instead of plastic tubing throughout the yard), not all of the plants we ordered (or even the correct plants) and cheap grasses rather than the ones I chose, incomplete planters that need to be stuccoed (and he used the wrong size concrete block) and covered with flagstone caps, no gas firepit with crushed glass, and he actually managed to nearly kill two of our existing trees because he buried their root balls with about 1.5 feet of sandy fill dirt. When I called him to address the fact that the flagstone area he had done was not at all what we had discussed, nor what his design proposed, he once again became enraged, told me that it wasn't part of the design (despite me having HIS SKETCH) and that it would look tacky, but that it was going to cost me MORE MONEY if I wanted it done that way. He refused to discuss fixing it, screamed at me some more, hung up on me and never came back. For nearly a month now we have contacted him repeatedly to come out and fix it, but he never responds. So we are out $4000, plus we will now need to spend MORE than that to have it all ripped up and redone. We've been informed by a very reputable landscaping company that none of his irrigation work is up to code. We also cannot find any license for him with the City of Albuquerque, Rio Rancho or the State of New Mexico. We are in the process of filing complaints with the State Construction Industries Division and the New Mexico Attorney Generals office. PLEASE avoid this company like the plague. I would give this company ZERO STARS but it doesn't seem to be allowed on this site.

I hired Mr. Garcia with the intent that he would start the project right away and be done approximately 2 weeks after date of hire. I turned away 3 other bids. 50% down and 3 weeks after the estimated start date of the project, the retaining wall sub-contractors finally showed up and the project started. It took another 2 weeks for Mr. Garcia to finish about 8 hours worth of work. He also asked for advance payment on a portion of the final balance. The final project came out ok but still not to the specifications that I originally wanted. Our hot tub area slopes more than promised. Too keep costs down Mr. Garcia didn't bid a 45' section of wall that I had to build myself. It was only after many phone calls and a few subtle hints that I was going to fire the contractor that he finished. Mr. Garcia didn't communicate as well as he should have and didn't bid the job as requested. He also didn't finish in the promised time frame, granted we had about 3 days of rain.