RINE LANDSCAPE GROUP

Rine landscaping is a large company with a lot of business in Upper Arlington. Shawn Rine, the owner, came to my house to discuss removing some old arbor vitae, a hedge and replacing them with new plants. A key part of the job was replacing the arbor vitae with other trees that would provide privacy to our side yard. Although his quote was about 30 percent higher than a quote I received from a smaller company, I went with them thinking it was worth their experience and that it would ultimately be less hassle. Shawn provided two options for replacing the arbor vitae: 1) hornbeam and 2) arbor vitae. He argued that the hornbeam were a hardier tree that would last longer, though they would be about $2k more expensive than the arbor vitae. We chose that option. The first issue in the job was that the trees did not look like the pictures he'd presented and, worse, did not contain enough foliage to provide a privacy screen of any kind. The privacy screen was a key element of the job, and this was explicitly discussed with Shawn. He proposed many unsatisfactory solutions, all the while trying to bill more for something that was not what we'd agreed upon. The most frustrating part was when we asked to go back to the original arbor vitae, and he told us that he'd be happy to do that but they were significantly more expensive than hornbeam--which was the exact opposite of what he'd quoted us in the beginning. He told us that each arbor vitae would cost $350 plus $650 in freight. I called a local nursery and they offered arbor vitae at a much lower price with free local delivery. This then involved more back and forth with Shawn, who was incredibly rude and curt over the phone. We ultimately had the job finished, but it was incredibly expensive, time consuming and expensive. There's an element of trust necessary in jobs like this because things come up, and this is not a company you can trust.

Provided a clear plan about what was required to do the work correctly. Evaluated whether other sections of wall needed same repair and determined that they did not. I would definitely hire this company again!

Excellent at every stage. Great service. Job well done. Grade issue meant some difficulties connecting new stone walkway to existing sidewalk--solution looks great and ties the two together very well. Will be recommending Rine to others.

Took a little longer than expected. All in all, a good experience.

They were good. They did a good job and they were efficient.