NURTURED EARTH GARDENS

Dan is arrogant and does not guarantee work. Apparently 3.5 miles is too far to travel after numerous attempts to have him come back. He’s too busy “hiking” so no free time.

It pains me to write this review. We hired Dan to prune our beds in the back of the house and a bush in the front, as well as remove a “volunteer” growing in the front where it was crowding out other plants. Dan was responsive to my initial inquiry and discussed specifics with my spouse in person here at our house. We confirmed the final plan with him to fit this small job in at his convenience, including when we might be out of town, given that it was a fairly simple task and we felt we could trust him. What could go wrong? Dan showed up during our vacation when we were out of town and indeed did a nice job pruning our plants. He was very precise in honoring our preferences for how to handle various plants. He also took it upon himself, however, to prune our neighbors’ bush without communicating either with me or our neighbors first. This bush is right next to their house in front of their dining room window facing our house. It is clearly in their yard and not near either the front or the back of our house, which is where Dan was supposed to be working. Our neighbor came home to find the bush had been cut way back and went outside to introduce herself and discuss it with him. She assured him that she was not angry but wanted him to let her know ahead of time if he came back in the future to make a plan for dealing with it. Dan got very defensive, gave her a speech about how the bush had been neglected, how he has been a gardener for 20 years and "doesn't need some neighbor b**** telling him how to do things." She made a video of the rest of the interaction that clearly substantiates her account of what happened. When she said that she didn’t think it was wise to call the customer’s neighbor a b****, he dismissed her by saying “if it’s warranted, it’s warranted.” All she wanted was to establish communication and have a conversation about their plant on their property. We have an excellent relationship with our neighbors, and they are extremely friendly, reasonable, thoughtful, and accommodating people. Dan may have had an idea to make what he thought was an improvement, but his behavior was an egregious violation of our neighbor’s property rights and a horrible way to treat anyone. Dan seems gifted at caring for plants, and we are happy with the work he did on our property, but his lack of professionalism caused us and our neighbor a great deal of distress. which is why I gave him an overall "D" instead of an "F." Needless to say, we will not hire him again.

One of the three large walnut trees had been trimmed sometime in the preceding 3 months by someone who had 'mis-trimmed' the large tree in the front of the house. It was bleeding sap profusely and we feared that the tree might die. Dan worked on trimming this tree by hand and worked with each branch. He worked to reduce the load on the tree while still preserving the critical branches, and thanks to him the tree lived.

It went extremely wells from the estimate through the completion of the work. They were on time and very professional.

Dan and Manuel worked on my yards in 2009 and 2010. First they did my back yard removing the concrete patio and sidewalks replacing them with beautiful flagstone. They reshaped the bed, thinned out bushes and plants and replanted using NW trees, bushes, and ground cover. I was very pleased with the work done and Dan and Manuel were very easy to work with. The next summer they removed the lawn, concrete sidewalk and stairway from the front yard replacing it with flagstone, compost and new plantings for a low maintenance landscape. In retrospect, I wish I had done some homework and collaborated on the choice of plants. I prefer a bit more color so I am putting in some annuals this year to cheer up the garden.

Dan did a fantastic job. He was easy to communicate with, knew his stuff (materials, what was possible), and was quick to produce a reasonable quote that he stuck to. His estimate was about in the middle of the estimates we obtained, but after calling references and getting fantastic feedback, we opted to go with him. After our previous hellish experience with a different contractor (tried to raise the price, shrink the scope, left a bunch of junk in our back yard, threatened me on the phone), it was great to work with someone as trustworthy as Dan. The workmanship was top notch, and Dan clearly takes a lot of pride in his work. I would highly recommend him.

The owner and his helper was responsive even though I sensed he was pretty busy. He came out and did an estimate within a week and completed the work within the time frame he said he would for the most part. The price seemed pretty reasonable. It was occasionally hard to know if he was coming or not - the communication wasn't that good.

Extremely well and turned out better than I thought it would.

Dan and his coworker arrived early in the morning and worked a full day. They worked steady and skillfully. They removed all the concrete and cleaned up neatly each day. There were days that Manuel worked without Dan. He cut the stones and fit them after a layer of gravel was put on top of the dirt. The stones were leveled and the pathways curved in a pleasing manner. After the stonework was finished, the plants were put in. Dan went over his ideas with me and proceeded after I gave him my input. He was responsive to my wishes even if he didn't agree. I like a little more grass than he :-) He is planning to come back to put moss in between the stones to further anchor them. It cost a little more than I thought I would spend, but that was my choice. The budget limited some of the design.

He was timely and creative. He had references and he showed me some jobs that he did around town. He really has an eye for his job. He was accommodating and understanding. It was so easy to work with him. You get what you pay for and I paid for his creativity.

Dan changed my townhouse back and side yards from a mass of weeds and moss into a Tuscan garden. He put in a flagstone patio with short walkway (it's gorgeous), brought in new dirt, put in plants appropriate to my challenging yard. (Half is dry shade under a huge cedar, part is sunken, and part gets some summer morning and evening sun, and the side yard is on the North side of the townhouse). He did an excellent job! My Italian born neighbor said it reminded her of Tuscany. He used a combination of perennials and annuals which are low maintenance (I'm not a gardener) and will fill in the area over the next few years. After everything was done, he went over the plants with me so I would know what's in my garden. It took a week from start to finish. I was so surprised when I got home from work and saw the finished yard. It was beyond anything I could have imagined. When I'm outside, people walking by on the sidewalk comment on how beautiful it is.

Dan changed my townhouse back and side yards from a mass of weeds and moss into a Tuscan garden. He put in a flagstone patio with short walkway (it's gorgeous), brought in new dirt, put in plants appropriate to my challenging yard. (Half is dry shade under a huge cedar, part is sunken, and part gets some summer morning and evening sun, and the side yard is on the North side of the townhouse). He did an excellent job! My Italian born neighbor said it reminded her of Tuscany. He used a combination of perennials and annuals which are low maintenance (I'm not a gardener) and will fill in the area over the next few years. After everything was done, he went over the plants with me so I would know what's in my garden. It took a week from start to finish. I was so surprised when I got home from work and saw the finished yard. It was beyond anything I could have imagined. When I'm outside, people walking by on the sidewalk comment on how beautiful it is.

The end result is amazing! My backyard was transformed. We took advantage of the space to get the most out of it and now I have room for a fire pit, bbq area and a large table with chairs for entertaining. Nurtured Earth did an outstanding job of designing the area, prepping the yard and laying flagstone. I'm very pleased and love my house so much more! I would rehire Nurtured Earth in a heartbeat and wish more contractors felt like partners the way Dan and his team did.

The end result is amazing! My backyard was transformed. We took advantage of the space to get the most out of it and now I have room for a fire pit, bbq area and a large table with chairs for entertaining. Nurtured Earth did an outstanding job of designing the area, prepping the yard and laying flagstone. I'm very pleased and love my house so much more! I would rehire Nurtured Earth in a heartbeat and wish more contractors felt like partners the way Dan and his team did.

Dan and his partner were a total delight to deal with from start to finish! Their workmanship is superb! The walkway looks like nature put it there because they took such great care to do this thoughtfully and carefully. I couldn't be more pleased with the result. Initially I set a limit as to how much I would spend, thinking I could finish what they couldn't do with my cost ceiling. But once I saw how thoughtfully they were installing this stone, it became obvious that I would be foolish to try to finish their work myself. I told them to just finish the walkway. The result? The walkway didn't cost that much more than the ceiling I set in the beginning. Other observations: If they said they would be there at 8:30am, they were there at 830am without fail. They left the site cleaner then they found it. How wonderful is that! Think I'm being too gushy? Ask me in e-mail to send you some pictures and you can see for yourself.