Palmetto Upstate Group LLC

The installation went well and they overall did a good job.

It did not go well. I talked to Dustin Brown at the site in August 2015. He agreed orally to prep the land for seeding by May of 2016, May being the optimum month for seeding Bermuda. I agreed to his written proposal, which was to (1) grade and prep designated areas for seed, (2) push all debris to the side of the property, (3) harley rake at the end for a good seed bed, and (4) remove the main stumps. The cost of this job was based the assumption he would need two machines and operators for 3 days. Cost: $3.3K. When April rolled around and I tried to contact him to see when he was going to do the work, he didn't respond to my e-mails or phone calls but eventually notified me he'd get to my job when he finished some other work he was doing. In early June he dispatched a local guy with a bobcat to the site and he cleared the area by scraping off much-needed topsoil and dumping it outside the area to be planted. As far as I know, the bobcat operator spent only one day at the site and was completely unsupervised by Dustin Brown. No other work was done. There was no Harley raking and no stump grinding. At this point Dustin Brown demanded full payment and I paid him, expecting he'd do more work to properly prepare a seedbed. However, he never did. As a severe summer drought dragged on, I realized there was no way a 2016 planting could succeed and told him, by text message, not to plant. He didn't respond or offer me any alternative for meeting my objectives. I found his complete lack of interest in my concerns to be most annoying. So, as it stands, I am out of $3,300 with almost nothing to show for it. In retrospect, I should have insisted that a site-prep completion date be specified in the contract. I wrongly assumed that with eight months notice, there would be no problem.

See Pictures below. We have been with this lawn maintenance group for almost 3 years and have only on occasion been satisfied with the service we have received. They do not reliably show up, although scheduled for bi-weekly. We have even been told that if it is that long between visits, we should call and remind them as we may have fallen off of their schedule. Their bill always says -turf maintenance - which is grass cutting only, and not on a diagonal as requested!, - spraying(keep beds free of weeds) - which is occasionally done with weed killer alone and not traditional weeding by any means. We have had multiple dead bushes / ground cover resulting from this "weed maintenance", -edging and blowing - edging may occasionally take out outdoor lighting and sprinkler system posts which will never be mentioned to you but you will find on your own. Edging is occasionally done with weed killer and blowing indeed, right up under the bushes where you may have just raked the leaves from. They have no regard for your flower beds. During the most recent storm some of our trees dropped branches - they helped them right into the flower beds. We have a sizable pile of debris which is from weeds we pulled out of our flower beds, dead limbs, and leaves raked from under bushes. We have asked the crew and left messages with the owner for several months without response. When the owner finally returned our call we were told that to haul this debris away was not covered under our plan. When the other issues were discussed with him (weed killer for trimming, leaves under bushes etc) we were told that the bulk of his business is done at the Cliffs but that he does have a few "outlying" properties. We assume this means we are one of his outlying properties - we also assume that this means our business is not as important to him as his Cliff properties. We feel their lack of reliability in coming, lack of concern for our plants or our attempts to maintain our yard, poor communication, and telling customers that your property is not as important as others being serviced are all very poor professional behaviors.

After coming to my house and discussing the project for my lawn, Dustin Brown had a complete understanding of what I wanted. I was looking forward to having him do the job. However, there were multiple times when he did not call me when he said he would. After almost seven weeks of on and off communication, we still had not set up a time frame to do the work. He was always too busy to call me when he said he would. He took offense when I mentioned to him that we seem to have a communication problem and he suggested that if I wasn't happy with him before the project is started, it would be best if I call someone else. He continuously told me he was extremely busy with other projects. I could understand that, but I expected the courtesy of a phone call when he said he would call. I asked him to just tell me if he didn't have time to work for me so I could call someone else. We continued to communicate about the project. Almost three weeks after I last spoke to him and he told me he would call me the following week to see where he could work the project into his schedule, he e-mailed me and asked that I refresh his memory about what I wanted done so he can check his schedule. In our final phone conversation, Dustin understood that I was not happy about our communication problems and got defensive again like he had several weeks earlier. Perhaps there are just not enough hours in the day for him to do what had to be done. He told me: 1. He is very busy with million dollar projects and his schedule runs 6-12 months out. 2. It idoesn't matter if I give a bad review about his company to Angie's List. Angie's List is not important to him. 3. He will never set foot on my property again. 4.. He anticipates that no one will do the project as good as he could. Until now, I have never had an experience like this. The lack of communication was on his part, not mine. I would not have been at all upset if he had told me to begin with that my project wasn't big enough for his company and/or that he was booked all year with larger projects. He says they do good work. I will never know, but I have no doubt that I can find someone to complete my project and do as good or better job than Palmetto Upstate Group.

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Professional results. Fast. Excellent work: mowing, clearing leaves, trimming.

I understand it went very well. My neighbor and I split the cost since this is a hedge that will serve as a barrier between our properties. (It's actually on my neighbor's property, but I will benefit from the hedge when it gets bigger). My neighbor and I staged the plants where we wanted them and Palmetto Lawn came, dug the holes, mixed some Miracle-Gro potting soil (previously purchased) in the holes and planted the plants. I was at work, but my neighbor was here and he said everything went very well. I had used Dustin's company about a month ago to aerate and seed my yard and was very pleased with his service then.

I don't know how it would/will go - need service to contact me

On time, on budget, professional work by professional people. The proof is in the product you are left with by this company and reinforced by neighbor comments and their asking for the number of Palmetto. Just relocated to SC and searched high and low for companies to work on my house to transition it to a home. Dustin Brown and his staff does exactly that.

He came in and did what he said he was going to do when he said he was going to. He called and informed me of delays due to weather. Please note that this was set up with long distance phone calls. I was kept apprised with pictures and the work was completed when he said it would be. I called Dustin Brown at the end of the job to thank him. I spoke to about 12 companies before deciding to hire him. He is professional and he and his crew do exactly what needs to be done. Couldn't ask for more.

They are very professional, they do an amazing job on our yard. They are punctual. Reasonably priced.