Lake Anna Nursery

Steve Burdette and his son Steve, Jr. gave a prompt estimate for the work and let me know approximately when they would begin work. I had several communications by email with them as well as some phone calls inasmuch as I was away from the area when I first started this project. I wanted to be here when the work was done, and they let me know if there were any changes in schedule. Steve, Sr. and his crew arrived as scheduled for both installations and did the installations timely. Steve and his senior crew person were very good about answering questions and explaining the process as well as making a change that I requested when doing the shape of the gravel area in the back of the house. They also made sure that the pagoda had a natural stone under it to steady it. Steve, Sr. also a did a planting/landscape plan for possible future improvement . He, his wife Linda, and Steve, Jr. are all very knowledgeable and helpful as well as the senior crew person.

The project was done in two phases. First they built the first two layers of a block base which I was very displeased with because the fountain that was to sit on the base was 4' round and the base was eliptical. I complained to the owner, Steve Burdette who said that he had glued the base together and could not redo it without breaking the stones. His compromise was to use a stone saw to cut off the unround portion and add a third layer of stones that would be comprised of wedge shapes which would make the base round. On July 29 he returned to finish the job. He did not fix the unround part of the base and added a third out of round level. He installed the fountain and glued it to the unround base leaving it very off center with the base portruding past the fountain on one side and no base under other areas. Additionally he said that he was unable to center the fountain because he failed to install the tube for the fountain pump wire in the center of the base when he did the first two layers of blocks. All of this was under his control and he whined that it was the fault of the blocks with which he had chosen to do the job. In addition to the poor installation, he heavily scraped my new asphalt driveway and cracked the edge when he ran his Bobcat off the edge and ran over my landscape lighting. He left with a lot of debris on the drive. I contacted Lake Anna Nursery later that day via EMAIL to register my dissatisfaction with the job. They met my complaint with the out of round base, the very off centered fouintain which was glued to the base and the driveway damage with anger toward me. First Steve left me a phone message that he would return in three days to tear the fountain out and that I had better prepare my space to have a 10 foot clear path for the Bobcat to avoid more damage. Then Linda called to again say the they would remove the fountain and refund my money. In an EMAIL Linda accused me of falsely blaming them for the driveway damage I discovered after I had cleaned off their huge amount of debris because I did not tell them about it before they the left my property. It was under gravel and dirt and not visable when they left. I did not want them back on my property after their gloved threats to cause further damage to my driveway so I paid them off to not have to deal with them in the future. Although I had been a customer for several years and had bought many plants and products from them, this was my first experience with them doing a hardscaping project. They showed me no interest in doing a proper job and appeared to only care about how much money they could make from the job. I expected them to take apart the base and rebuild it round to match the fountain.

Lake Anna Nursery did fine work on our gardens and chose good places to implement plants. They did great work. Their prices are reasonable.

It was a complete disaster. They collected 100% of the money months before the job was complete. They used two different colors of mortar. They cut the edge pieces around the patio at the very end of the job-the pictures tell the story. There are many fingerprints in the mortar. They let mortar dry on top of the stone. They missed filling in many joints. For whatever reason, they shattered some stones to make very small pieces and worked them in with the large piece in a very sloppy way. They didn't know how to work around the posts near the edge so they picked the sloppiest option available to them. They ignored my complaints throughout the process. They left trash in my yard. They ruined one of my pieces of lawn furniture.