CITY PEOPLE'S

unknown

Excellent performance in general and excellent design service for landscaping, but prices are high especially for longer term landscaping maintenance. Would use them for initial design, but too expensive to keep.

Slow communication and scheduling, but once you get yourself on the docket, super A+. Around a 4-foot section of my rockery had been removed to allow a downspout drain pipe to empty. The rocks were gigantic, water was running all over the sidewalk from the drain pipe and the drain pipe looked terrible. City People's hardscaping crew came in and very artistically arranged those giant granite rocks to completely hide the drain pipes and they created a basin at the base of the rockery to hold any excessive water drainage. When they were finished you could not see any of it. They did a beautiful job. It was a small job that another company on Angie's List turned their noses up at, but for me it was a big deal, and I really appreciate that they found time for my little job.

I love what they do with my garden. It isn't easy to do with weed seeds flying about as they do, and bindweed coming in at the borders. They are worth every penny. .

The team is punctual. They check by email ahead of time about special issues. They are quick and thorough and know the difference between the plants that should be kept and weeds, unlike most other services I have used. Despite the email, there have been a few times where communication was not all it should be so it is worth talking to the crew live when they arrive. They are a bit pricey, but worth it.

I am very disappointed with City People's. The bottom line is that they did sub-par work and were unresponsive to our concerns. We hired City People's Design and Landscape to finish a fence around our back yard. They were reasonably punctual and very nice. Unfortunately, the finished product is fair to lousy. Some aspects are good--they built us a nice arbor, and quite fast, too. Others are downright bad--the fence is not level, the wood is already warping, and they did not use stainless nails despite the fact that we talked about this explicitly ahead of time. The last issue is something we did not come to realize until after the project was completed--we would have asked them to redo it if we had noticed while they were still at work. Unfortunately, our subsequent experiences with them left us not wanting to do any more business with City People's. The nails are a minor detail, not worth engaging with City People's again, but really representative of our overall experience with them: poor communication, inconsistent (and often poor) workmanship, poor follow-through. We had also hired them to do a garden/landscape design. When Anne came out to do the initial survey for her design, she would not give me a price range for the finished product, stating that it was her policy not to make an estimate until the design was completed, but assuring me that City People's would work with me to come in at a price within our budget. It turned out that the cost of the design itself was much more than I expected. When we finally got the estimate for the finished product, it was way over our price range. I had been told by City People's at least twice that they could adjust our plans to fit our budget, so despite my sticker shock, I wrote to them to ask how to adjust the project, even offering some suggestions of my own to do it without spending quite so much. I never heard back from them. I was left with the distinct impression that they didn't want my business since I couldn't afford their high prices. I could almost understand this attitude if it were accompanied by high-quality work, but that was not my experience with the fence, and as it turns out, their services would be overpriced even if they were delivering a good product. I had already paid for Anne's design, and I liked it--her aesthetic is good, and she did seem to take our preferences into account, although I can't yet comment on whether the plants she recommended will do well in our yard. I decided to use her design and look elsewhere for someone to do the hardscaping. I found Aand J's Retaining Walls on Angie's list. We wound up paying over $2,000 less for the retaining wall than City People's would have charged us. The finished product is of much higher quality than the job done on our fence by City People's. As for the rest of the landscaping and gardening, I'll be doing it myself, perhaps with the help of some other landscapers from Angie's List. Again, I'm disappointed to be writing this review. I hope someone finds it helpful; if you decide to go with City People's, make sure to nail down your budget in advance, and keep close tabs on the quality of the workmanship while your project is ongoing.