Bret Achtenhagen's Seasonal Services Ltd.

I brought on Seasonal services because I thought they would be experts, it seems like a great organization. But between long waits for communication with the office, long waits to have someone come on site to do work, and very little in the way of communication about scheduling, it became frustrating quickly. After the Spring tree trimming, the beautiful magnolia trees in front of our house did not bloom and one of them has yet to even grow leaves. I reached out to the company on three separate occasions, and received no response. These trees have produced huge flowers, thick leaves, and desirable privacy each year since we bought the house. I expected them to be experts in tree care, but all they wound up doing was frustrating me, my family, and our trees and did not even receive a call nor email as an apology.

We selected Seasonal Services for our patio and sidewalk installation after meeting with Brady Achtenhagen. Brady was very professional. He pointed out some unique conditions on our property that needed to be taken into consideration for our project. (Another company we consulted with did not even mention this). The patio and sidewalk crew treated our project like they were installing it at their own homes. The quality of work and attention to the details were exceptional. We decided to replace our driveway with concrete at the end of the patio project. The driveway crew was fantastic and also treated our property as if it were their own. Every time we came outside to see the progress on the patio, sidewalks and driveway, the crews asked us if we were satisfied so far and gave us an update on where they were at with the projects. Each day they let us know what to expect the following day. We would highly recommend Seasonal Services for your next project. If you are looking for integrity, honesty, professionalism, and pride of workmanship, Seasonal Services will not disappoint!

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They did good work. The price was okay, it was a little on the high side. It was well done. The workers were fine, professional.

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The provider billed for these services in May before the work was done. When I called about it I was told to disregard this invoice and that I would be issued another invoice when the work was complete. The work was finally done in June. I was given no care instructions for these new plants. 3 of the 5 spirea are 3/4 dead and I will be surprised if they make it through the summer. The lilac is doing okay so far. I will be surprised if any of these plants make it through the winter. I received a copy of the original invoice dated May 11, 2015 stating "This invoice is past due! Please remit as soon as possible! Thank you!" This is the second review I've written for this company for the second part of the job I contracted for. Another rip-off by what I thought was a good company as they are endorsed by WTMJ. What a shame! What a waste of money!

In October of 2014 we were given very detailed quotes for dormant pruning to be done in the December 2014 and for maintenance and edging & mulching services in spring of 2015. We agreed to the work listed at the quoted price and mailed in the quote. The gentleman that gave us the quote was very professional and knowledgeable. The dormant pruning which included rejuvenation, thinning and structural shaping and corrective was done when weather permitted, the crew cleaned up after the job was done. We were happy with the work, consider that portion of the quote, $1,386, money well spent. At the end of March we received a 'management proposal' for the spring work which did not include all of the services listed on the original quote. I sent a copy of the original quote which had been agreed upon noting that not all services agreed to were on the 'management proposal' and considered the matter closed. We received a phone call the day the spring services were to be done and the man on the phone quickly talked through the work to be done. I corrected him on a few items and stated he should call the office since items were missing on his list. He said he would. What was done of the spring work was done on two separate days. Spring services agreed to and poorly or not done: Leaves and winter debris were collected and removed from some, not all of the planting beds, no plant beds were fertilized, no pre-emergent weed control was applied, existing weeds were not sprayed or removed. Fresh edges were not cut on all beds before mulch was applied, again, no pre-emergent weed control was applied. . There were a couple of purple plums removed from a bed and 5 plants watered in. We did not receive care instructions and two of the plants are almost dead. Price quoted: $2,348 - RIP OFF!!! My husband was home and watched the workers so we know what was done and what was not done. We received a bill for spring services before all the services had been done and had to call and tell them we were not paying for services that were not done yet. I expected to hear from them about the remaining work but they just showed up one day. Then we got a past due invoice. I wrote 'paid under protest' on the invoice and haven't heard from them since. I did pay the bill which, in hind sight, I probably shouldn't have done. I would definitely not use them again, would not recommend them to anyone and would warn people away from using their services.

I would use this provider again in the future.

I told him that I have a beautiful lawn, and they will be running loaders and all on my lawn, and I didn't want them to mess up my lawn, because they will fix the wall, but the lawn will be messed up. He said we should not worry about that, because they put plywood, and drive over that, and they were supposed to go in a certain way around the back. The next thing you know, they put up the wall, and it was beautiful, and it was done, but they trashed the wall. All the way from the road, to the side of the house, to the back, and then, they made a C or D effort to fix it. They sent some people over to grass seed it with some matting stuff, it is like like a fishing wire green matting that they lay on your lawn, and you put the stick through the matting into your grass, like holding a tent in the ground. Some grass grew, but I still had tracks on the ground, like you are driving on the highways of Chicago, and you have ruts on the cement. I had that on my lawn, and I still have it. I spent at least $300 to buy top soil and grass seed, and it is still not right. I had to pick those steel things because they were all over the ground. I had 40 hours of my time, and $300 of my money fixing the lawn. I just heard him on the radio 4 days ago, and I was thinking he should not be hired. The wall he fixed, has a problem. I picked a real nice stone, and now it is stained with mud, and each stone is separating, and the wall is giving away just like it used to be on there. This wall is falling over too, and it is the same problem and it has just been 4 years. I called him and complained about it, and I was never offered any money to fix their mess. He was very on the spot, and open to talk to me before the project started, and as soon as the project started, and thereafter, he didn't want to talk to me. He should take care of his customer on the back end as well, if he is very professional.

Their main people seem to know what they're doing but their crew doesn't follow through. They offer a variety of services but they're quite expensive. They also provide snow plowing services but then my bushes would get damaged every time they show up. They come back and try to fix it but there's no point in that; I don't know why they can't hire somebody who can plow between the lines. I wouldn't use them if I could find somebody else.

I am not very happy with the overall service. The owner has not been responsive to inquiries about issues I have had.

Also, price seemed to skyrocket after the first year of service. We have approximately 6000+ sq ft of lawn.

Good new is that the patio design is very nice and the patio work and lighting is good, although there are some bricks that have corners chipped off, probably during the installation. But all in all we like the patio very much, it is beautiful. Workers were courteous and reasonably neat. Firm is definitely on the higher end, not cheap, but I was wiling to pay a higher amount than another quote we got because we really liked the design! Bret Achtenhagen was the one who met with us. He was fine to deal with, but when we told him we were going to sign the contract he insisted on picking up the down payment rather than us mailing it. No big deal, but somewhat irritating. When the second installment was to be paid I told him I'd put in the mail that day since we weren't going to be home, but he wanted us to put it by our back door so he could pick it up. We never saw him or spoke to him after that; he handed us off to another fellow, who was pleasant and responsive But I would have thought Bret would have called at least once during the project to see how it was going, since he was so eager to get the money. The project was done mainly in the latter part of November of 2012; in February or March we received a notice of intent to file a construction lien from the brick provider. I called Seasonal Services and they said a bill had been overlooked, and they did pay it right away. I don't know how it was overlooked since I spoke with a women in accounts receivable at the brick provider to make sure it had been paid, and it was clear she had been trying to collect the invoice for some time. If the above was all there is, I'd use the firm again. However, it is the landscaping part that was atrocious. Due to the deck removal and patio work, over half of our backyard was torn up. Seasonal Services insisted that it could seed a new law right before Thanksgiving. I've done a lot of gardening and landscaping, including seeding, and I told them I was very skeptical. Basically over Thanksgiving weekend the winds blew the straw all over so we had to spend an hour picking it up and bagging it, and of course only small amounts of grass germinated in the spring. And there were large areas of standing water where not enough fill had been used. I took pictures of those and sent those to the firm. I didn't trust the firm to do the job right, so I roto-tilled the whole area and brought in 10 yards of topsoil. During tilling, I discovered the soil that was brought in was complete garbage, I took out buckets and buckets of stones, and even some large bricks with one as large as a concrete block and some small logs. Clearly the fill was from an excavation site and was heavy clay. So I seeded it myself, and although it looks pretty good now, it tends to yellow from the poor soil, despite keeping it watered and adding iron. I'm going to have it aerated this fall. We are still picking rocks in a portion where we have a flower garden. The soil by us is perfect loam soil, down 2-3 feet, so that was extremely disappointing. The seed and fill ran several hundred dollars. I had held a small amount back per the contract and I didn?t get billed for it. I?m sure that is because the guy overseeing the work saw the work that I had done, since the firm had to come back to seal the patio this past spring. In summary, great design, good work, terrible landscaping.

I would not recommend this provider.

Bret Achtenhagen's Seasonal Services Ltd are prompt, they do what they say they're going to do, and they're very responsive to my needs. Their quality is pristine because they've done more than I've asked and trim everything back.

First of a 5 season treatment burned my grass brown for almost 2 months through out the yard. Left a voicemail for the owner, no response. Did get a call from the manager after leaving a message, he said they had allot of complaints because their weed killer solution was to potent. After 5 weeks I email back to the manager to come see my brown grass or stop my service. He didnt respond? Now trying to bill me. I could have performed this badly on my own.

It was a very big project, and a big deal in Whitefish Bay because there are lots of basement problems, and we were quite pleased with that. They led piping away from the downspout underground, out to the storm sewer and kept the water away from the house. We have had no problems since then. It is the first time that we haven't had moisture in the basement and that kind of thing.

The short version of this long story goes like this. The company was very responsive while trying to get us to sign a contract while the construction of our home was under way. Once the agreement was made, they moved slowly. They started the work 2 weeks late. All planting beds and the entire acre of lawn were improperly installed. They did not lay enough top soil for anything to take root. The first summer, things looked OK, but the next year, the lawn barely came back. There were too many problems with the trees and nursery stock to list. All were due to the improper digging and planting in the beds. We lost 80% of the plants and 4 expensive trees after the first year. Bret Achtenhagen (company owner) came to our home , reviewed the problems, and assured he would take care of everything. They held to their 1 year warranty and replaced the dead plants. They even came and re-installed the lawn in the back yard. However, they managed to cheap out on is a second year in a row! The lawn was still not right. By the end of the second summer, we were out of warranty, and everything was dying or dead. You can imagine the sick feeling in our stomachs after paying these people over $100K. The third summer, we hired a reputable landscaping company, Ray Hintz Inc., to correct all of the shoddy work done by Achtenhagen's Seasonal Services. The lawn was completely dug up. It was found that the irrigation lines (installed by Milwaukee Lawn & Sprinkler) were not buried deep enough. Seasonal Services had only put 2 inches of top soil for our lawn on top of hard-as-rock clay soil beneath. Hintz dug up 12 inches of soil, completely redesigned and reinstalled the irrigation properly and the lawn. The cost was astronomical. Not to mention the inconvenience of ANOTHER summer without a yard!!! Hintz's team also RE-DUG all my planting beds, added the right soil and the appropriate amount, and reinstalled and replaced the dead nursery stock. I lost so many expensive trees from the initial installation... I cried. In no way would I ever recommend this company to anyone. The experience was nothing short of awful, and 6 years later, I am still sick at the amount of money that has gone into our landscape - initially and to correct all the problems they created. Chris Miracle, the landscape designer, was excellent to work with, and he left the company shortly after we worked with him. He was very talented and professional.

They did beautiful work. My yard looks wonderfull now! They kept it clean and were professional.

Apple scab needs treatment at budding and Seasonal Services finally showed to spray after full leaf out in May. We now have apple trees dropping leaves like rain. Called Bret, he turned it over to someone else and he turned it over to a couple of lawn cutters in the area to review. They said the trees looked good to them. My gutters are filled with dead leaves and my trees will be bare within weeks. We called Seasonal Services again and have not received any additional response.

The owner of the company, Bret, came over to my home and looked at everything. I was concerned the tractors they would use would ruin my lawn. He said they would use plywood so my lawn would not be ruined. They did damage the lawn that they drove over, and stones and stakes were everywhere. It took me 3 years to repair it. It took a lot of time and money. I emailed and called him, and he came back out, but he never did the job correctly. The wall was done fine, but at the expense of my lawn.

I was very impressed with Bret Achtenhagen and his staff, from the very detailed landscaping proposal that was provided to the final product. This is my second new home, and Seasonal Services did my landscaping at my first home as well. I chose Bret mainly because I knew the job would be done right. I may have paid more than with another company, but you know the saying - you get what you pay for. There is a home in my subdivision that had their lawn put in earlier this summer by another company, and their lawn is riddled with weeds. I'm happy to say that mine is a lawn to be proud of, and it's only been about a month since the work was done. Their motto is "Details Matter", and they mean it. I was provided a landscaping drawing that I could provide to our subdivision commitee for approval, which made that process go very smoothly. I was also provided with a flash drive that contained some suggestions for future plantings, and the landscaping proposal described everything that would be done, right down to the grass seed mixture that would be used. I obtained two other estimates from other companies, and neither of them came close to that. I am happy with the choice I made to go with Seasonal Services.