Precision Landscape Maintenance Inc

We have been working with Precision for the last year to do our landscape maintenance. We recently started a few big projects with them, and it has been amazing. Art is very honest and trustworthy. His crews have been nice, communicative, and efficient. I highly recommend them for any outdoor project you need done.

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This job was an "enhancement" of a job that Precision did on my backyard in November 2014. At that time, I had the backyard landscaping ripped out, artificial turf installed, and a paver patio installed (cost: $9,000). I had made it known to them from the beginning that my yard has a drainage problem and I wanted to ensure it would be addressed when they installed the patio. But after the install the problem persisted: rainwater did not drain properly away from the house and a layer of white powdery salt was forming on top of the new patio pavers from effervescence percolating up from the ground and through the pavers. After notifying Precision of the issue in December 2014, it took SIX MONTHS of discussion and waiting to get the issue addressed. The company was resourceful: the paver company furnished the replacement pavers for free (RCP Block & Brick) and Precision did the demo/installation labor for free; I just had to pay for the new drainage ($2000). I felt that was a fair offer.
By early July I had a crew at my house doing what was supposed to take a week. Instead, it dragged on for 11 business days over a three-week period. Worse, there was no daily supervision of the job, so the crew did not follow the designer's plans as outlined on the diagrams and made (bad) decisions on their own. This led to more delays, removing and re-installing patio pavers, re-digging drainage pipes that were not connected properly, and general confusion. I was not kept in the loop for anything. I was not home when they were working, so I had to ask my questions of the crew each morning before I left for work, and then email my contact at the company (designer Rico, with whom I'd worked on this job for a year) of my concerns because he was rarely, if ever, on the job site. In fact, in the midst of this mess, he sent me a polite email saying he was leaving the company on good terms and then he was GONE the next day. I didn't even have a chance to respond to his final email. I then had to try to explain the status of my job directly to the owner and the owner's wife (office manager) to get things corrected, and even after that point the unsupervised crew was still screwing up.
In the end, though the handiwork was very nice for the re-worked patio, I was very disappointed with this company's management and question the quality of the underground drainpipe work that I can't see. And I did not appreciate that the crew blew out a circuit on my enclosed patio then neglected to say anything to me-- I discovered it after they'd left. All those incidents aside, the yard looks nice and Precision did solve most of the issues (hence the overall B rating), but it took a year of frustration and waiting to get to that point.

Beatrice came out on 4/15/15 for an estimate.  She told me I would have it early the following week.  I never received any communication from her so I called back late the following week and was told they were busy due to the home show and I would have the estimate within a day or two. I had to keep calling back to find out where my estimate was.  
On 4/30/15 I received this in an email from Beatrice:
HI ADELE, I HAVE ALL YOUR FIGURES CALCULATED AND THE PROPOSAL WRITTEN UP - I JUST NEED TO GET IT SIGNED OFF BY THE OWNER AND THEN I CAN DISTRIBUTE IT TO YOU (HE IS OUT SICK TODAY FROM THE OFFICE WITH PNEUMONIA, I WASN'T AWARE OF THIS WHEN I TOLD YOU I WOULD HAVE IT IN TO YOU TODAY). I AM GOING TO LEAVE IT ON FOR HIS WIFE/ LAURIE SO SHE CAN SIGN OFF ON IT AND THEN I WILL SEND IT TO YOU AS SOON AS SHE GIVES IT THE OK. THANKS!  
I didn't hear anything so I called Beatrice back.  She apologized and again said how busy they were.  She gave me a rough estimate of $27,000.
On 5/5/15 I received this email from Beatrice:
Hi Adele, the owner has yet not been able to sign off on it, he just got in yesterday and has been out in the field - I have yet to see him in the office, we had an appointment made yesterday at 2pm to review yours and other proposals I have pending and it got postponed until this morning and he is not in yet. Just because we have all been super swamped.
What I can do for you as of now is give you the rough figures before he signs off on it.
Now the estimate is $37,500, but she ended the email with this:
We can wait to get it signed off by the owner because sometimes he does use lower prices that I am not allowed to use, and see what the new grand total is.
As of 5/18/15, I have not received the final estimate.
I would never work with a company with such poor communication and lack of customer service skills.  I had to reach out each time to ask about my estimate.  No communication from them and they sounded annoyed when I did call asking when I might receive my estimate.

It went well. However their price was higher for installation than I had budgeted. Their design was very professional and artistic.

They got the entire job done over a couple of months. They were fabulous with the cleanup. When the guys were here they worked all the time. I really liked that they were there on time and very polite. They brought their own lunch and worked hard. They usually sent about 2-3 people out to do the job each day.

We ran into Precision landscape at the home show in Del Mar and had them over for an initial consultation for an area of our yard that we wanted to completely overhaul with nice, low maintenance flowers and a new fence and gate. They gave us a pretty good design and we went with their recommendations on most things. The main problems we had with them were the following:1) Communication- On 3 separate occasions, people were supposed to show up to do work according to our schedule and calendar but they didn't. This was for various reasons, including rain (if it rains the day before they can't do some of the work). That's understandable, but nobody told us that. They just didn't show. So we had to call and ask where the workers were and wait for an email or call back from someone to explain to us why. This happened twice, and a third time the guy just never showed when he said he would. We never got an explanation of why, just that they were sorry and he'd come the following week. It was very frustrating. 2) Some lack of landscape/gardening, but we're also finding that the fence they put it is problematic as well. In the area we were landscaping there was a small, old, tree that was clearly dead. You could almost shake it out of the ground. We didnt want them to remove it at the time, so we left it out of the design plans. Yet when they installed a drip system to water all the new plants, they installed one for the tree as well. I asked the workers "what is this drip for?" and he said "the tree". It was at that point that I knew that at least someone on their team didn't quite know what they were doing. They also planted the plants in very small holes relative to the size of their bases and how big they're going to get. I'm a bit afraid the roots will start growing into each other and run out of room. Their plants also do not have any warranties on them, so if they die after everything is done, even if within a few weeks, there is no guarantee and you're SOL. We had to negotiate a warranty on the larger plants because they were so expensive but when 3 of them died, I had no luck getting them replaced. They asked me to wait a bit longer, then when they got worse they asked me to feed it some plant food, and when that didn't work they blamed it on the plants having been moved, even though I was very clear from the beginning (assuming they would blame it on the move) that the plants were dying well before they were moved. Overall the work they did looks very nice at first glance, but the overall experience in working with them wasn't very pleasant and I have since moved on for my landscaping needs.