Carter's Nursery Pond & Patio Inc

The first few weeks after the job was completed, I called several times with concerns over the sprouting weeds everywhere. I was told by bully Mark to buy roundup. They had left a shovel behind so I asked could they at least look at it for me and see if this is what they called no maintenance. Shane came by sprayed roundup and got his shovel and extension cord. Over the next two weeks, I sprayed 6 gallons of roundup in the 'low maintenance' landscaped area. Some weeds were dying and some were not. I phoned Mark to discuss this and again got a bullying attitude. He belittlingly explained to me what roundup was and that it took a few days to work. I asked if he could at least come and look at it. He eventually, agreed to bring his dad to spray it for me. Low and behold, dad says that roundup won?t kill half of it because they are wild onions. They spray something to kill the onions and treat the three bug infested trees they planted. No apology was given. When I tried to discuss the thin layer of mulch and the mulch flushing into my yard, I was told basically, too bad that is the way they do it. The landscaper for my front yard explained to me that the industry standard for mulch is 6 inches. Carter's only put in 3 inches. Mark informed me that I can buy more mulch from them and have it put in if I want 6 inches. As far as the washing of mulch into my yard, that is not their problem either. So, at the end of the day, I have more yard work in my backyard to do weekly that I did before this low-maintenance landscaping was installed and I am out $12,000. I will have to hire someone to address the standing water in my backyard, hire someone to spray for onions, buy a load of mulch, hire someone to put it down, buy the barrier to prevent the mulch from washing into my yard, and hire someone to put it. Needless to say, I do not recommend Carter's. Apparently, dad made the business and son is too important to be bothered with customer service or providing a quality product.

When we gave them the initial half deposit, they needed some fill dirt (I was going to provide that) and said they would give us a tentative date, estimated about three weeks away. Two weeks later, we call and ask for the tentative date. No return call. Following week, they show up, saying they were going to start the next day. The fill dirt could not be obtained overnight. Had they given us a tentative date, we could have had everything ready, but nothing was ready, so it was scheduled for the following week.The installation went rather smoothly over the two days, although I would have done a few things differently. One concern was that they did not wrap the pond liner up over the top of the berm lip, so that the liner would be higher than the surrounding dirt. They cut the liner edge short, still sloping up, so that any debris from the edge could wash down into the pond or under the liner edge. Another is that they refused to rinse the rock gravel off on the flatbed trailer before shoveling it into the bond bottom. When I suggested this, they replied, "This is the way we do it." They hosed down the rock in the bottom of the pond, removing what water they could with a sump pump, but not all the dust would be removed this way. Shape of the pond was pleasing, but the end result of dirty water is not. Sparkling clean well water was used to fill the pond, but with the filtration system running, it started turning milky white overnight. I believed it was suspended dust from the unwashed rock, which the filter could not remove because it was too fine. The head installer claimed that some rock dust is necessary because it is nutirents for the friendly bacteria until they get settled in the pond. He claimed that bacteria ate rock.I went out and bought a flocculent to clump the fine particles together so that they would sink to the bottom. One treatment helped. A second did not. Now the water was tea-colored, and the fish in the bottom at 3 feet were ghostly images. Complaining to the head installer did nothing. He brought out the head manager, Mark, who had given us the original sales pitch. Mark told me that I did not have them install rocks up along the sides of the pond, so there was not enough area for the bacteria to lodge to work properly. He then suggested the water looked like suspended sediment, like clay (which is what I had claimed), but the head installer claimed there was no clay in the rock. (Western TN has clay all over the state.) Mark was satisfied with the brown water as being "clear," satisfied with the pond as a finished product, and said that the problem was my fault because I did not take his full design (extra $2,000 for more rock). He then explicitely told me that they do not do "koi ponds", they do "water gardens" or "water features." We had signed on because we wanted a "koi pond" and he assured us we would have a clean (I remember the term "sparkling clean", but he says he does not use that term.) koi pond. So we spent basically seven thousand dollars to go from not seeing the fish to not seeing the fish clearly. My recommendation is that if you want a fishless water garden, Carter's Nursery can do it. If you are looking for a "koi pond," look somewhere else, because the head manager, Mark Carter, explicitly said after the install, "We do not do koi ponds." (Even though he sold us on installing one.)