Bryant Family Landscape Escapes

If you want to meet a real con-artist and master manipulator, hire Garry Bryant. Here is how his scam works. When he shows up to quote your job, he will go on and on about how he is the #1 landscaper on Angie’s list, how he was a church worship leader for 30 years, how he is meticulous at completing the details of your project, and how he may not be the cheapest (which he is not) but he does the best work around. He will even tell you that he has a crew and equipment when all he has is 1 shovel, 1 rake, a beat-up wheelbarrow, and women/children for laborers. Then, once he has you hooked, he will start agreeing to anything if you give him 50% cash up front. You can have him sign a contract, show him pictures of what you want, and go to extremes to explain in detail your expectations and he will agree to it all as long as you give him half the money up front. He will even come back multiple times, after the contract is signed, to promise you more work for an even cheaper price just to get more cash out of you. This continues until he finally believes that he has gotten everything he can get without actually doing any work. At this point, you are already caught in his trap and there is nothing that you can do. You have already lost, and he has already won. From here, Garry spends every last dime you gave him with absolutely no concern for how he is going to pay for material or if he is spending more than the profit he was supposed to make. He will even tell you what he is spending your money on and don’t think, like I did, that he has a business credit account to pay for material later. (No bank would ever loan this guy money. That is why he uses his customers for interest free loans!) In my case, he bought his wife a diamond ring and took her on multiple vacations; he paid off at least 3 other customers to get out of agreements that he made and broke; and he paid the IRS thousands in unpaid taxes. Now that he has spent all his profit and some of your material money as well, the excuses start for why he can’t work. I swear this guy has over 50 reasons to not work and when they finally run out, he only works 4 hours, half of which he talks on the phone or walks around trying to figure out where he last stopped weeks ago. He even gave me the excuse after being off work for a month with Covid and fully recovered that he still had to quarantine since he gave it to his wife (making him immune) and he works outside alone! I then caught him walking around Home Depot, talking on the phone, like nothing was wrong! These excuses continue until the first big purchase of material is required and, surprise, he has no money to pay for it. Here is where you have 3 choices: 1) pay for the material yourself and hope that he pays you back like he will promise, 2) delay the project for months while he tries to work other jobs to pay for the material to finish your job, 3) threaten to sue him and he will threaten to file bankruptcy and completely screw you. In my case, since it was a choice between losing the $14,000 that I already paid him or $5,000 extra for material, I chose option #1 and hoped that he would eventually pay me back like he promised. (He didn’t!) The excuses to not work continue and the project still falls months behind schedule despite your best efforts to pay for material, equipment, laborers, and even do a large portion of the work yourself. You eventually lose all hope of this nightmare ending while your kids play outside every day in a construction war zone left unfinished. In my case, the project that he said would be done in 3 months was still not finished 15 months later! After I finally quit paying extra for supplies and killing myself to help him, the quality of his work tanked to all-time lows, and I ended up having to redo most of it myself. The truth is that Garry cares nothing about leaving you a maintenance mess for years to come. It makes no difference to him if you have weeds throughout your yard, your gardens, your gravel areas, or if he cracks your driveway so bad that it falls apart the first time you drive over it. (He literally spread 1 inch of gravel for a parking area and said it was good.) That is when I finally lost it and kicked him off my property. He was literally creating more work for me than if I just finished the project myself! In the end, I have never in my life met someone more afraid of an honest day’s work than Garry. He will literally run over stuff in your yard with his truck in fear of being in the sun too long and getting him to work more than 4 hours/day, before 11am, on any real or made-up holiday, more than 2-3 days/week, or on the weekend is near impossible even when he is 15 months behind schedule and owes you $5,000 in material money above his original quote. He is truly a master at using his “nothing is my fault” victim mentality to manipulate his customers into trusting him, only to steal their money and trash their property and tools. I even had to buy him a rake when a different customer locked his 1 rake in their backyard and wouldn’t give it back until he finished their job! (WARNING!) He is a hypochondriac, who always thinks he is sick and can’t work, when it’s really because he never works that he feels so bad after doing manual labor. He claims to be extremely forgetful and yet refuses to look back at the contract he signed or believe what you tell him he agreed to. He claims that he hates Democrats and their free handouts and yet he uses his costumers as his own personal bank and steals money from them by making up charges that they never agreed to pay to avoid paying them back. (He even has a buddy who pretends to be your friend just to get information to help Garry back out of his contracts and promises.) Garry also has absolutely no idea what he is doing as a landscaper and just makes stuff up, assuming that his customers are too dumb to know the difference. For example, he literally told me that the sand dirt he got was great because birds pooped on it!! He also lost me $1,000s worth of dirt because he was too arrogant to follow my advice and grade the property in sections. He left loose sandy dirt on a hillside, exposed to rain, for months before finally putting sod on it and then when it all washed, he tells me it was “an act of God” and not his fault. As usual, Garry again had no money to replace the dirt. He is also the type of person who rushes over to point out mistakes from other contractors, but if you say anything about his work, you are a micro-manager and a perfectionist. I’m sorry, but my dad was a stone mason for 40 years and Garry knows nothing about professional stonework. No professional uses 4-6 inch mortar joints to lay stone rather than shaping the stone to fit. Yet again, Garry did not have the correct tools, so he literally used a handheld wood saw to cut stone and when it didn’t work, he used absurd looking mortar joints instead. He also did not mix the stone and used all the large stone at 1 end of the sidewalk, leaving a noticeable size difference on the other end. And if it is not level, Garry cannot lay a straight line in stone to save his life. As with everything, Garry thinks that he is an expert and refuses to listen to anyone because he has been doing this for 30 years. The reality is that he has been scamming people for 30 years and just getting away with it because you can’t sue someone who has nothing to lose. You just end up losing more money in legal fees.

Garry was faced with a challenge in the front & side yards of our home in Bryant, but he went above & beyond making the changes we wanted. We are very pleased with the end result. Will definitely use his services again & recommend him highly.

Garry is a perfectionist. And, a very hard worker along with his son. They did an exemplary job on a very difficult job requiring several different skill sets. One involved Extensive Trimming of Rose Bushes- as well as all the other bushes on our property. They also trimmed trees, as well as removed a dead one or two. Second, they drained a pond which through the years had accumulated an incredible amount of sediment. Finally, they provided mulch to our whole property- which happens to be on a truly steep incline. They managed to lay the mulch without disturbing the grass in the process.. They were very reasonably priced, personable, and truly invested and proud of their work. I would hire them again in a heartbeat. Thanks, guys! Bob Zozus

Barely satisfactory. I couldn't be more disappointed. Not prompt or reliable

Garry installed sod in the front and back yards of our home. He did a great job. He was responsive and punctual. His prices were very competitive. And, on top of that, he was a nice man to talk with--a family man who really seems to care about his customers. I definitely recommend him.

These guys were very professional and did a fantastic job! My back yard is was transformed from a mud pit to a beautiful river rock with a flagstone pathway!

Excellent. Except for a few rain delays, work was done mostly on schedule. Garry and Matt Bryant did most of the work and were on-site for the entire job. I had an idea of what I wanted, but the Bryants helped lead me to the right products — sod, stones, mulch, etc — and tweaked the proportions of various stone and mulch beds to make the project come out right. The Bryants are extremely hardworking men who really want satisfied customers. They are very skilled at landscaping.

My dogs turned my yard into a mud bath and Garry and his son did an UNREAL job making it beautiful and dog friendly! Brought in pallets of stone and rock and made it awesome!!!

Great! Garry was really nice and we enjoyed him very much. All of our plants are doing well!

Garry helped us to put river rocks on side of our house. He showed up on time and the work was done quietly and promptly. I'm very satisfied.

Garry did a great job helping us realize our landscaping idea and install it. We will hire Garry again!

Did a great job. Wife is happy. And he listen to what you want done and does just that.

This work was completed on September 25, 2017. I have waited for "a heavy rain" to see if all was well. We did have 3/10th inch and earlier 1/2 inch. So far. it looks good. Am really waiting for 1" plus.

He was wonderful. It was a great experience all the way around. He was good. The work was exceptional. He was very easy to work with. He did great. He did a really good job. His punctuality and professionalism were an A+. I would absolutely use him again.

Garry did a great job and at a great price. He was very professional and friendly. I highly recommend him to anyone wanting yard work/landscaping done.

Unresolved but not worth keeping this company rated this high this year.

Great communications and easy to work with, Gary's Lawn care is an easy recommendation for anyone looking for straight forward lawn care.

Garry Bryant, owner, did a beautiful job! He was meticulous and thorough, making sure all the weeds and dead plants were removed and the material and mulch were laid out smoothly. He forgot to include the material in his initial estimate, so he let me have it free.

Garry did an excellent job. He is extremely kind and a hard worker. Honestly one of the best experiences I've had with a contractor at my house.

Garry is fantastic. I found him on Angie's List and called because my husband had been called out of town unexpectedly for several days and our front yard was a bit of a jungle. He returned my call right away and squeezed me into his very busy schedule that same week. Was a super nice guy, easy to talk to, showed up on time, and clearly hardworking. I wished I'd called him sooner especially because he trims the bushes way better than I do!

He did an average job. He left patches unmowed around bushes and there would be a line of grass that he missed while mowing up and down my lawn. He did OK at edging my yard. He did a poor job at blowing off the back patio. Gary mowed my yard 3 times. We had agreed on every two weeks. He would text me and let me know when he was coming. But after three times I never heard from him again. I don't know if he died or was in an accident or just didn't want to mow my lawn. Now I have to find someone else. :-(

You absolutely cannot find a better value for your money.

Garry did a great job with our landscaping project. We wanted to plant azaleas and rock in large section of our back yard. This was a difficult assignment given the slope of the yard, the number of azaleas to plant in rocky soil - 30 - and the large amount of rock we wanted to cover all bare spaces and in between the plants. We had given Garry a start no later than date and finish no later than date as he had other customers he was working for during that time period. Even with about a 3-week window, we were a little concerned he would not finish before our company showed up as we knew he wanted to do most of the work himself and it was a big job. However, he not only completed on time, but early. He got a few buddies to help when he was a little concerned about making the timeline, but did most of it himself. I picked out and placed the azaleas where I wanted them planted, and he did an excellent job putting them exactly where we wanted them. He placed lovely river rock (TONS of it, literally!), resulting in a gorgeous, finished product. Garry is extremely conscientious; he came by the day after planting the azaleas to water them since he wasn't able to start the rocking right away, and when he worked into dark to finish the final project, he came back a few days later with some extra rock to cover the very few bare spots he wasn't able to see when he had finished. I highly recommend Garry for his work ethic, pricing and focus on making the customer happy. The only recommendation i would make if you hire Gary is to get a written, detailed description of the project along with the quote. We didn't do this, and it created a little confusion when he came back to start the work a few weeks after our initial discussion. He was remembering different details than we were. In any case, he completed the work exactly as we wanted and completely to our satisfaction. We are planning to have him back to do other projects.

He was very responsible and professional. He does the work himself instead of hiring the work out, and ie he consistently does a great job. Highly recommend!

The price was reasonable. He is dependable. He does a good job and he's a friendly person. He's knowledgeable. He is excellent.